Iran downplays presumed Israeli attack but vows response to any 'decisive action'

We can now bring you video verified by the BBC showing the moment a military base in Iraq housing a pro-Iranian militia was rocked by an explosion.

Watch the clip below:

After months of delay, the House of Representatives is due to vote on tens of billions of dollars in US military aid for Ukraine and Israel.

Both measures have vocal opponents in Congress, and their hopes of passage have hinged on a fragile bipartisan coalition to overcome legislative hurdles.

Debate is set to begin and voting is expected later on Saturday.

House Speaker Mike Johnson's foreign aid proposal provides $60.8bn (£49bn) to Ukraine, $26.4bn to Israel and $8.1bn to the Indo-Pacific region, including Taiwan.

Left-wing Democrats who object to Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza have said that they will not allow the US to continue to be complicit in a human-rights catastrophe. But the Israel aid bill contains $9bn in humanitarian aid, which may help win over some reluctant Democrats.

Read more here.

Previously Israel and Iran had been engaged in a years-long shadow war - attacking each other's assets without admitting responsibility.

Those attacks have ratcheted up considerably during the current war in Gaza sparked by the Palestinian group Hamas's assault on nearby Israeli communities last October.

The two countries were allies until the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, which brought in a regime that has used opposing Israel as a key part of its ideology.

Iran does not recognise Israel's right to exist and seeks its eradication. The country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has previously called Israel a "cancerous tumour" that "will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed".

Israel believes that Iran poses an existential threat as evidenced by Tehran's rhetoric, its build-up of proxy forces in the region including the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah that are sworn to Israel's destruction, and its funding and arming of Palestinian groups including Hamas.

It also accuses Iran of secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons, though Iran denies seeking to build a nuclear bomb.

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A military base in Iraq housing a pro-Iranian militia has been damaged in an explosion, security officials there have said. The incident comes amid heightened tensions between Israel and Iran.

Here's what we know so far:

• Iraq's military reported no drones or fighter jets in the area before or during the blast, and the US said it was not involved
• The militia, the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), blamed an attack
• The explosion at Kalso military base, about 50km (30 miles) south of Baghdad, happened early on Saturday, the military said
• It was being used by the PMF, a paramilitary dominated by Iran-backed Shia Muslim militias
• A member of the PMF was killed in the blast and eight others were wounded
• The PMF said its chief of staff, Abdul Aziz al-Mohammedawi, had visited the base to review what investigators had found so far
• The Iraqi military also said it was investigating the cause of the explosion

Israeli troops and Palestinian militants have been exchanging fire for a second day of an Israeli raid in Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank.

A number of people have been killed, including 10 militants, according to the Israeli army.

Palestinian sources say that at least five people have been killed, including a child. At least four Israeli soldiers have reportedly been wounded.

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We've been hearing from Ibrahim Isbetah, a Palestinian who fled from Rafah to Cairo earlier this week with some of his family.

He tells the BBC that Gazans in Rafah are feeling "scared" now that there is talk of another full scale Israeli attack.

"..After what we witnessed in Shifa hospital and Khan Younis in the north, we are fully understanding what ground invasion means", Isbetah says.

"Nobody will be safe. This is the first thing. Secondly, we are talking about too many people located in each space in Rafah".

There’s a sense of relief in the wider region that what could have been an escalation of the conflict between Israel and Iran has seemed to have dissipated.

The promised Israeli response was very limited in its extent. There’s been no official response from the Israeli government itself, and it looks like, for the time being, that side of things seems to have calmed down.

Maybe a red line has been drawn under that, although Iran’s allies in the region, particularly Hezbollah, in southern Lebanon, do still have the capacity to attack Israeli positions and of course, we’ve seen the Houthis from Yemen do the same. So there is still tension and a threat between Israel and Iran.

What is still happening, and what did happen overnight, is that the more than six-month long war in Gaza is intensifying.

Israel has made it clear it will launch a full-scale military operation in the southern city of Rafah.

The Americans and the British are trying to warn Israel against that. I don’t think it’s going to happen in the next few days because we’ve got the Jewish holiday of Passover starting over the weekend.

Isfahan province is a large area in the centre of Iran which takes its name from its largest city.

The region is home to significant Iranian military infrastructure, including a large air base, a major missile production complex and several nuclear facilities.

Israel would usually tell the US in advance about military action, but Italy's foreign minister Antonio Tajani told reporters at the G7 meeting in Capri that Washington had only been "informed at the very last minute".

Speaking at the summit, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken refused to be drawn on the attack, saying only that the US had "not been involved in any offensive operations". The Israeli government has still not officially commented.

This latest strike comes less than a week after Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel, an incident seen as a dramatic escalation in tensions.

Despite its vast scale and unprecedented nature, Iran's attack was largely unsuccessful, with the vast majority of projectiles shot down by Israeli air defences with the help of the US, UK and other allies.

That unprecedented attack on Israeli soil was in response to a strike against a building on an Iranian diplomatic compoundin Syria on 1 April.

Israel has not publicly confirmed it was behind that strike either, but it is widely accepted that it was.

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As we've been reporting, Israeli forces have been bombarding parts of Gaza overnight.

The Hamas-run health ministry says at least nine people were killed in strikes on a block of apartments in the southern city of Rafah.

Let's take a look now at the latest images from the city.

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We're getting lines in now from joint news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry, after talks earlier in Istanbul.

Fidan says he and Shoukry addressed the "grave situation" in Gaza and increasing humanitarian aid to the territory.

"We have discussed what more we can do to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, and what can be done in the long run for a two-state solution," Fidan tells reporters.

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UNRWA, the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, says the threat of disease outbreaks in Gaza is growing, as temperatures begin to rise.

"Our fear is disease and outbreak of disease," Scott Anderson, UNRWA affairs director, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"Everything moves kind of at the pace for donkey cart because the congestion of traffic is so bad, and what you have is people every day trying to find food, water and now trying to find shade."

He adds that work is needed to "control mosquitoes, to control flies, pick up trash and continue to try to improve the water and sanitation system overall".

We can bring you more now about the explosion at a base used by the pro-Iranian militia, the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), in Iraq.

The PMF say the blast, which reportedly killed one of its members, was the result of an attack.

In a statement, the PMF said its chief of staff Abdul Aziz al-Mohammedawi had visited the location and "reviewed the details of the investigative committees present in the place that was attacked".

Meanwhile, the military in Iraq says no drones or fighter jets were detected in the area before or during the explosion.

We'll bring you more when we have it.

Tensions appear to be calming in the Middle East, after Iran downplayed a presumed Israeli attack on the city of Isfahan.

Here's a recap of some of the latest developments:

• Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has warned that his country will give an immediate response if Israel launches a significant attack
• Amirabdollahian continued to downplay Friday's attack on Isfahan, saying the mini-drones were "like toys our children play with"
• Both sides appear to be stepping back from wider conflict, after repeated calls for restraint from world leaders
• In Iraq, a base used by a pro-Iranian militia has reportedly been damaged by a large explosion. The US says it was not involved

• Meanwhile, Israeli forces have been bombarding parts of Gaza overnight, with nine people reportedly killed in Rafah
• The Hamas-run health ministry says at least 34,049 people have been killed in Gaza during Israel's offensive there. Israeli troops began an offensive following the 7 October attack, in which Hamas fighters killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel
• UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, says the threat of disease outbreaks in Gaza is growing, as temperatures rise

Stay with us for more.

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The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says at least nine people have been killed and several others wounded in strikes on the southern city of Rafah, as Israeli planes and tanks pounded several parts of the territory overnight.

The ministry said one strike hit a residential building in the city.

It comes after US officials raised concerns with their Israeli counterparts about Israel's plans for military operations in Rafah.

The White House said representatives of Israel's prime minister had agreed "to take these concerns into account".

The US has repeatedly urged Israel not to launch a major offensive in Rafah to avoid more civilian casualties in Gaza.

Meanwhile, airstrikes have also reportedly hit the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

Security sources in Iraq say a huge blast has hit a military base that houses pro-Iranian militias.

A member of the Popular Mobilisation Forces has been killed and eight others were wounded in the explosion. The Pentagon moved quickly to say that it was not involved in the incident.

No one else has said it was responsible for now, and security sources in Iraq have not as yet said who they believe might have been behind it.

It comes at a time of heightened alert across the Middle East, as the long-running confrontation between Israel and Iran has moved into a new phase.

On Friday, a presumed Israeli attack was carried out near the Iranian city of Isfahan - in apparent response to a major drone and missile attack that Tehran launched on Israel six days earlier.

That too was in retaliation for an earlier strike on senior Iranian military commanders in Damascus.

The conflict still seems contained to some extent for now, but the Iranian foreign minister has warned that Iran will deliver a maximum response if Israel launches significant attacks on its interests.

EPACopyright: EPA

Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said Iran would give an immediate response if there was a significant attack from Israel.

In an interview with NBC News on Friday, Amirabdollahian said if Israel acts against Iran's interests, his country's "next response will be immediate and will be at the maximum level".

Amirabdollahian downplayed the presumed Israeli drone attack on Isfahan in central Iran, questioning whether Israel was involved.

He said the mini-drones were "like toys our children play with".

There are competing claims about the scale of the attack on the Isfahan region and the extent of any damage, with Iranian state media downplaying its significance.

US officials have confirmed to the BBC's partner CBS News that an Israeli missile did hit Iran. US sources say a missile was involved in the attack, while Iran says it involved small drones.

So far, there has been a lot of speculation regarding the type of missile used.

Among experts, there now seems to be a wider consensus in thinking that a two-stage missile was used - and was probably air-launched. Many identify the debris with Israeli-produced Blue Sparrow missiles.

Although we cannot yet independently verify the exact type of missile, it is known that Israel has developed this type of weapon.

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