An Iranian missile slammed into the main hospital in southern Israel early on Thursday, wounding people and causing “extensive damage," according to the medical facility.

Iran, for its part, said it targeted Israel's military intelligence facilities, not a hospital, Iran's state news agency IRNA said.

Israeli media aired footage of blown-out windows and heavy black smoke at Soroka Medical Center in the city of Beersheba.

Separate Iranian strikes hit a high-rise apartment building in Tel Aviv and other sites in central Israel.

A hospital in Tel Aviv said it had received 16 wounded people, three with serious injuries.

In a response to the attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran's "terrorist tyrants" launched missiles at the hospital and at a civilian population in central Israel.

He vowed to "exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran".

According to IRNA, the strikes were aimed at the Israeli army's C4I telecommunications corps headquarters and an intelligence facility, adding that the hospital was affected by the blast's shockwave.

This came after Israel carried out strikes on Iran's Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor earlier in the day, its latest attack on Iran's sprawling nuclear programme, on the seventh day of a conflict that began with a surprise wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting military sites, senior officers and nuclear scientists.

Iranian state TV reported the attack, saying there was “no radiation danger whatsoever” at the Arak site.

An Iranian state television reporter, speaking live in the nearby town of Khondab, said the facility had been evacuated and there was no damage to civilian areas around the reactor.

Israel had warned early on Thursday it would attack the facility and urged the public to flee the area. The Israeli military said Thursday’s round of airstrikes targeted Tehran and other areas of Iran, without elaborating. (AP/Xinhua)
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Last updated: 2025-06-19 HKT 15:56