Chilling vid shows Israeli school bus blown to bits by Iranian missile in madcap Ayatollah's death-throw retaliation
THIS is the chilling aftermath of a huge ballistic rocket blast by Iran which blew up a line of Israeli school buses.
A 30-foot crater sat just yards from the charred hulk of the bus laid bare the destructive power of the Iranian missiles terrorising Israel since Friday.
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The rocket was fired more than 1,000 miles and armed with a tonne of explosives.
It narrowly missed dozens of homes before thundering into a bus depot site.
Locals cowering in shelters nearby felt the earth move as the blast delivered a fireball coupled with a shrapnel shockwave which wiped out ten buses at 8.48am on Tuesday.
The fanatical Iranian terror state has launched at least 370 similar missiles - including a hypersonic one - and hundreds of drones at its arch enemy.
These attacks have left the normally bustling metropolis of Tel Aviv a virtual ghost town as citizens braced for the next phase of this fast-moving conflict.
The Sun's team in Israel was taken to the crater in the suburb of Herzliya, around 10 miles from the port city's centre overnight.
Locals were still reeling from the shock of the attack little more than 24 hours earlier - and counting the cost of 10 wrecked school buses worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Ahron Gablan - who owns seven buses smashed during the blitz - said: 'They had been parked there because classes had been stopped because of the war.
'But God knows what would have happened if the children and their families hadn't been in shelters.
'It exploded at 8.48am on a weekday when streets would usually be busy - when families would have been taking kids to school.
Trump gives 2-word warning to Ayatollah if he refuses to surrender…& reveals Iran blinked first in secret talks
'I was in a synagogue nearby when the explosion shook the building - I have never felt or heard anything like it.
'The sound was terrifying.'
Mr Gablan, a 67-year-old father-of-five from Herzliya added: 'My buses have been wrecked and I don't know how I'll recover from this.
'This is what happens when one of the missiles gets through but - thank God - it hit open ground next to the depot.
'Everyone is worried about where this war is going and what will happen next. We want it all to end.'
Israel and Iran are now in a deadly 'race to the bottom' as their stocks of offensive and defensive missiles were drained by the six-day conflict.
Iran still has a mammoth stockpile of just under 3,000 missiles - the largest in the Middle East.
But Israel says it has so far knocked out more than a third of the nation's ballistic launchers and is racing against time to hit more before further attacks are mounted.
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Their urgency has been ramped up as rockets continued to fly forcing Israel to launch costly barrages using its high tech Iron Dome, David's Sling and Arrow rocket arsenals.
Analysts now say victory may now hinge on which side runs out of missiles first.
US sources last night said Israel is beginning to run low on Arrow rockets - the most vital ballistic missile defender - which could mean rationing defensive actions later this week.
At least 24 Israelis have been killed in Israel and more than 500 wounded since the start of the conflict - but locals fear casualty rates will rocket without a missile shield.
A local dad-of-two called Ismail said as he picked over wreckage near the crater site in Herzliya shrugged last night: 'We know we are not safe and in a fight to the finish.
'Without the Iron Dome missiles like this would finish us and we are praying the Iranians will be stopped before it is too late.'
It comes as the war looks set to escalate into a global disaster with the US weighing up if they should get involved in strikes on Iran.
Donald Trump gave a clear warning to Iran's Supreme Leader as he urged him to consider an "unconditional surrender".
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Ayatollah Khamenei vowed Tehran will "never surrender" as he warned against any US intervention in the conflict.
In his first statement since the escalation of bombings over the last few days, Khamenei said: "The battle begins."
He warned that the US will face hell if it enters the war and drops a single bomb.
Trump held a crisis meeting in the White House Situation Room on Wednesday, discussing whether to enter the war.
After the 80-minute gathering, US officials indicated that the next 24 to 48 hours would be crucial in determining whether diplomacy could be achieved with Iran, ABC News reports.
This would likely include an ironclad agreement to dismantle Iran's whole nuclear programme.
But if such commitments from Iran aren't agreed, Trump may resort to military action against Iran instead.
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The Independent
31 minutes ago
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What's the point of the UK talking to Tehran? More than you might think…
Europe's frantic diplomatic mission in Geneva may go down as one of its most arduous ventures on the world stage – and also one of its most consequential. The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany must persuade a battered Iranian regime to kow-tow to the US and Israel over its nuclear ambitions, or face likely annihilation. All three European powers would, of course, love to see the back of supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei's corrupt and brutal theocracy. But they rightly fear the regime's capacity to unleash death and destruction before it goes. If Trump joins Israel in the war on Iran with US bunker-busting bombs on nuclear sites, and it succeeds in killing Khamenei, there will still be plenty of Iranian hardliners left who will be willing to fight to the death. Previous inhibitions will not apply. That could mean use of a dirty bomb in the West, or chaos unleashed in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 90 per cent of the Gulf's oil passes. For the world at large, the stakes are that high. British foreign secretary David Lammy – after meeting his US counterpart, Marco Rubio, and presidential envoy Steve Witkoff in Washington on Thursday – said that the UK was 'determined that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon". He thinks a window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution, as Trump dithers over whether to attack the regime, as US neo-cons and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu are demanding – or whether to heed the no-more-wars mantra of his Maga base. And so, in search of a diplomatic solution, Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi is meeting with his European counterparts in Switzerland. But what can be achieved? For all their good intentions – French president Emmanuel Macron said the diplomats would make a "comprehensive, diplomatic and technical offer of negotiation" to Iran – the Europeans are unlikely to persuade the Iranians to pull back from the brink. 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It's not clear that European diplomats have the connections they need to have a greater role to play than this, useful though it will prove. But when it comes to a practical breakthrough, some of the Gulf states might, however. Behind the scenes, figures in what some dub 'Iran's deep state' – many of them members of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – are talking to representatives of Oman and Qatar; it might be these Middle Eastern countries that can make the difference, in a second stage of dialogue. Qatar, for its part, will likely hold more sway over Washington than London or Paris. All the peacemakers, though, will be battling the plans of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Nothing less that the obliteration of the regime in Tehran will satisfy him. Worryingly, Israel's premier appears to have been joined by an increasingly pro-war Fox News, with Sean Hannity this week declaring that Iran 'is the biggest existential threat to the entire western world'. The West should have learnt by now – after the disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya – that enforced regime change in the Middle East is best avoided. Andreas Krieg, a leading Iran expert at King's College London thinks regime change in Iran would 'not be clean or peaceful'. If the current theocracy falls, there is no significant alternative political-social structure to lead this country of 92 million into the light. The IRGC, a ruthless military-industrial complex, would not easily cede control of the Iranian economy. Instead, with 190,000 personnel and a similar number of Basij paramilitaries to call on, it might well create a military dictatorship. The West and Israel would be back to square one. And the Iranian people would be no better off. 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The Independent
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