BREAKING:Israel just bоmbed and destrоyed the assembly building where about 90 senior clerics were choosing the next Supreme Leader of Iran

The Israeli and US strikes on Iran have triggered retaliatory Iranian strikes – including with drones – across the region.

Russia has been using Iranian-designed Shahed drones throughout its four-year invasion of Ukraine, and Kyiv has developed a range of cheap and effective drone interceptors – aerial craft designed to hit incoming attack drones mid-air – that it says are world-leading, AFP reported.

At the same time, Ukraine is struggling with a shortage of PAC-3 air defence missiles – expensive ammunition fired at incoming Russian missiles to defend Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure.

“The number one issue is how to protect their skies. We ourselves live with this question,” Zelenskyy said.

“Let’s speak about weapons that we’re short of: PAC-3 missiles – if they give them to us, we will give them interceptors,” he added.

With 30 people inside the neighbourhood bomb shelter on Sunday afternoon, and sirens wailing outside, Oren Katz went to close the reinforced door.

It was an act of generosity that was typical of the father of four, and it would cost him his life. As he reached the entrance, the shelter took a direct hit from an Iranian missile.

“Even when you were in trouble, you would say give, and that giving cost you your life,” his wife, Samadi, said in a tribute at his funeral. “You went upstairs to close the shelter and it took a heavy toll. I can’t digest it,” the ynet news site quoted her saying.

Katz was one of nine victims, four of them teenage children, killed in the deadliest attack Israel has sustained since it joined the US in attacking Iran on Saturday.

The Biton family lost three children, 13-year-old Sarah, 15-year-old Avigail and their brother Yaakov, 16, who are survived by their parents and one sibling. The other boy killed was 16-year-old Gabriel Baruch Revah, Israeli media reported.

The force of the explosion entirely destroyed a synagogue that had stood over the shelter and left the thick, protective roof caved in. Astonishingly much of the structure withstood the force of the blast, despite its age and the intensity of the strike, said an officer who led the search and rescue mission.

“Even with the very severe impact that was here, and the price that was paid in this attack, the vast majority of people that were in the bomb shelter came out of it alive,” Lt Col Oded Revivi said at the site.

“In the bomb shelter there were over 30 people, two are dead, one is injured and 28 people came out alive,” said Revivi, adding that seven people were killed outside the shelter.

It’s the Guardian’s job to keep a close focus on events in the region for our global audience.

With reporters sharing live updates around the clock, we’re well-placed to provide comprehensive, fact-checked reporting and to help our audience understand every major development. But we can’t do it without your support.

We rely on the generosity of our readers, whose backing helps to keep our correspondents on the ground and our reporting free from commercial or political influence.

Attacks on Iran, and missile and kamikaze drone attacks [by Iran] on neighbouring countries in the Gulf have fuelled instability,” he said in a televised address.

“Through peace-oriented diplomacy, we are making intense efforts to resolve issues at the negotiating table,” he added.

Earlier, foreign minister Hakan Fidan met Washington’s Syria envoy Tom Barrack, ministry sources said.

He also spoke with his UK counterpart Yvette Cooper to discuss “the current security environment in the region”, evaluating “in detail” the “diplomatic efforts that could be undertaken to end the hostilities and establish stability”.

Iran’s population of more than 85 million is ethnically diverse, with large Azeri, Lur, Kurdish, Arab, Baloch and Turkmen minorities, AFP reports.

The Islamic republic has long been accused of discriminating against ethnic minorities, with many groups supporting successive waves of anti-government protests in the country and some – particularly the Kurds and Balochis – waging insurgencies seeking self-determination.

Pahlavi in an X post looked to assure ethnic minorities they would not be discriminated against if he were leading the country, and appeared to urge them not to use the current conflict to press for separation.

“We stand at the threshold of this regime’s fall. Yet we must remain vigilant and prepared, and deny opportunistic forces – those who have long cast covetous eyes on Iran’s soil – the chance to exploit this moment,” he said.

“You are an inseparable part of Iran’s historical and cultural fabric… I am confident that you will remain steadfast in this covenant,” he added.

“I firmly believe that through national unity and shared resolve, a bright future awaits you and every Iranian.”

In a statement, the pro-Iran armed group said: “In response to the criminal Israeli aggression… and after monitoring movements by the Israeli enemy army in Tel Nahas on the outskirts of Kfar Kila, our fighters targeted a Merkava tank with appropriate weapons and scored a direct hit.”

Earlier on Tuesday, a Lebanese army source told AFP Israel was undertaking a ground incursion “from Kfar Kila and the Khiam plains” along the Lebanon-Israel border.