The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Sunday declared that the first wave of its attack on Iran jointly conducted with the US military's Central Command, saw 40 senior Iranian leaders killed in just 60 seconds.
According to IDF spokesperson Nadav Shoshani, former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Chief of Staff of Iran's armed forces, Abdolrahim Mousavi, had been the main targets of Operation Roaring Lion.
Those killed in the airstrikes included seven members from the top brass of Iran's security forces, "who had gathered at several locations in Tehran", Shoshani said in a statement.
"One core objective ... was to significantly degrade the Iranian regime's command-and-control capabilities and its ability to coordinate regional aggression," the statement read.
Codenamed 'Genesis', the US-Israel airstrikes on Iran that began on Saturday saw nearly 200 Israeli aircraft involved, in what the IDF has called "the largest coordinated air strike in the Israeli Air Forces’ history".
The IDF also claimed that it had "eliminated most of the aerial defence systems" in western and central Iran, while strikes against other targets, active missile defence, and missile-hunting operations are currently ongoing.
Iran's response
Especially since the death of Ali Khamenei, Iran has ramped up its offensive against Israel and US bases in various Middle Eastern countries, plunging the entire region into chaos.
Beit Shemesh is one of the latest casualties of its retaliatory offensive, termed Operation True Promise 4, on Israel.
Apart from US bases in the Middle East, the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln is also one of the latest alleged targets of Iran's ramped-up offensive, the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has said.
