US, Israel hit five oil sites in and near Tehran: Official

Israel has struck southern Lebanon and Beirut again early on Sunday and killed 12 more people, the Lebanese health ministry said, as the war in the Middle East keeps escalating.

Israeli officials said the strikes targeted commanders of the Lebanese branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised "many surprises" for the next phase of the conflict.

Meanwhile, two border guards in Kuwait were killed when a swarm of missiles and drones hit the Gulf country.

Smoke rises following an explosion in Tehran, Iran, on Sunday. Reuters

On Saturday, an Israeli attack hit an oil storage facility in Tehran, which sent up pillars of fire that could be seen in Associated Press video as a glow against the night sky. It appeared to be the first time a civil industrial facility has been targeted in the war.

The war, which erupted on Feb. 28 after joint US-Israeli strikes hit Iran, has so far killed at least 1,230 people in the Islamic Republic, more than 300 in Lebanon and around a dozen in Israel, according to officials.

Earlier, an Iranian official told state TV that, the United States and Israel hit five oil facilities in overnight strikes in and near the Iranian capital.

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in the southern costal city of Tyre on Saturday. AFP

"Last night, four oil depots and a petroleum products transport centre in Tehran and the Alborz were attacked by enemy aircraft," the CEO of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company Keramat Veyskarami told state TV.

He added that the five facilities "were damaged" but the "fire was brought under control".

Agencies