TEHRAN: Israel said on Monday (Jun 8) it hit a petrochemical plant in Iran's southwest, along with strikes elsewhere on military targets, after US President Donald Trump reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from further attacks.The escalation complicates US-led efforts to broker a broader deal with Iran, driving oil prices up by nearly 5 per cent, with benchmark Brent futures back above US$97 a barrel.Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps blamed the US for the latest exchange of fire with Israel and said further attacks on non-military and energy targets would have consequences for the global economy.The IRGC said that in retaliation, they had launched a missile attack on a similar plant in the Israeli city of Haifa.In the first hit on an energy site inside Iran since the Apr 8 ceasefire, Israel said it struck targets at the Mahshahr petrochemical complex, while a provincial official told Iran's semi-official Fars news agency parts of the plant were damaged.The Israeli military later said it had also carried out a large-scale strike on Iranian defence systems to dismantle air defence capabilities that Tehran had been deploying.Iranian media reported the sound of explosions in Tehran on Monday, and the semi-official Mehr news agency said air defences had shot down a drone over the capital. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis pledged in a statement to stop Israel's maritime navigation in the Red Sea, and said it was behind the first missile attack on Israel since the ceasefire, which spurred Israel to activate aerial defence systems.