The strike on the secure media compound during a live broadcast is highly symbolic as tensions between Israel and Iran soar.
Israel has attacked the Iranian state broadcaster IRIB and interrupted a live broadcast with an explosion, marking another escalation in the conflict with Tehran and replicating its previous attacks on news media targets in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.
TV anchor Sahar Emami denounced Monday’s “aggression against the homeland” and the “truth” as a blast went off and smoke and debris filled the screen. The footage then showed her fleeing the studio as a voice is heard calling, “God is greatest.”
The attack came shortly after the Israeli military issued a threat for Tehran’s District Three, where IRIB’s headquarters is located, and Defence Minister Israel Katz said: “The Iranian propaganda and incitement mouthpiece is on its way to disappear.”
Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei accused Israel of committing a “wicked act” that constitutes a war crime and of being the number one “killer of journalists and media people”.
