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JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Wednesday that one of its drones had been downed while operating over Iran, the first such loss it has acknowledged since the start of hostilities last week.

An army statement said the drone had gone down in Iran after being hit by a surface-to-air missile.

“No injuries were reported and there is no risk of an information breach,” it added.

Iranian state television broadcast pictures of the wreckage of what it said was an armed Israeli Air Force Hermes drone in the central city of Isfahan.

The Israeli air force has been launching daily raids on Iran since last Friday, with the country targeting missile sites in particular along with other military and nuclear-related sites.

Military spokesman Effie Defrin insisted that Israel was “operating freely” over Iran with air strikes that have involved “dozens of aircraft of various types.”

“We will continue to strike anywhere within Iran that we choose. Yes, there is resistance, but we control the skies and will continue to maintain that control,” he told a televised press briefing on Wednesday.

The Israeli military said on Monday it had achieved “total air superiority in the skies over Tehran.”

More than 50 Israeli Air Force fighter jets carried out air strikes in the Tehran area on Wednesday morning, targeting a production facility for uranium enrichment centrifuges among other locations, according to an earlier statement from the military.

DUBAI: Former Iranian Economy Minister Ehsan Khandouzi has said that tankers and LNG cargoes should only transit the Strait of Hormuz with Iranian permission and this policy should be carried out from “tomorrow for a hundred days.”

It was not immediately clear whether Khandouzi was echoing a plan under the Iranian establishment’s consideration or sharing his personal opinion.

Tehran has long used the threat of blocking the narrow waterway as a means to ward off Western pressure, without acting on its threats. The stakes have risen since Israel launched an air war on Iran last week after concluding the latter was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. Iran maintains its nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes.

“This policy [of controlling maritime transit in the Strait]is decisive if implemented on time. Any delay in carrying it out means prolonging war inside the country,” Khandouzi posted on X on Tuesday.

Iran’s Oil Ministry and Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Khandouzi was economy minister until the summer of last year in the cabinet of late President Ebrahim Raisi and remains close to the Iranian establishment’s hard-liners.

The Strait of Hormuz lies between Oman and Iran and is the primary export route for Gulf producers such as ����ֱ��, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, and Kuwait.

About 20 percent of the world’s daily oil consumption – around 18 million barrels – passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which is only about 33 kilometers wide at its narrowest point.