Israel killed more than 30 senior security officials and 11 senior nuclear scientists to deliver a major blow to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a senior Israeli military official said on Friday in summarizing Israel’s 12-day air war with Iran.

In the United States, an independent expert said a review of commercial satellite imagery showed only a small number of the approximately 30 Iranian missiles that penetrated Israel’s air defences managed to hit any militarily significant targets, Reuters reported.

“Iran has yet to produce missiles that demonstrate great accuracy,” Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at the CNA Corporation specializing in satellite imagery, told Reuters.

In Israel, the senior military official said Israel’s June 13 opening strike on Iran severely damaged its aerial defences and destabilised its ability to respond in the critical early hours of the conflict.

Israel’s air force struck over 900 targets and the military deeply damaged Iran’s missile production during the war that ended with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, the official said.

“The Iranian nuclear project suffered a major blow: The regime’s ability to enrich uranium to 90% was neutralized for a prolonged period. Its current ability to produce a nuclear weapon core has been neutralized,” the official said.

Iran, which denies trying to build nuclear weapons, retaliated against the strikes with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites and cities. Iran said it forced the end of the war by penetrating Israeli defences, read the report.

Iranian authorities said 627 people were killed in Iran, where the extent of the damage could not be independently confirmed because of tight restrictions on the media. Israeli authorities said 28 people were killed in Israel.

Eveleth, the independent U.S. expert, said Iran’s missile forces were not accurate enough to destroy small military targets like U.S.-made F-35 jet fighters in their shelters.

“Because of this the only targets they can hit with regularity are large cities or industrial targets like the refinery at Haifa,” he told Reuters.

Iranian missile salvos – which were limited by Israeli airstrikes in Iran – did not have the density to achieve high rates of destruction, he wrote on X.

“At the current level of performance, there is effectively nothing stopping Israel from conducting the same operation in the future with similar results,” he wrote.

In a statement on Friday, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he had directed the military to draft plans to safeguard air superiority over Iran, prevent nuclear development and missile production, and address Iran’s support for militant operations against Israel, Reuters reported.

Israel’s military Chief of Staff Lieutenant General, Eyal Zamir, said on Friday the outcome in Iran could help advance Israeli objectives against the Iranian-backed Palestinian militant Hamas group in the Gaza Strip.

Zamir told troops in Gaza an Israeli ground operation, known as “Gideon’s Chariots,” would in the near future achieve its goal of greater control of the Palestinian enclave and present options to Israel’s government for further action.

An explosive-laden car rammed into a Pakistani military convoy on Saturday in a town in North Waziristan district, killing at least 13 soldiers, Reuters reported citing sources.

Four Pakistani intelligence officials and a senior local administrator told Reuters that the convoy was attacked in Mir Ali area of North Waziristan district.

Around 10 other soldiers were wounded, some critically, and they were being airlifted to a military hospital, the sources said.

“It was huge, a big bang,” said the local administrator, adding that residents of the town could see a large amount of smoke billowing from the scene from a great distance.

One resident said that the explosion rattled the windowpanes of nearby houses, and caused some roofs to collapse.

No one has so far claimed responsibility.

The Pakistani military did not respond to a Reuters request for a comment.

The lawless district which sits next to Afghanistan has long served as a safe haven for different militant groups/

Islamabad says the militants run training camps in Afghanistan to launch attacks inside Pakistan, a charge Kabul denies, saying the militancy is Pakistan’s domestic issue.

Pakistani Taliban also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella group of several militant groups, has long been waging a war against Pakistan in a bid to overthrow the government and replace it with its own Islamic system of governance.

The Pakistani military, which has launched several offensives against the militants, has mostly been their prime target.

Mourners dressed in black lined streets in Iran’s capital Tehran at a funeral on Saturday for top military commanders, nuclear scientists and some of the civilians killed during this month’s war with Israel.

At least 16 scientists and 10 senior commanders were among those mourned at the funeral, according to state media, including armed forces chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Revolutionary Guards commander General Hossein Salami, and Guards Aerospace Force chief General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, Reuters reported.

Their coffins were driven into Tehran’s Azadi Square adorned with their pictures as well as rose petals and flowers, as crowds waved Iranian flags. State-run Press TV showed an image of ballistic missiles on display.

State TV said the funeral, dubbed the “funeral procession of the Martyrs of Power”, was held for a total of 60 people killed in the war, including four women and four children.

Attending the funeral were President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior figures including Ali Shamkhani, who was seriously wounded during the conflict and is an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Bagheri, Salami and Hajizadeh were killed on June 13, the first day of the war.

Israel, the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to have nuclear weapons, said its war against regional rival Iran aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.

Iran denies having a nuclear weapons program. The U.N. nuclear watchdog, which carries out inspections in Iran, has said it has “no credible indication” of an active, coordinated weapons programme in Iran.

A senior Israeli military official said on Friday that Israel had killed more than 30 senior security officials and 11 senior nuclear scientists during the war.

According to Iranian health ministry figures, 610 people were killed on the Iranian side in the 12-day war, 13 of them children and 49 women, before a ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday. More than 4,700 were injured.

Activist news agency HRANA put the number of killed at 974, including 387 civilians.

Israel’s health ministry said 28 were killed in Israel and 3,238 injured.