News - Middle East: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a group of his war cabinet ministers have slipped inside an underground hideout as Iranian missiles pound the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israeli media channels quoted unnamed regime officials as saying that the embattled premier had been transferred to an underground facility after Iran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles at multiple cities in the occupied territories.

Reports said Netanyahu and his ministers were in the occupied Jerusalem al-Quds at the time of the Iranian retaliatory military action that involved hundreds of long-range ballistic missiles.

The retaliatory operation was launched around 8:15 local time on Tuesday, three days after Hezbollah resistance movement leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and some of his associates were assassinated in an Israeli bombing in the southern suburb of Beirut on Friday.

In a statement after the attack was launched, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said the operation was a response to the assassination of Sayyed Nasrallah, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and IRGC commander Abbas Nilforoushan.

Nilforoushan was assassinated along with Sayyed Nasrallah in Dahiyeh on Friday.

Haniyeh was assassinated in an Israeli strike on his residence in Tehran on August 1, a day after he attended the swearing-in ceremony of President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Netanyahu, according to reports, has ordered his cabinet ministers to remain in hiding to escape the barrage of Iranian missiles.

However, some Israeli media reports confirmed massive damage in key Israeli military facilities in the preliminary assessment.

There is still no confirmation about the number of casualties in the attacks.

Source: Press TV