Iran missile hit oil refineries in Haifa, 'no significant damage', says Israeli official

An Iranian missile strike targeted Israel’s northern port city of Haifa on Thursday, hitting oil refineries, though officials said the impact was limited.Israel’s Energy Ministry confirmed the attack but said that it did not cause major disruption, reported Reuters. Energy Minister Eli Cohen confirmed that electricity supply was briefly affected in parts of the north but was quickly restored. "The damage to the power grid in the north is localized and not significant," Cohen said. "Also, in the barrage towards the north, there was no significant damage to Israeli infrastructure sites." Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had targeted refineries in Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, as well as in Ashdod in the south, "along with a range of security targets and military support centres of the Zionist regime", which it said "were hit by pinpoint missiles".There was no immediate confirmation of a strike on the Ashdod facility.Israeli police said bomb disposal teams were deployed across multiple locations in Haifa where munitions landed, while no casualties were reported.Separately, the Israel ministry of environmental protection said debris from an intercepted missile had fallen in Haifa and was being examined as a potential hazardous materials incident.The Israel Electric Corporation said shrapnel from the strike damaged a power line in the area, triggering a temporary outage. Electricity was restored to all affected customers within about 45 minutes.The strike comes months after a previous Iranian missile attack on the Haifa refinery complex in June last year, which killed three people and forced a temporary halt in operations.