Iran confirms security chief Larijani killed in strike
· RTE.ieIran has confirmed that Ali Larijani, widely viewed as one of Iran's most powerful figures and a confidant of slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his son and successor, Mojtaba, has been killed.
Israel said it had killed Iran's security chief, the most senior figure targeted since the war's first day.
The killing of Mr Larijani makes him the most senior figure killed by Israel and the United States since the war's first day when they killed the supreme leader, other members of his family and other senior officials.
Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israeli forces had killed Mr Larijani, as well as Gholamreza Soleimani who led the volunteer Basij militia, which plays a major role in domestic security.
In a video he posted of himself on X with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled a small "punch card" out of his suit jacket pocket and said: "Today I erased two names on the punch card, and you see how many more to go on this batch."
Iranian state media published a handwritten note by Mr Larijani commemorating Iranian sailors killed in a US attack.
Mr Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, had held a series of senior jobs and was close to the slain leader, although he had a reputation for pragmatic relations with other factions in the ruling system.
Larijani's rise after the revolution
Mr Larijani was born in 1958 in Iraq's great Shi'ite Muslim shrine city of Najaf, the home of many major Iranian clerics like his father who had fled what they saw as the oppressive rule of the shah.
He moved to Iran as a child, later focusing on his studies and earning a philosophy PhD.
But the clerical milieu of his family would have made him keenly aware of the revolutionary religious currents surging through his homeland in the 1970s.
When Mr Larijani was 20 years old, the Islamic Revolution overthrew the shah and installed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as supreme leader.
When Iraq invaded Iran along an 800 km front months after the revolution, Mr Larijani joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a new, ideologically driven, military unit devoted to Mr Khomeini.
As the war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq became the great crucible testing the mettle of a new generation of Iranian leaders, Mr Larijani rose up to become a staff officer, a commander focused on the organisational duties behind the front that dictated the war effort.
His success in that role, alongside his family connections, helped spur his rise in the new Islamic Republic.
They also ensured his close ties to the Guards, a military institution whose importance would continue growing throughout his life.
After the war, Mr Larijani became culture minister and then head of Iran's state broadcaster, IRIB, a critical role in a country where ideological messaging has always been central to the exercise of internal power.
He was appointed to the cabinet by the mercurial president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, in office from 1989 to 1997. Mr Larijani would have a ringside seat for the years-long power struggle between Rafsanjani and Mr Khamenei - an unrivalled lesson in high Iranian politics.
New supreme leader rejects de-escalation offers
Meanwhile, a senior Iranian official said the new supreme leader had rejected de-escalation offers conveyed by intermediary countries.
In a sign of Iran's continued defiance after more than two weeks of war, the senior Iranian official who asked not to be identified said Mr Khamenei had rejected proposals that were conveyed to Iran's foreign ministry for "reducing tensions or ceasefire with the United States". The official did not give further details.
The official said Mr Khamenei had held his first foreign policy session since being named supreme leader and had declared that it was not "the right time for peace until the United States and Israel are brought to their knees, accept defeat, and pay compensation".
He did not clarify whether Mr Khamenei, who has not yet been pictured since being named last week to replace his slain father, had attended the meeting in person or remotely.
The US-Israeli war on Iran is now in its third week, with at least 2,000 people killed and no end in sight.
The Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed off and US allies have rebuffed US President Donald Trump's calls for them to help to reopen the vital waterway, through which about 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows.
Mr Trump has called on allies to provide military assistance to ease the global economic impact by reopening the strait.
Most NATO allies have informed the US that they do not want to get involved in the conflict, Mr Trump said, describing their position as "a very foolish mistake."
"Because of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer 'need,' or desire, the NATO Countries' assistance - WE NEVER DID!" Mr Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, also singling out Japan, Australia and South Korea.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that nobody was ready to risk the lives of their people in protecting the strait.
"We have to find diplomatic ways to keep this open so that we don't have a food crisis, fertilizers crisis, energy crisis as well," Ms Kallas said.
Oil prices rose about 2% as Iran renewed its strikes on oil facilities in the United Arab Emirates and are up around 45% since the start of the war, raising concerns of a renewed spike in global inflation.
Air raid sirens sound in Israel
There was no let-up in attacks by both sides today.
In Israel, where Iranian missile attacks have killed 12 people, air raid sirens sounded throughout the day in the commercial hub Tel Aviv and surrounding cities as loud blasts of interceptions were heard as far away as Jerusalem.
The barrage underscores Tehran's capacity to carry out long-range strikes despite more than two weeks of pounding by US and Israeli weapons.
The Israeli military said it was targeting "Iranian regime infrastructure" with a new wave of strikes across Tehran, as well as Hezbollah sites in Beirut.
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel "had, in effect already won the war", but gave no timeline for when the war might end.
More than 900 people have died since Israel began attacks on Lebanon on 2 March the Lebanese Health Ministry said.
More than 1,300 people have been killed and 7,000 injured in Iran, Iran's ambassador to the UN said yesterday.
Fujairah Port disrupted in third attack
Iran has responded by wide-ranging attacks on its Gulf neighbours.
Gulf Arab states, including the UAE, have faced more than 2,000 missile and drone attacks on US diplomatic missions and military bases as well as oil infrastructure, ports, airports, ships and residential and commercial buildings.
Oil loading at the UAE port of Fujairah was at least partly halted after a third attack in four days caused a fire at the export terminal.
Fujairah lies on the far side of the Strait of Hormuz from the Gulf, making it one of the few ports from which the region's oil can be shipped without passing through the blockaded waterway.
UAE authorities said debris from an intercepted ballistic missile also fell in Abu Dhabi's Bani Yas area, killing one Pakistani national, while a fire caused by a drone attack was being fought at Abu Dhabi's Shah gas field.