Iran has arrested dozens of people on suspicion of spying as fears grow in the Islamic Republic over the extent of its infiltration by Israel’s Mossad intelligence service.

Since Israeli strikes began Friday, 28 people in the capital have been arrested and accused of spying for Israel, while on Monday, one man arrested on that charge two years ago was hanged in what appeared to be a message to any would-be collaborator.

The Iranian regime has also arrested scores of people across the country for allegedly sharing articles online “in support of the Zionist regime” – accusing them of disrupting the “psychological security of society” – including 60 people in Isfahan, where Israel claims to have targeted a nuclear site.

The wave of arrests comes as Tehran reels from the revelation that Mossad operatives smuggled weapons into Iran before Israel’s unprecedented attack and used them to target the country from within.

So heightened have Iranian suspicions become since then that its Intelligence Ministry has been asking the public to report suspicious activity and issuing guidance on how to spot collaborators.

One statement from the ministry urges people to be wary of strangers wearing masks or goggles, driving pickup trucks and carrying large bags or filming around military, industrial, or residential areas.

Elsewhere, a poster published by the state-affiliated Nour News – which is close to Iran’s security apparatus – singled out for suspicion people who wear “masks, hats, and sunglasses, even at night” and those who receive “frequent package deliveries by courier.”

The poster asks people to report “unusual sounds from inside the house, such as screaming, the sound of metal equipment, continuous banging” and “houses with curtains drawn even during the day.”

Another poster, attributed to the police and published on state media, advised landlords who had recently rented their homes to notify the police immediately.

The fears of Israeli penetration only amplify the anxieties felt by the increasingly isolated leadership of the Islamic Republic, which has been rocked in recent years by anti-regime protests sparked by the death of a young woman in the custody of the country’s so-called morality police.

The same force used to crack down on those protests, the Basij (a paramilitary wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard) has been deployed in night patrols to increase “surveillance” in the wake of the Israeli infiltration, according to Iran’s state-controlled media.

In a video statement Monday, Iran’s chief of police Ahmad-Reza Radan urged “traitors” to come forward, suggesting those who realized they had been “deceived by the enemy” might receive more lenient treatment and be “honored” by Iran – while those who were caught would be “taught a lesson that the Zionist enemy is being given now.”

The head of Iran’s judiciary Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i called for “swift” punishment of those accused of collaborating with Israel.

“Let’s say we have apprehended someone who is collaborating with (Israel), this matter under these war-like conditions … must be prosecuted swiftly and punished swiftly,” he said.

The Iranian regime’s rising paranoia comes as more details emerge of the Mossad operation that smuggled weapons into Iran ahead of the first strikes on Friday.

According to Israeli officials, operatives established a base for launching explosive drones inside Iran, then used those drones to target missile launchers near Tehran.

Precision weapons were also smuggled in, they say, and used to target surface-to-air missile systems, clearing the way for Israel’s Air Force to carry out more than 100 strikes with upward of 200 aircraft in the early hours of Friday local time.

Intelligence gathered by the Mossad in Iran also reportedly gave Israel’s Air Force the ability to target senior Iranian commanders and scientists.

Since then, according to Iranian media outlets, the government has seized equipment allegedly used during the Israeli operation – including 200 kilograms of explosives, several suicide drones, launchers and equipment used to manufacture the drones – in the city of Rey in Tehran province.

A video published by the state-affiliated Fars News Agency showed a building with drone parts and other equipment.

Russian overnight drone and missile attacks on Kyiv killed 14 people, officials said on Tuesday, in the deadliest strikes on the capital in weeks.

More than 55 people were wounded in the city, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, making it one of the deadliest nights for its residents in weeks.

Kyiv residents heard loud sirens from late Monday, through the early morning hours of Tuesday, making it a loud and sleepless night for many in the city. The sirens continued as day broke Tuesday – an alarm purportedly for a ballistic threat, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

Of those wounded, more than 40 have been taken to hospitals, Klitschko said, with residential buildings and other infrastructure severely damaged.

“We hope that no dead will be found under the rubble, but we cannot rule it out,” Klitschko added. “The death toll may increase.”

“During the attack on Kyiv in the Solomyanskyi district, a 62-year-old US citizen died in a house opposite to the one where medics were providing assistance to the victims,” Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a message on Telegram, without giving details.

Paramedics and police were seen working to rescue people wounded in a building that appears partially collapsed, according to video posted by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.

Smoke could be seen rising from the site and debris was strewn all over the ground. Vehicles in front of the building were charred and destroyed.

Some 27 locations in different districts came under fire, according to a statement from Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs, Ihor Klymenko.

“Rescuers, police and medics are working. They are doing everything they can to help the victims, clear the rubble and save lives,” he said.

The strikes come as Trump announced he would return to Washington a day early from the Group of 7 summit in Canada.

His early departure means he will miss a key meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the event.

It would have been the leaders’ third meeting since Trump took office in January.

Ukrainian officials had been hoping that a positive interaction with Trump could advance Kyiv’s case as Russia has ramped up its airborne attacks in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu arrived in Pyongyang on a “special mission” from Russian leader Vladimir Putin, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

Shoigu is scheduled to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Tass reported Tuesday.

Pyongyang has continued support for Moscow’s war on Ukraine as world leaders push for an end to the three-year conflict.

North Korea has sent soldiers and millions of munitions, including missiles and rockets, to Russia over the past year, according to a May report by an international watchdog, the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team.

The US has warned that Russia may be close to sharing advanced space and satellite technology with North Korea in exchange for continued support for the war in Ukraine.

In April, Russia launched its deadliest wave of attacks on Kyiv in nine months, sending 70 missiles and 145 drones toward Ukraine, mainly targeting the capital city, killing at least 12 people and injuring 90 more.

Under Trump, the US has been less willing to equip badly outgunned Ukraine directly, has pushed European partners to pick up more of the support and threatened to walk away altogether from peace talks.

Five tunnels burrowing into a group of mountains, a large support structure and a wide security perimeter: That’s all you can see of Iran’s mysterious Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant from recent satellite imagery.

The secretive, heavily guarded complex built close to the holy city of Qom has been fueling speculation about its true nature and size since it was first made public in 2009.

A chunk of what we do know about it comes from a trove of Iranian documents stolen years ago by Israeli intelligence.

Its main halls are an estimated 80 to 90 meters (around 262 to 295 feet) beneath the ground – safe from any aerial bomb known to be possessed by Israel, making destroying the facility from the air a near-impossible task.

As Iran’s leadership reels from a series of devastating Israeli strikes, some analysts say that it is at Fordow that Iran may rush to convert enriched uranium stockpiles into a nuclear bomb.

Israel has targeted the facility in recent days but, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), so far it has either been unwilling – or unable – to damage it.

Tehran has long maintained the objectives of its nuclear program are peaceful, but Fordow has been at the heart of concern over Iran’s ambitions.

“The size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program,” then US President Barack Obama said in 2009 as he, along with then French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown revealed the existence of Fordow to the world.

Just days before the announcement, the Iranians, apparently knowing Western agencies had learned about the facility, told the IAEA of their desire to build a new fuel enrichment facility. By that point construction at Fordow had been underway for years.

Tehran pushed back against the accusations, but condemnation even from ally Russia and concerns from China left it with little room to maneuver.

Construction started in the early 2000s

The US and its allies have not provided much detail on when the construction of Fordow started, but publicly available historical satellite imagery shows work at the site as far back as 2004, with photographs revealing two white square structures where the tunnel entrances are located today. The IAEA says it has additional imagery showing construction as far back as 2002.

“Fordow is actually a project that started during what we call the crash nuclear weapons program of the early 2000s,” said David Albright, head of the Washington, DC-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a nonpartisan institution dedicated to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. “The idea was they (the Iranians) would make weapon-grade uranium in that plant, and they would obtain low-enriched uranium from the civil nuclear program in Iran.”

In 2009, a large outside support structure was already fully built and excavation was ongoing for what experts believe to be a ventilation shaft, crucial to allow air circulation into the facility. That shaft was later concealed and camouflaged, more recent imagery also shows.

Tehran explained to the IAEA in a letter dated October 2009 that the decision to build the facility underground was a result of “threats of military attacks against Iran,” adding that Fordow would serve as a contingency for the nearby Natanz plant, which, it claimed, “was among the targets threatened with military attacks.”

Iran told the IAEA the facility could house up to 3,000 centrifuges.

Nuclear deal and Israeli accusations

The dangers posed by Fordow were largely tamed as a result of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) the so-called “Iran nuclear deal,” that required Iran to remove two-thirds of the centrifuges inside the facility, along with all nuclear material, after the facility was banned from any such work.

That process was slowly reversed when US President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018.

Further details about the facility were made public by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2018, after his country’s intelligence services seized more than 55,000 documents from what Israel said was Iran’s “atomic archive.”

Among the documents were detailed blueprints of Fordow and information on its objectives: To produce weapons-grade uranium, as part of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, for at least one or two nuclear weapons per year.

“We never saw any, any inconsistency,” Albright, who has combed through the documents, said of Iran’s push to develop nuclear weapons. “It’s hundreds of thousands of pages. I mean you just can’t make that amount of stuff up. I don’t think anyone challenges it, and that’s probably why there is an (IAEA) Board of Governors resolution against Iran.”

At the time, then Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the revelations and Netanyahu’s comments “childish” and “laughable.” Then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US had known about the material “for a while” and believed the documents were authentic.

Protected from even the largest bombs

Recent IAEA reports suggested Iran had ramped up production of enriched uranium to a level of 60% at the Fordow facility, which, according to experts and the IAEA, now contains 2,700 centrifuges.

“The significantly increased production and accumulation of highly enriched uranium by Iran, the only non-nuclear-weapon state to produce such nuclear material, is of serious concern,” the IAEA said in a report on May 31.

“One of the things that elevated the tension, was they have no reason to do that, other than to be able to then go the next step and turn it into weapon-grade uranium,” Albright said.

“It was interpreted as they’re preparing themselves to be able to do it if they decide to. And if you’re 60%, you can turn it into weapon-grade uranium very quickly,” he added.

According to the ISIS think tank, “Iran can convert its current stock of 60 percent enriched uranium into 233 kg of weapon-grade uranium in three weeks at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant,” enough for nine nuclear weapons.

That is why Fordow is a major focus of Israel’s attempts to degrade and destroy Iran’s nuclear program. But is it even feasible?

The US is the only country that possesses the kind of bomb required to strike Iran’s Fordow nuclear site, Israel’s ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, said in an interview with Merit TV on Monday.

“For Fordow to be taken out by a bomb from the sky, the only country in the world that has that bomb is the United States. And that’s a decision the United States has to take, whether or not it chooses to actually pursue that course,” Leiter said. But, he added, that wasn’t the only option: “There are other ways of dealing with Fordow.”

Destroying Fordow from the air would be almost impossible for Israel, according to a March report from the UK-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank and would require significant firepower and assistance from the United States.

It would not even be reachable by the US’ GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrator bombs, which only reach about 60 meters deep, according to the RUSI report. And the GBU-57 can only be delivered by US Air Force B-2 stealth bombers, something Israel doesn’t have – even if the US would give it the bombs.

“Even the GBU-57/B would likely require multiple impacts at the same aiming point to have a good chance of penetrating the facility,” said the report.

Other analysts agree, saying, if the US were to try to hit Fordow, it probably couldn’t be done with one bomb.

Albright says there could be other ways to disable Fordow.

“Israel could probably destroy the tunnel entrances pretty far back, and certainly destroy the ventilation system,” he said. “If you destroyed (the tunnels) and the electric electrical supply, it would be months before they could really operate.”

Despite its crucial role in Iran’s nuclear program, Albright believes Fordow is just another piece of the puzzle.

“If you destroy it, it’s not the end of the line, because you then go to the next threat, which is, how many centrifuges has Iran made that they didn’t deploy at Fordow and Natanz? And where are they?” he said.

“I think people over-emphasize the need to destroy it by bringing down its ceilings, which admittedly, probably only the US can do.”

At least 51 people were killed and more than 200 others injured by Israeli fire as they waited for aid trucks to arrive in Khan Younis in southern Gaza early Tuesday morning, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.

The incident marks the highest reported number of people killed while seeking aid over the past few weeks in the enclave. In total, nearly 400 Palestinians have been killed near aid centers since Israel lifted an 11-week total blockade on Gaza and allowed a trickle of aid to enter, according to the health ministry.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a Tuesday statement that “a gathering was identified adjacent to an aid distribution truck that got stuck in the area of Khan Younis, and in proximity to IDF troops operating in the area.”

The IDF said it was “aware of reports regarding a number of injured individuals from IDF fire following the crowd’s approach,” that “details of the incident are under review,” and that it “regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible to them while maintaining the safety of our troops.”

“They went to bring bread for their children, just bread or flour. They killed us in cold blood,” Abu Abed said.

Video from the scene in Khan Younis on Tuesday shows dozens of bodies lying on the ground, covered in blood.

The latest scenes of death, violence and desperation underline a grim existence for over 2.1 million people living in Gaza – which the United Nations has warned is edging closer to famine.

Humanitarian organizations say that aid currently entering the enclave is only a tiny fraction of what is needed, with the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – the main supplier of aid in Gaza – coming under global scrutiny since it opened its distribution points late last month.

Palestinians en route to GHF distribution sites have repeatedly been fired upon since its inception, according to the health ministry, with some 3,000 people injured in addition to the fatalities. On Tuesday, eight people were also killed after coming under Israeli fire near an aid distribution site west of Rafah, the ministry said.

The GHF, an Israeli-US backed private contractor, has been criticized by multiple international aid agencies for setting up its distribution centers amid active combat zones. The organization has repeatedly said there has been no violence at their sites. But the GHF acknowledged earlier this month that there have been Palestinian casualties in the surrounding areas, which the organization described as “well beyond our secure distribution site.” A spokesman referred further questions to the Israeli military.

On Tuesday, Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on X: “Israel has weaponized food and blocked lifesaving aid. I urge immediate, impartial investigations into deadly attacks on desperate civilians trying to reach food distribution centres.”

One of those killed in Khan Younis on Tuesday was a 20-year-old man, who had traveled there in hope of returning with food for his family.

Speaking through tears, his mother said: “He didn’t go for a picnic. He went to bring food for his siblings and father.”

Nearby, at Nasser Medical Complex, hospital staff said that the entire ward was crowded with casualties. Video from the hospital showed dozens of people arriving with wounds, with others inside the hospital waiting for treatment as they laid on the floor.

One intensive care doctor told Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), an aid organization based in the United Kingdom, that the hospital had received on Tuesday “a large number of injured and killed from the Israeli army’s targeting of aid distribution points in Khan Younis.”

“The situation here is catastrophic beyond imagination,” the doctor said, adding that the morgue was completely full and that additional bodies had been placed outside the building.

“We are trying our best, but the numbers are overwhelming,” he said.

A tip from a member of the public to a popular Italian television show led to the arrest on a Greek island of an American man suspected of murdering a baby girl and hiding her mother’s body in a busy park in Rome.

“On June 13, in Skiathos, police officers of the island’s police department, in collaboration with (Italian) state police… identified and stopped an American citizen, credibly suspected of the murder of a newborn and the concealment of her mother’s cadaver, whose lifeless bodies were found in Rome on June 7 inside Rome’s Villa Doria Pamphili Park,” Rome police prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi said in a statement Friday.

The body of the baby girl, thought by Italian state police to be between six and 10 months old, was found under bushes in a corner of Rome’s largest park on June 7.

A few hours later, a child playing in the park noticed an arm sticking out from under a black garbage bag, leading to the discovery of the naked body of a young woman, thought to be in her late 20s or early 30s.

DNA tests showed that the woman was the baby’s mother, police said in a press conference on June 11.

Initial autopsy reports were inconclusive in the cause of death of the woman, they said, adding that she had no visible wounds. The baby, whose stomach was empty, showed signs of strangulation.

Unable to identify the bodies, police released photos of the mother’s extensive tattoos. These tattoos were shown on June 9 on the popular missing persons TV show “Chi l’ha visto?” (“Who has seen him/her?”), which invited the public to call in with any information about the identities of the mother and child.

Several people came forward, including some who had seen the young woman and her baby in various soup kitchens in the city, and another who had witnessed an altercation between the woman and a man in a central square in Rome, according to witnesses featured in “Chi l’ha Visto.”

Police had been called to that incident and took the man’s details. No arrest was made at the time, but the information led to the man’s identification. The woman’s details were not taken at the incident.

Photos reported to be of the man, covered in blood from a head wound, sitting next to the woman and the baby also surfaced as a result of the TV appeal, as well as a photo of the man without the woman – with the clearly crying baby girl in his arms – talking to police just two days before the infant was found dead. The woman, whose body was in a more advanced state of decomposition than the baby’s, according to police, was not seen in the photo.

The United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation also helped by tracing the man’s credit and SIM cards, police said during a press conference in Rome on Friday following the arrest.

The Italian prosecutor’s office said it will seek the man’s extradition from Greece, which could take up to three weeks.