Israel claimed on Wednesday to have killed a third senior Iranian figure in 24 hours, stating that its forces had eliminated Tehran's intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib, in an overnight strike. If confirmed, his death would follow those of Ali Larijani, the head of the supreme national security apparatus, and the commander of the Basij militia, Gholamreza Soleimani.
Overnight Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon have killed at least four people, according to Lebanese state media and the government. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) said on Sunday Israeli forces struck an apartment in a residential building in a northern district of the coastal city of Sidon, killing one person and causing a fire. To the southeast of Sidon, in the village of al-Qatrani, three people were killed in another Israeli attack, according to Lebanon's Ministry of Health.
Iranian forces have launched an operation targeting Kurdish groups in their semi-autonomous region of neighbouring Iraq, as they also began their 19th wave of missile and drone attacks against Israel and United States assets in the Middle East on the sixth day of a regional war that has embroiled much of the region in the conflict.
The Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System, or LUCAS, is a one-way attack drone that looks nearly identical to the Iranian-designed Shahed. Russia has used Shaheds extensively against Ukraine and now fields its own domestically produced variant.