The Latest: Israel attacks nuclear program in Iran, drawing waves of missiles

Israel's ongoing attacks on Iranian nuclear sites killed 78 people and wounded more that 320 on Friday, said Iran's ambassador to the United Nations. The strikes killed generals and scientists, but the ambassador told the U.N. Security Council that “the overwhelming majority” of victims were civilians.

Iran retaliated with two waves of long-range missiles targeting Israel's commercial capital, Tel Aviv, Medics said the first wave wounded at least 34 people and the second injured seven more.

Israel launched the attacks on Iran amid simmering tensions over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program. For years, Israel had threatened such a strike and successive American administrations had sought to prevent it, fearing it would ignite a wider conflict across the Middle East and possibly be ineffective at destroying Iran’s dispersed and hardened nuclear program.

As Iranian projectiles and Israeli interceptor rockets left trails of smoke and flame across the night sky on Friday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed not to let Israel “escape safely from this great crime.”