Iran news and live updates: Donald Trump confirms United States and Israel attack on sites in Tehran

That concludes our coverage for today, tune back in tomorrow for the latest updates on the Iran Israel conflict.

Two people were killed Saturday in air strikes on an Iraqi military base housing the powerful pro-Iran group Kataeb Hezbollah, which has threatened the US with an imminent response.

The Jurf al-Sakher base, also known as Jurf al-Nasr, in southern Iraq belongs to the Hashed al-Shaabi or the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), a former paramilitary group now integrated into the regular army.

But the largest contingent on the base is made up of members of Kataeb Hezbollah.

A source from the Iran-backed group told AFP that “there are two martyrs from Kataeb... in the aggression on the Jurf al-Nasr base”.

It also reported that three others were wounded.

Kataeb Hezbollah warned in a statement “we will soon begin attacking American bases in response to their aggression.”

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said all sites involved in the Israeli and US strikes on Iran were “legitimate targets” for the Islamic republic’s armed forces.

“The Iranian armed forces consider as legitimate targets the sites from which the US and Zionist operations were carried out as well as the sites of all actions against Iran’s defensive operations,” Araghchi said on Iranian TV.

The United Nations’ rights chief deplored Saturday’s strikes in the Middle East and urged all parties to return to negotiations, saying attacks would only result in “death, destruction and human misery”.

“I deplore the military strikes across Iran this morning by Israel and the United States of America, and the subsequent retaliatory strikes by Iran,” Volker Turk said in a statement.

“As always, in any armed conflict, it is civilians who end up paying the ultimate price.

“Bombs and missiles are not the way to resolve differences but only result in death, destruction and human misery.

“To avert these terrible consequences for civilians, I call for restraint and implore all parties to see reason, to de-escalate, and for a return to the negotiating table where they had been actively seeking a solution only hours earlier,” he said.

“Failing to do so risks an even wider conflict, that will inevitably lead to further senseless civilian deaths and destruction on a potentially unimaginable scale, not just in Iran but across the Middle East region.”

A missile has killed four people after striking a building in southern Syria on Saturday, state media reported, after a US-Israeli attack on Iran sparked a response from Tehran.

Quoting the media directorate in Sweida, the official SANA news agency reported that “four people were killed and a number of people were injured as a result of a missile explosion in the industrial area inside the city of Sweida”.

The state media report did not specify where the missile had originated, after a previous report said it had been fired from Iran.

The US and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran on Saturday morning, local time.

Images of smoke billowing from various locations in Tehran - including one area near the presidential palace - quickly surfaced online.

The majority of the strikes, according to anonymous officials, targeted military sites. Satellite imagery also showed damage to the compound of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His whereabouts have not been confirmed.

US President Donald Trump issued an ominous warning to Iran, saying the regime would be “totally obliterated” and that the “hour of freedom” for the Iranian people was at hand.

Iran retaliated with its own missile strikes, targeting Israel and other US allies in the Middle East including Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. There have been reports of at least one person killed by the retaliatory strikes.

Planes flying to Qatar from Australia have been turned around as the air space around Iran is cleared.

Several US media outlets have reported that Mr Trump will address the world on Saturday morning US time.

Scroll through the posts below to recap the day’s events as they happened.

We’re hearing that a Qatar Airways flight that has been turned back from the UAE has been given special permission to land at Sydney outside the airport’s curfew.

Sydney Airport is surrounded by some of the most densely-populated areas in Australia.

Flights are prohibited to land between 11pm and 6am local time.

It’s highly unusual for flights to be given permission to land within those hours.

From AFP:

An Israeli security source said that strikes on Iran would continue for “as long as we need”, after the US and Israel began targeting military and ballistic missile sites in the Islamic republic on Saturday.

“We will continue our operations right now, as long as we need to, to ensure that the Iranian regime cannot restore those capabilities to the region and the broader international stability,” the source told journalists, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

All the major airlines have diverted or cancelled flights to the region, citing safety, and apologising to customers, according to the BBC.

Virgin Atlantic has cancelled a service from London to Dubai and warned that flights to the Maldives, India and Saudi Arabia might experience longer flight times due to re-routing.

British Airways has cancelled flights from London to Tel Aviv and Bahrain until Wednesday and a plane that took off on time at 8pm last night, was also ordered to turn around a third of the way into the trip.

Lufthansa, Air India and Turkish Airlines are other carriers to have announced cancellations for the region.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has given his full support for the US and Israel strikes on Iran, saying they were necessary to prevent Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon and risking world peace and security.

He said Australia stood with the “brave people of Iran in their struggle against oppression”.

“For decades, the Iranian regime has been a destabilising force, through its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, support for armed proxies, and brutal acts of violence and intimidation,” Mr Albanese said.