ALBAWABA - An official in Iran said on Saturday that the son-in-law of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the wife of his son were killed in earlier that day's bombings across Iran by Israel and the United States.
The remark came from a member of Tehran's City Council and was later picked up by Reuters. The deaths are being reported at a time when tensions between Iran, Israel, and the US are rising quickly.
While this was going on, Israeli Channel 12 reported that Khamenei may have been killed, even though Tehran officially denied it. According to the same news source, about 30 Iranian leaders were hit in the first wave of attacks.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, on the other hand, told NBC that Khamenei is still living "as far as I know." Iranian state media also said that the Supreme Leader is in an operations room right now, watching over the country's reaction.
A group called the Iranian Red Crescent Society said that the strikes have killed at least 201 people and hurt 747 others. The group said in a statement quoted by the ISNA news agency that 24 of Iran's 31 provinces were hit by bombings and that emergency services are still on high alert. This is the first public count of deaths across the whole country since the attacks began.
In what the Israeli military called the biggest battle operation in the history of the Israeli Air Force, about 200 fighter jets took part at the same time. Israeli officials said that the main targets were air defense equipment and missile launch sites in western and central Iran.
President Donald Trump of the United States earlier stated a large-scale military operation against Iran. The operation will target Iran's nuclear and missile capabilities as well as its naval forces. Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, said that the operation is meant to get rid of what he called an existential threat from the Iranian government.
As a response, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps admitted firing missiles and drones at Israeli territory and allegedly at U.S. bases in the area.
As both sides trade strikes and new reports come in that contradict each other, the situation stays very unstable.
