• Over 200 killed, 700 wounded across 24 provinces in largest-ever strikes on nation; girls’ primary school hit
• Trump calls for regime change; Israel deploys 200 fighter jets
• Tehran shuts Strait of Hormuz
• Senior Iranian military officials killed; Khamenei, Pezeshkian ‘safe’

TEHRAN / PALM BEACH: The US and Israel launched an attack of unprecedented scale against Iran on Saturday, targeting its top leaders, calling for the overthrow of its government and reportedly killing more than 200 people, while Iran responded with missiles fired at Israel and US interests in the region.

Iranian authorities urged residents to evacuate the capital, a city of 10 million, while the count­ry’s Red Crescent society said that in addition to the 201 dead, more than 700 people were wounded.

Meanwhile, US President Don­­ald Trump said that he believes multiple reports that Iran’s sup­r­eme leader Ayatollah Ali Kham­enei has been killed in air strikes are true — but stopped short of directly confirming the news.

“We feel that that is a correct story,” he was quoted as saying by NBC News. Trump later claimed in a post on Truth Social that Khamenei “is dead”.

Israeli Prime Minister Ben­jamin Netanyahu also claimed there were “many indications” that Iran’s supreme leader had been killed.

An Israeli official said Kha­menei and Iranian President Pezeshkian were both targeted.

However, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said in an interview Aya­tollah Khame­nei and President Pezeshkian are “safe and sound”.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres warned that military action in the Middle East risks triggering uncontrollable consequences in the region.

“Military action carries the risk of igniting a chain of events that no one can control in the most volatile region of the world,” Guterres told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

Israel’s public broadcaster, citing an Israeli source, reported Khamenei and President Pezeshkian had been targeted. But Araghchi told NBC News that Khamenei was alive “as far as I know”, adding that “all high-ranking officials are alive”.

A girls’ primary school in the southern Iranian town of Minab was hit, killing 85 people, according to the local prosecutor cited by state media.

In weeks of sabre-rattling leading up to the strikes, Tehran had repeatedly vowed to retaliate fiercely if attacked, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday that US and Israeli installations involved in the operation were “legitimate targets”.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards radioed ships to say the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway, was shut, according to the EU’s naval mission.

President Donald Trump, who in the biggest foreign-policy gamble of his presidency launched the war against a foe Washington has jousted with for generations, said the strikes were aimed at ending a security threat and ensuring Iran could not develop a nuclear weapon.

He called on Iranian security forces to lay down their weapons and invited Iranians to topple their government once the bombing ended.

‘Barbaric act’

Tehran residents had been going about their usual business when the strikes began. Security forces quickly flooded the streets, shops pulled down their shutters and few pedestrians risked venturing out, an AFP journalist saw.

“I saw with my own eyes two Tomahawk missiles flying horizontally towards targets,” a Tehran office worker told the news agency before communications and internet access were cut.

The Red Crescent said 24 of Iran’s 31 provinces were affected by the strikes.

President Masoud Pezeshkian decried the deadly attack on the girls’ school in the south as a “barbaric act”.

Plumes of black smoke hung over Tehran, including in the Pasteur district, home to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In cities across Iran, explosions caused widespread panic. Residents rushed to collect children from school and flee areas that might be targeted.

“We are scared, we are terrified. My children are shaking, we have nowhere to go, we will die here,” mother-of-two Minou, 32, said weeping as she spoke to Reuters by phone from the northern city of Tabriz.

Several hundred people protested against the US-Israeli strikes on Iran near the US embassy in Baghdad, according to AFP. Protesters gathered near Baghdad’s Green Zone, where the US embassy is located, and some tried to push past security forces to enter the area but were blocked.

In Israel, people rushed into bomb shelters as Iranian projectiles started fires and caused scattered damage in several areas of the country, Al Jazeera reported. Interceptors attempting to block further incoming fire were also seen detonating in the skies over Tel Aviv and other cities.

Iranian officials targeted

Iran’s Defence Minister Amir Nasirzadeh and Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammed Pakpour were killed in the Israeli attacks, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

A member of Tehran’s city council said Khamenei’s son-in-law and daughter-in-law, and a number of political officials were killed in bombing.

The first wave of strikes in what the Pentagon named “OPERATION EPIC FURY” mainly targeted Iranian officials, a source familiar with the matter said.

An Israeli military official said several senior figures were “eliminated” in strikes on gatherings of Iranian officials.

‘Eliminating imminent threats’

The attacks came after US President Donald Trump expressed frustration at Iran’s stance in negotiations over its nuclear and missile programmes.

Trump said Washington’s goal was “eliminating imminent threats” from Iran, while Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation was to remove an “existential threat”.

“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground,” Trump said. He also told Iranians the “hour of your freedom is at hand”, urging them to rise up and “take over your government”.

Israel’s army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said the operation was “taking place at a completely different scale” than the 12-day war it fought against Iran in June, which the US briefly joined.

‘Trump dragging US into war’

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris said she is opposed to regime-change in Iran and criticised US President Donald Trump for “dragging the United States into a war the American people do not want”.

In a statement on social media platform X, she said US troops were being put in harm’s way “for the sake of Trump’s war of choice”.

“During the campaign, Donald Trump promised to end wars rather than start them. It was a lie,” she stated, adding that Congress must “use all available power” to prevent the president from further committing the US into the conflict.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani had said that the US-Israeli strikes on Iran mark “a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression”.

“Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theatre of war. Americans do not want this. They do not want ano­ther war. They want relief from the affordability crisis. They want peace,” he said on X.

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2026