Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that there were signs that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed in an attack on his compound as part of U.S.-Israeli strikes.

Two witnesses told AFP they heard an explosion and saw a plume of smoke rising from Dubai's famed man-made island The Palm, as Iran carried out retaliatory strikes in the Gulf following U.S. and Israeli attacks.

The death toll from an attack Saturday on a school in Iran's south has risen to 85, the judiciary said, after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on the Islamic republic.

"The number of martyrs at the girls' school in Minab has increased to 85," the judiciary's Mizan Online website quoted the area's prosecutor's office as saying.

Iraq's powerful pro-Iran group Kataeb Hezbollah warned Saturday it will start imminent attacks on U.S. bases after air strikes hit an Iraqi military base housing the group.

"We will soon begin attacking American bases in response to their aggression," the group said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia condemned Iranian attacks targeting its neighbors in a statement released by the kingdom’s official press agency Saturday, following a flurry of salvos across the Middle East as Israel and the U.S. bombed Iran.

"The kingdom strongly condemns and denounces in the strongest terms the brutal Iranian aggression and the blatant violation of the sovereignty of the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Qatar, the State of Kuwait, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan," said the statement.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday announced a major attack against Iran, vowing to "annihilate" its navy and missile sites and telling Iranians their "hour of freedom" had come from the Islamic republic.

In a video address after the United States and Israel started bombing Iran, Trump made clear that the goal was sweeping –- the toppling of the Islamic republic in charge since the 1979 revolution.

The United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday, with Israel's public broadcaster reporting that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been targeted, as the Islamic republic retaliated with barrages of missiles at Gulf states and Israel.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the ideological arm of the Islamic republic, said they had targeted the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, other American interests in the Gulf and Israel.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are engaged in efforts to halt deadly fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan, a source with knowledge of the talks told AFP on Friday.

The diplomatic drive comes as fears of a spiraling conflict grew after Pakistan bombed major cities in Afghanistan, declaring that they were in an "open war" with the Taliban.

The leading candidate to become Iraq's next prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, met with U.S. diplomat Tom Barrack on Friday after refusing to withdraw his nomination despite the U.S. threatening to stop supporting the country if he returns to the post.

Barrack, the U.S. envoy to Syria and ambassador to Turkey, has recently visited Iraq multiple times to meet with senior officials.

Israel's top court on Friday moved to allow international aid groups to keep operating in the Gaza Strip and other Palestinian territories as Israeli strikes killed at least five people across the war-torn enclave.

The Supreme Court's order, which followed a petition from 17 aid groups, effectively halted an earlier Israeli government decision that barred aid groups for refusing to comply with Israel's new rules.