Israel carried out strikes on Iran on Friday, targeting its nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories and military commanders at the start of what it warned would be a prolonged operation to prevent Tehran from building an atomic weapon, writes Reuters.

Iranian media and witnesses reported explosions including at the country’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, while Israel declared a state of emergency in anticipation of retaliatory missile and drone strikes.

Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards corps said its top commander, Hossein Salami, was killed and state media reported the unit"s headquarters in Tehran had been hit. Several children had been killed in a strike on a residential area in the capital, it said.

“We are at a decisive moment in Israel’s history”, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a recorded video message. “Moments ago Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival. This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat”.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement that Israel had “unleashed its wicked and bloody” hand in a crime against Iran and that it would receive “a bitter fate for itself”.