The strikes destroyed air-defense systems set up to protect several critical oil and petrochemical refineries, as well as systems guarding a large gas field and a major port in southern Iran. Israel also struck military bases in the provinces of Tehran, according to Iran’s national air defense.

The satellite images from Planet Labs, taken in March and on Tuesday, show the Shahroud Space Center in Semnan Province, which belongs to Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Fabian Hinz, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies who has been tracking that site since 2017, said it was used to build solid-propellant rocket motors that can be used in space technology, but which are also commonly used for ballistic missiles.

American and Israeli officials have said that the attack was aimed particularly at Iran’s ability to make solid propellant for missiles. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech on Sunday that Israel had struck hard at Iran’s ability to produce missiles and had achieved all of its objectives.

Mr. Hinz said he had “high confidence” that the Shahroud facility was used in the mass production of intermediate-range ballistic missiles that could be used to target Israel. Comparing the images from March and from Tuesday, he said Israel had “bombed the central building, which was associated with solid-propellant rocket production.”

In recent years, the Revolutionary Guards have developed a missile development program separate from the Iranian armed forces’ program, Mr. Hinz said. The Shahroud facility contains infrastructure for a space program, but solid-propellant facilities are “inherently versatile” and can easily be adapted for making missiles, he said.

He said there were signs of missile production in the image from March, including the presence of crates for ballistic missile motors and many storage bunkers. “You don’t need so many storage bunkers for a space program,” Mr. Hinz said.

Joseph Bermudez, a senior fellow for imagery analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, also said that the facility’s design suggested it was used to make solid-propellant rockets for munitions.

Mr. Bermudez noted that the central building in the images was surrounded by a large, earthen berm, and that nearby buildings had similar, smaller embankments built around them — presumably for absorbing blasts — as well as bunkers.

Solid propellant is useful for weapons systems because it can be stored longer, and because rockets that use it can be launched more quickly than ones that rely on liquid propellant, Mr. Bermudez said.

Mr. Hinz said Israel’s strikes on Iran were limited in scope but “quite effective.” He said they appeared to have targeted key points in the production process in an attempt “to kick Iranian solid-propellant ballistic missile infrastructure out of production.”

Initial reports suggested that three of Iran’s four factories for missile production had been hit on Saturday, and though the extent of the damage was not yet clear, Mr. Hinz said he had seen enough to believe that the attack was “significant.”

Iran attacked Israel earlier this month, calling it a response to the July assassination of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which was widely attributed to Israel, as well as the killing of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike near Beirut in late September. An Iranian commander also died in that strike.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has the authority to order strikes on Israel. On Sunday, in his first public comments about Israel’s attack, he said its effects “should neither be magnified nor downplayed,” Iranian state media reported.

The statement suggested that another attack on Israel could be coming. Certainly, Israel was bracing for one.

Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the chief of staff of the Israeli military, said on Tuesday that if Iran struck again, “We will once again know how to reach Iran, with capabilities that we did not even use this time, and strike very, very hard at both their capabilities and locations.”

“This is not over,” he said. “We are still in the midst of it.”

David E. Sanger, Farnaz Fassihi and Cassandra Vinograd contributed reporting.

Tor Wennesland, the U.N.’s special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, told the Council that the laws passed by the Knesset in Israel on Monday “risk the collapse of UNRWA’s operations across the occupied Palestinian Territory and severely undermine humanitarian operations in Gaza, which rely on UNRWA.”

The dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, Mr. Wennesland added, was unraveling all prospects for a long-term solution to the conflict.

UNRWA is the bedrock agency for providing and distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza, and operates schools, vocational training centers and clinics there and in the West Bank.

Nearly every speaker at Tuesday’s Council session condemned the legislation, under which UNRWA would be unable to “operate any representative office, provide any service, or conduct any activity, directly or indirectly, in Israel’s sovereign territory.”

The legislation, most of whose provisions will not take effect for three months, also bars Israeli government agency officials from having contact with UNRWA or those operating on its behalf. It was passed in the Knesset with an overwhelming majority.

The call by Security Council representatives for Israel to reverse the decision demonstrated the growing frustration among U.N. member states toward Israel as the war in Gaza shows no sign of abating. More than 50 countries signed up to speak on Tuesday, causing the need for the session to continue on Wednesday to accommodate all those who wanted to voice their opposition.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said that the United States had “deep concerns” about the decision to ban UNRWA.

“We know that right now, there is no alternative to UNRWA when it comes to delivering food and other lifesaving aid in Gaza. Therefore, we have concerns about this legislation being implemented,” Ms. Thomas-Greenfield said.

France and Britain also urged Israel to reverse course.

France’s U.N. ambassador, Nicolas De Rivière, called on Israel to “respect its international obligations toward UNRWA and the United Nations” and said his country would continue to support the agency.

“We also unequivocally reject attempts to undermine or degrade UNRWA, which is the backbone of the humanitarian response in Gaza and a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of civilians there, and in the wider region,” said Barbara Woodward, Britain’s U.N. ambassador.

Israel has criticized UNRWA for decades, contending that its work aiding Palestinian refugees and their descendants perpetuated the longstanding territorial conflict with Israel. The Israeli government has accused a handful of the agency’s 13,000 employees in Gaza of participating in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel last year.

While Gaza is technically not under Israeli occupation, in the current state of war, access to the territory by aid groups and the ability to operate within it requires the permission and cooperation of Israel’s military. In the past month, little aid has crossed into northern Gaza, raising concerns that the estimated half a million people there face famine.

At Tuesday’s session, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, repeated Israeli allegations that UNRWA is a front for terrorists and Hamas operatives. Mr. Danon held up a photo of an Israeli citizen killed by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attack and accused UNRWA members of being responsible for killing and kidnapping Israeli civilians.

“These are not aid workers,” Mr. Danon said. “These are terrorists who turned UNRWA into an arm of Hamas.”

UNRWA has rejected the accusations, and both the U.N. and multiple countries that donate to UNRWA have said Israel has provided no evidence for its claims that Hamas had widely infiltrated the agency.

The United Nations conducted an investigation and found that fewer than 10 staff members had ties to Hamas and fired them. In September, a Hamas commander who was an employee of UNRWA was killed in an Israeli strike in Lebanon.

International aid agencies and rights groups also decried the Knesset’s UNRWA legislation. “The Bill passed in the Israeli Parliament is an unprecedented attack on a U.N. agency and, if implemented, would only worsen the humanitarian catastrophe,” the International Rescue Committee said in a statement.

“There is a safe haven for the virus in North Gaza, and that safe haven will remain if you don’t get all the children,” said Dr. Hamid Jafari, W.H.O.’s director of polio eradication for the eastern Mediterranean region.

If the virus circulates in northern Gaza, even those who are vaccinated — including Israeli soldiers or aid workers — could become infected at little risk to themselves, but might ferry the pathogen outside of Gaza. “That’s the risk,” Dr. Jafari said.

United Nations agencies are trying to estimate what percent of the partially immunized children in northern Gaza may come into Gaza City, and whether the conditions there will be conducive to a vaccination campaign. If 75 to 80 percent of the children end up in Gaza City, inoculations there could begin as early as next week, Dr. Jafari said.

Immunization rates in Gaza had hovered around 99 percent before the war but dropped to about 86 percent by mid-2024.

Aid agencies sought to start a vaccination campaign after traces of poliovirus were found in wastewater in July, and a 10-month-old boy was confirmed in August to be the first Gaza resident to be paralyzed by poliovirus in 25 years.

In September, temporary pauses in the war, agreed to by Israel and Hamas, allowed aid workers to immunize about 640,000 children under 10 who were at risk of the disease. The campaign began in central Gaza, moved to the south and ended in the northern area.

A second round of inoculations, intended to be given within six weeks after the first, proceeded in the central and southern regions, but renewed military activity made it impossible in the north.

In recent days, Israeli forces have pounded Jabaliya, a town in northern Gaza, killing dozens of people, according to a Palestinian emergency services group. It also struck a large residential building in Beit Lahia, killing dozens.

No U.N. aid has reached the north since early last week and telecommunications with the area were cut, so it was not possible to speak to U.N. staff who were trapped there, according to Juliette Touma, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, the U.N. agency that provides aid to Palestinians.

“It is impossible to vaccinate children when the skies are full of airstrikes and during a military campaign,” Ms. Touma said.

The Israel Defense Forces and COGAT, the Israeli agency that coordinates policy in Gaza and the West Bank, said in a statement on Friday that it was working to facilitate the administration of second doses to children in northern Gaza.

To halt the movement of the polio virus, at least 80 percent of the population must be fully protected, through either prior illness or vaccination.

The campaign in Gaza has relied on delivering two drops of an oral vaccine, which contains a weakened version of the poliovirus. The oral vaccine produces immunity in the intestines, where the virus replicates, and effectively stops the pathogen from spreading to others.

To prevent the virus from finding a foothold, ideally all children who need the vaccine would be immunized at once, Dr. Jafari said.

“When you do it everywhere, the virus has nowhere to go,” he added.

A single dose provides some protection from the virus, and a second dose would boost immunity in the intestines. It might also reach children who were missed the first time or who did not respond adequately to the first dose.

The laws are to go into full effect in 90 days, and will almost certainly create new hurdles for the agency, formally the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. The agency also works with Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Lebanon and Syria.

Legal scholars, diplomats and aid workers were assessing the new laws’ implications on Tuesday. What was clear was that they could create new diplomatic challenges for Israel, with several European governments condemning their passage and the United States — a top UNRWA funder — being on record against the measures.

Here’s a look at the laws and what might happen next.

What do the laws say?

The 120-seat Knesset passed two bills with overwhelming majorities late on Monday, the first day of its winter session.

The first effectively revokes UNRWA’s invitation, first extended in 1967, to operate within Israel. The legislation says that the foreign minister, Israel Katz, will notify the United Nations of this no more than one week after the bill’s passage. It says that “no Israeli government agencies or representatives may have any contact” with the agency.

It also instructs the foreign minister to write an order that effectively excludes UNRWA from the immunities and privileges that apply to other U.N. agencies, which include immunity from prosecution for its staff.

The second bill prohibits UNRWA from “operating any mission, providing any service or conducting any activity, either directly or indirectly, within Israel’s sovereign territory.” An explanatory note says that Israel will stop UNRWA’s activities within its territory. Passage of the laws ends the parliamentary process and effectively sets the 90-day clock ticking.

What is UNRWA’s mission?

UNRWA was set up in 1949 to assist Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, during which Israel declared itself a state. In the absence of any solution to the territorial conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the agency’s mandate has repeatedly been extended — the latest taking it to June 2026.

The agency is a major employer and provides health care, food, emergency loans, housing assistance and education for millions of Palestinians.

Why did the Knesset pass the laws?

For decades, the agency has been a target for some Israeli politicians who argue that its work on behalf of Palestinians further perpetuates the territorial conflict.

Those accusations sharpened in January, when the government accused a handful of the agency’s 13,000 employees in Gaza of participating in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel last year that triggered the war.

One member of the Knesset, Dan Illouz, said it was a “historic law,” and a “crucial measure in the global fight against terror.” UNRWA is “not an innocent humanitarian organization, as it pretends to be,” he said, adding that it “cooperates” with Hamas — a view that is shared by other supporters of the legislation and that is also widespread, though not universal, within Israeli society.

More than 230 UNRWA workers have been killed in Gaza during the war, the United Nations has said.

Ibrahim Dalalsha, director of the Horizon Center, a political analysis group in Ramallah, West Bank, argued that the legislation’s passage in part reflected the influence of the far right in Israeli politics, which is hostile to any two-state solution.

How will the laws be applied?

At first glance, the laws aim to stop UNRWA from operating in its “sovereign territory,” which to Israelis includes East Jerusalem, an area it annexed in 1967 in a move that many other countries do not recognize as legal. But proponents made clear that the laws also intend to keep UNRWA from functioning in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

How the laws are implemented may depend on several factors. And their constitutionality could be challenged in the country’s courts.

The legislation also leaves many details unaddressed, including precisely how it should be put into effect and what the penalties would be for violations. That creates potential space for the government to tailor its implementation.

“The legislative process is over, but the way that the laws are drafted leaves room for interpretation and for the government to decide how to implement them,” said Eran Shamir-Borer, the director of the Israel Democracy Institute’s Center for Security and Democracy.

“Under Israeli constitutional law, to the extent possible, parliamentary legislation should be interpreted in such a way that it coincides with Israel’s international legal obligations,” he said, adding that nothing in the language of the legislation itself contradicted international law.

How will the legislation affect UNRWA?

UNRWA said on Tuesday that the legislation carried “no implications at the immediate level,” apparently referring to the 90-day window before most of the provisions go into effect, and that the agency would continue its work.

“Across the region, we continue business as usual,” said Juliette Touma, a spokeswoman for the agency. “We will not abandon the people who depend on us for sheer survival.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on social media on Monday that it was essential that “sustained humanitarian aid” remain available in Gaza. He gave no details of how that should be accomplished. But Mr. Netanyahu’s office released a statement saying that the government was ready to work with “our international partners to ensure Israel continues to facilitate humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not threaten Israel’s security.”

Aid agencies accuse Israel of severely restricting the amount of aid that comes into Gaza, something Israel denies. They also say that there are no ready alternatives to UNRWA’s network of staff, know-how and command of logistics.

A joint statement on Sunday from several countries, including Japan, Britain and South Korea, said that UNRWA and other U.N. organizations needed to be able to deliver humanitarian aid to those in need.

Humanitarian agencies fear the worst. Amnesty International, for example, said that the legislation would be catastrophic and that it would effectively be a “death sentence” for civilians in Gaza who rely on the aid.

What is the diplomatic fallout?

Several European governments immediately criticized the legislation. Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain reminded Israel that it had international obligations to ensure that sufficient aid reached civilians in Gaza.

A special session of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday was dominated by criticism of the Israeli move, including from Israeli allies. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said that “we have concerns about this legislation being implemented,” saying that “right now, there is no alternative to UNRWA when it comes to delivering food and other life-saving aid in Gaza.”

The Biden administration has clearly opposed the bills. Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken expressed deep concern about the bills in a letter to senior Israeli officials, warning that failure to allow the delivery of aid to Gaza could trigger a cutoff of U.S. military support. The letter urged the officials to take all possible steps, including using the authority of the prime minister’s office, to ensure that the legislation did not come to pass.

But the full force of the laws will come after the U.S. presidential election and the inauguration of the winner, scheduled for Jan. 20, 2025. It could thus fall to the new president to determine the U.S. stance on application of the laws.

The United States has long been one of the largest funders of UNRWA. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, has expressed strong support for Israel’s self-defense but also profound concerns about civilian suffering in Gaza. Former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee, recently accused President Biden of trying to hold back Mr. Netanyahu in his wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In 2018, as president, Mr. Trump stopped all U.S. funding for UNRWA, which his Democratic successor, Mr. Biden, restored in 2021.

Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.

Israel’s military has said that its operation in Lebanon is targeting Hezbollah’s military infrastructure. On Tuesday, Israel’s military said its forces had engaged in “joint aerial and ground operations” against “terror infrastructure sites” in Lebanon, but it did not mention the Bekaa Valley.

While Israeli airstrikes have rained down across the valley over the past month, residents described the barrage of strikes on Monday night and Tuesday morning as the most intense they had experienced. The strikes also hit within the city of Baalbek — an urban center that has been largely spared in Israel’s recent air campaign — stoking unease that a rare pocket of relative safety in the district was no longer.

“They were the most powerful strikes we’ve had here,” said Ibrahim Bayan, a deputy of the mayor of Baalbek city. “We thought the strikes wouldn’t stop until they had leveled all of Baalbek.”

At around 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Mr. Bayan began to hear the thud, thud, thud of airstrikes raining down on the hills surrounding the city, he said. Then at around 7 p.m., his house shook and some of his windows shattered after strikes hit within the city limits. Mr. Bayan said he had barely slept the rest of the night as the booms of strikes and the roar of ambulance sirens echoed across the city.

At Rayak Hospital, a private facility in the Bekaa Valley, patients began flooding into the emergency room soon after the strikes began on Monday night, according to the hospital’s director.

“It was one of the most difficult nights not just for the hospital, but for everyone here,” said the director, Dr. Ali Abdallah.

As dawn broke and the barrage ended on Tuesday morning, residents in Baalbek ventured out of their homes to size up the destruction: Within the city, the strikes had leveled several buildings around Gouraud Barracks, an old French military base that has been used as a residential neighborhood since the end of Lebanon’s civil war in 1990 and is situated near the city’s ancient Roman ruins. At least nine people living in Gouraud were killed, officials said.

Mr. Bayan said that residents in Gouraud had received evacuation orders from the Israeli military last week. Some residents opted to stay after receiving the warning. Others left and then returned, assuming the area was safe a week after the warning was issued.

Hezbollah began firing on Israeli positions in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel last year. Israel ramped up its attacks on Hezbollah last month, killing and injuring many of its leaders and fighters and drawing Lebanon into a broader war.

The Bekaa Valley had been largely spared in the tit-for-tat strikes between Israel and Hezbollah over the past year. But since the conflict intensified and expanded to eastern Lebanon, around 70 percent of residents in Baalbek have fled the city, turning the once bustling urban center into a ghost town, according to Mr. Bayan. The strikes on Monday night rattled the few who remained, he added.

“Most people have no idea what to do with themselves,” Mr. Bayan said. “Those who have money already left. Those who can’t afford to go anywhere have stayed. Now they are just surviving on hope.”

A Hezbollah statement said Mr. Qassem had been chosen by the group’s Shura Council, a senior leadership body, “in adherence to the principles and goals of Hezbollah.” It did not say how many members took part in the process or whether there had been any other contenders.

Mr. Qassem now must lead his battered organization through tremendous challenges. Israel is committed to pushing the group’s forces and military infrastructure away from the Lebanon-Israel border and has destroyed some of its tunnels and bunkers, as well as many of its most sophisticated munitions.

Israel’s extensive bombing of communities near Beirut and in southern and eastern Lebanon where Hezbollah held sway has displaced more than a million people, most of them Shiite Muslims who have long looked to the group for protection and social services. Caring for them now is a struggle, and it is unclear how the party will rebuild their communities after the war ends.

Mr. Qassem has been Hezbollah’s primary voice since the killing of Mr. Nasrallah, appearing in video addresses from undisclosed locations. While he has hinted that Hezbollah is open to diplomacy aimed at ending the war, he has indicated no broader shift in the group’s direction, pledging that its fighters were ready to battle the Israeli troops invading southern Lebanon.

“We will confront any possibility, and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land,” he said last month. “The forces of the resistance are ready for a ground engagement.”

Hezbollah began firing on Israeli positions in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel last year. Israel ramped up its attacks on Hezbollah last month, killing and injuring many of its leaders and fighters and drawing Lebanon into a broader war.

As the leader of Hezbollah, Mr. Qassem will have a key role in truce negotiations and may have to decide if Hezbollah will accept a cease-fire for Lebanon that is not linked to a similar agreement in Gaza. For the past year, Hezbollah has said it would stop fighting only when Israeli attacks on Gaza stopped, too.

Mr. Qassem was born in 1953 in Beirut and has been involved with Hezbollah since its formation, with Iran’s support, in the early 1980s. In 1991, under a previous secretary general, Abbas al-Musawi, Mr. Qassem was appointed the group’s deputy leader.

After Israel killed Mr. al-Musawi in 1992, Mr. Nasrallah was elevated to the top position and Mr. Qassem remained the deputy. He has never had the towering stature among Hezbollah supporters in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East that Mr. Nasrallah did.

In 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Mr. Qassem because of his role in Hezbollah, which Israel, the United States and other countries consider a terrorist organization.

The Israeli military said in response to questions about the strike that it was aware of reports that civilians were harmed and was looking into them. Israeli troops were “conducting targeted operations and making efforts to avoid causing harm to uninvolved civilians,” it said, adding that the military had earlier evacuated the area, which it called “an active combat zone.”

Matthew Miller, a U.S. State Department spokesman, called the strike “a horrifying incident with a horrifying result” and noted that many of the children reportedly killed had most likely fled strikes in other parts of Gaza. He said the Biden administration had contacted the Israeli government to ask what happened.

Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza, said on Monday that more than 100,000 Palestinians remained “under siege” in Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia — the three areas main areas of northern Gaza where Israeli troops have been waging a renewed offensive over the last few weeks.

The Israeli military, formally known as the Israel Defense Forces, has said it is trying to stem a regrouping of Hamas, which attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, starting the war in Gaza. The military has repeatedly bombarded Beit Lahia.

“What’s happening in Beit Lahia is happening in many other places in northern Gaza,” said Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer. “The I.D.F. is detecting Hamas infrastructure there and attacking it.”

But while the intensity of Israel’s military operation in northern Gaza appeared to be more severe than past ground maneuvers in the area, Mr. Milshtein said, it was an extension of Israel’s failed approach to fighting the war — one in which its forces have fought Hamas before withdrawing only to return to the same places months later after the group’s militants have re-established themselves.

“It’s unbelievable,” Mr. Milshtein said. “When are we going to learn?”

Gaza health officials said that after a strike on a residential building in Beit Lahia on Oct. 20, 87 people were killed or missing; that toll was disputed by Israel’s military, which said the numbers from Gaza officials did not align with its initial assessment.

“Today’s attack on children has become an outrageous norm in Gaza, where, on average, more than 67 children are killed or injured every single day,” said Catherine Russell, the executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund, in a statement condemning the strike in Beit Lahia. “Children in Gaza are paying with their lives and their futures,” she added.

On Sunday, the civil defense said that dozens of people had been killed and wounded in Beit Lahia over the weekend in Israeli strikes. Israel’s military said it had carried out a “precise strike” targeting Hamas fighters.

Some of those injured in the latest strike were being taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, according to Wafa. The hospital was stormed by the Israeli military in a three-day raid that ended on Monday, during which Palestinian health officials said nearly all of the medical workers at the complex were detained or expelled. The facility is one of the last functioning hospitals in the area.

The civil defense said its ability to respond to emergencies and carry out rescues has been hampered in the past week by the Israeli offensive.

António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, said in a statement on Monday that he was “shocked by the harrowing levels of death, injury and destruction” in northern Gaza and that Israel was turning away efforts to deliver humanitarian supplies, putting lives in danger.

Gabby Sobelman and Adam Rasgon contributed reporting.

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., directed part of his own comments to the Council at Iran, saying: “This is the last warning. Israel has shown restraint, but from now on you will only see strength. Any further aggression will be met with powerful and swift action.”

The Council meeting was requested by Iran, with the support of Russia and China — close allies of Iran — and Algeria, the only Arab country currently holding a seat at the Council.

Diplomats and senior U.N. officials urged both sides to stand down from the cycle of tit-for-tat attacks, which risk further destabilizing the region and expanding into a regional war.

“Belligerent and threatening rhetoric must cease,” Khaled Khiari, an assistant U.N. secretary general, told the Council. “Both sides must stop testing the limits of each other’s restraint and act in the interest of peace and stability for the region.”

On Saturday, Israel carried out a series of airstrikes on Iran, targeting more than a dozen sensitive sites, including air defense for the capital Tehran, critical energy and oil sites and missile-developing bases. The strikes killed at least four army soldiers who were manning the air defense systems, according to Iran’s military.

The Israeli strikes came in response to an Iranian attack in early October, in which Iran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel to avenge the killing of the leaders of two militant groups it backs — Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — as well as the killings of Iranian military commanders. Iranian officials have blamed the United States for providing support and assistance to Israel in the wars in Gaza and Lebanon and in attacks on Iran, and Mr. Iravani called Washington “complicit” in the Saturday strikes on Iran.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to U.N., denied that accusation. “The United States did not participate in this military operation,” she said, but acknowledged that the United States had “encouraged” Israel to make its retaliation targeted and proportional.

She stressed that the United States did not want the hostilities to escalate any further. “We believe this should be the end of the direct exchange of fire between Israel and Iran,” she said.

In several cities in Iran on Monday, funerals were held for the four soldiers who died in the Israeli attack. Their coffins were draped in Iran’s flag and covered in flowers, with uniformed soldiers serving as pallbearers. Grieving families said the soldiers had lost their lives honorably in the defense of their country, according to video broadcast on state television.

Iran appears to still be assessing the damage from the strikes and publicly downplaying their significance and scope. Iran’s minister of defense, Amir Aziz Nasirzadeh, told Iranian media on Monday that “Israel’s damages were minimal, and we immediately made repairs and replacements.”

At the Security Council on Monday, China and Russia strongly condemned Israel, saying it had violated Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. They joined a chorus of condemnations from countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey.

“Israel is trying tooth and nail to draw Iran into confrontation,” Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s ambassador to the U.N., told the Council. “And Iran is showing exceptional, for such circumstances, restraint.” He accused Israel of violating international law in its attack on Iran and recklessly destabilizing the region.

Iran has been stressing its international backing in the wake of the Israeli strikes. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told Iranian media on Monday that his country was pleased with the flow of diplomatic support that followed the attack. He said Iran’s strategy in confronting Israel had two fronts: “diplomacy and the battlefield.”

On Monday, he said on social media that the court’s oversight body had “closed” the matter in May without an investigation because no complaint had been made. He added that the “alleged aggrieved person” had declined the option of an investigation, either internal or external.

Mr. Khan is seeking an inquiry into the accusations against him and how the information was made public, calling the claims “disinformation” and saying news reports about them had breached court confidentiality. He said he had asked that the “inquiry be set up and permitted to do its work without interference” so that the “crucial work” of the prosecutor’s office could continue unimpeded.

But the accusations against Mr. Khan could cast a shadow on his efforts to obtain arrest warrants for the Israeli government’s most prominent figures, an endeavor that some believed was already fraught.

In May, Mr. Khan set off a firestorm of criticism in Israel, the United States and Britain when he sought arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and its defense minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as for Hamas leaders Israel identified as being behind the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that ignited the war. Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, accused the prosecutor of equating Israel with Hamas, which he said was “shameful.”

The three Hamas leaders for whom Mr. Khan sought warrants — Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Muhammad Deif — have all since been killed by Israel.

Israel has argued in filings to the court that the tribunal does not have jurisdiction over its officials. Separately, it has argued that it has not been given the chance to show that its own institutions can address any accusations internally, as the court’s processes require. Israel, like the United States, is not a party to the statute that created the I.C.C., which has a mandate to investigate and prosecute war crimes and genocide.

On Thursday, Paivi Kaukoranta, the president of the court’s oversight body, the Assembly of States Parties, confirmed that his organization had been made aware of the allegations against Mr. Khan by “a member of his office.” She said that the court “seeks the consent of any alleged victim of misconduct before proceeding with an investigation” but “was not in a position to proceed” with one after its conversation with accusing party.

Ms. Kaukoranta added that “the court has a zero-tolerance policy” when it comes to misconduct, “including sexual harassment, discrimination and abuse of authority,” and that she remained in contact with all parties.

The accusations against Mr. Khan have armed his critics. Some, including the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, have suggested that the prosecutor rushed his warrant requests in an effort to save his job after the allegations against him were made. Supporters of Mr. Khan, by contrast, say he is now being smeared because he sought the warrants.

Much of the material in the filing has already been widely reported or documented but it also offers new exhibits, according to lawyers close to the case, which throw more light on Gaza’s plight since the deadly Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel last year and Israel’s continuing military response.

Lawyers familiar with the case said that dozens of researchers and lawyers had worked for months on South Africa’s submission, and that it addressed the razing of most of the Gaza Strip, the suffering and killing of its civilians and the statements made by Israeli political and military leaders about their plans.

South Africa’s filing is meant to remain confidential until oral hearings are held next year, but it will be available to Israel and to the other countries that have joined South Africa’s complaint.

Israel will have several months to challenge the filing in writing. Israel is expected to do, although it has denounced the proceedings as illegitimate.

Included in the new materials submitted to the court is an 827-page report that was made public this weekend by Forensic Architecture, an investigative group based at Goldsmiths, University of London, and led by the Israeli-British architect Eyal Weizman.

The report says its researchers used multiple methods, including satellite and remote-sensing images, to assess the scale and methods of the destruction in Gaza, including of its medical, religious, civilian and agricultural infrastructure.

The report’s purpose is plain: Its interactive platform is called: “A Cartography of Genocide.”

Lawyers say that genocide is among the most difficult crimes to prove in international law because it requires demonstrating the specific intent to destroy a group, “in whole or in part,” something that Israeli leaders have persistently denied is their intent in Gaza.

But some experts point to a sentence from the United Nations’ genocide convention that forbids “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

The Forensic Architecture report hews closely to that wording, stating that “our findings indicate that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is organized, systematic, and intended to destroy conditions of life and life-sustaining infrastructure.”

Months of arguments lie ahead.

The International Court of Justice, which deals with disputes between nations, has been the principal legal venue for denouncing the horrors of Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack and the events in the year since.

South Africa filed its case accusing Israel of genocide late last year. Since then, the court has issued three emergency rulings, warning Israel to avoid genocide and to allow more food and medicine and life essentials into the Gaza Strip and to stop its attacks on civilians. But it has not begun to address the question of whether Israel has violated the U.N.’s genocide convention, which is at the heart of the case.