IDF kills thousands of Iranian regime forces with 6,500 bombs dropped in one week

IDF sources said on Saturday that the air force has killed thousands of Iranian regime forces, especially in its internal repression apparatus, with some of the 6,500 bombs it has dropped on the Islamic Republic.

The 6,500 bombs have blown past the 4,500 bombs Israel dropped in 12 days in June 2025 and are enhanced even more by the US Air Force striking over 3,000 targets, which is believed to be equal to or greater than the 6,500 Israeli bombs, given that Israel uses more bombs per target.

This comes amid one of the most significant strikes of the current war, as the IDF on Saturday night announced it had destroyed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force headquarters.

The role of the feared and notorious Quds Force has been to destabilize the entire region and foment pro-Shi’ite and anti-Sunni movements in several countries.

Another major role until the Israel-Hamas War was to build a “ring of fire” around Israel, including through Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, the West Bank, and other places.

The IRGC Quds Force took a major blow in 2020 when its chief, Qasem Soleimani – considered number two in power in Iran at the time to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – was assassinated by the US.

Since then, his predecessor, Esmail Qaani, has been viewed as less visionary and having less influence.

However, Qaani, who appears to be one of the highest Iranian military officials still alive, has still been a major force, directing terror against Israel on several fronts.

Qaani and the Quds Force can be said to be the most responsible Iranian bodies for Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, in terms of funding, logistics, and training, though they did not give a direct order to attack on that date.

Destroying the Quds Force headquarters marks another major shift in Iran’s threat capabilities post-war, regardless of whether the regime is toppled or not.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu affirmed that Israel and the United States had nearly achieved total control over Iranian airspace in a Saturday evening address to the nation.

He asserted that the military operations, in coordination with the US, came with understanding from US President Donald Trump regarding the magnitude of danger Iran posed not only to Israel but to the broader international community.

Netanyahu said, “As I promised two days after October 7, we are changing the face of the Middle East. But it’s not only the face of the Middle East; it’s also us. Our initiative and surprising actions are dramatically changing the balance of power between our enemy and us.”

The IDF’s declaration of the number of Iranian regime forces killed was a major announcement, as unlike on all other fronts over recent years, where the military has given a constant update of the numbers of enemy forces killed, no broad announcements on Iranian regime forces had been made until Saturday.

Until Saturday, IDF updates had flagged over 50 senior Iranian officials killed and many regime buildings bombed, but it was unclear if rank-and-file regime forces were being hit in significant quantities or mostly empty buildings.

The military’s numbers are still in flux, given that there is no large ground force present in Iran like there have been in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, but IDF sources estimated the numbers may be even higher than currently thought if hundreds of regime forces are buried under rubble.

Although even thousands are small in relative terms compared to the full scale of the IRGC, the Internal Security Ministry, and the Basij militia, IDF sources were hopeful that the numbers were large enough to start causing a significant desertion, which could possibly eventually pave the way for regime change.

Despite that optimism and tens of millions of ethnic Iranian minorities who hate the regime, most analysts view regime change as still an uphill battle, given the multiple complex trends currently at play in Iran and the vast numbers of regime supporters.

Meanwhile, although there was a spike in Iranian ballistic missile threat sirens on Saturday, sending millions of

Israelis into their safe rooms and bomb shelters throughout the day, the military said that it has destroyed 75% of Iran’s missile launchers.

The 75% number is a jump from 65% just two days ago, showing continued progress.

At the same time, IDF sources have not expressed any certainty about fully stopping Iranian missile fire in the near future.

A more modest hope may be to reduce missile fire sufficiently that the Islamic Republic no longer succeeds at causing casualties, more similar to Yemen’s Houthis’ missiles, which disrupted daily life from 2023 to 2025 but rarely caused casualties.

Further, military sources said that Saturday saw a continued drop in the number of missiles fired, from between 10 and 14, down from 100 on the first day of the war and 20-25 in recent days.

There were also no reported massive hits in Israel on Saturday, in contrast to the early days of the war when there were multiple such hits.

The IDF updated that over 200 ballistic missiles have been fired at Israel since the start of the war.

While the latest update said 80 missiles were fired on the first day, earlier top IDF sources had put the number at around 100. There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.

On the second day of the war, missile fire dropped to 60.

From the third day of the war onward, the latest IDF update said fewer than 20 missiles have been fired on Israel per day, though an earlier senior source had said the number was between 20 and 25.

There have been 3,100 residences damaged sufficiently to require evacuation.

There is still some confusion about how many missile launchers Iran had at the start of the war to fire their estimated 2,500 missiles.

Data collected by The Jerusalem Post would put the number at between 400 and 550 launchers.

This would mean that between 300 and 415 launchers have been neutralized, with an estimated half of those neutralized destroyed and half cut off from use, such as caving in their launch areas.

Hezbollah has also launched around 200 projectiles, including over 160 rockets and 43 drones, with 42 drones also launched from Iran.

IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Effie Defrin said that there is no clear coordination between Iran and Hezbollah regarding their aerial attacks but that they are trying to coordinate to some extent and have sometimes succeeded.

Defrin said that the military started the war targeting air defenses, top Iranian leaders, and ballistic missile sites, but then moved on to targeting a wider array of the missile apparatus and striking a wider range of regime forces and command centers.

A fleet of over 80 Israel Air Force fighter jets completed another wave of strikes targeting infrastructure belonging to the Iranian regime in Tehran, which included the IRGC Aerospace Force situation room, which was key to the air defense systems in Iran and was located in the heart of Tehran, the IDF announced early Saturday.

The strikes also targeted 16 aircraft belonging to the elite Quds Force that were being used to transfer weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the military said.

An earlier IDF statement said that several military sites were struck, including the main IRGC military university, Imam Hossein University, which was used for the training of IRGC officers and as an emergency asset, and, most recently, an IRGC assembly compound during Operation Rising Lion.

The military also revealed that it had struck sites in Parchin and Shahrud, the two main areas where the regime produces its ballistic missiles and additional weapons.

“Over the past week, hundreds of Israel Air Force fighter jets, acting on IDF intelligence, struck two of the Iranian terror regime’s main production sites,” the military said.

Among the targets were factories producing explosive materials for ballistic missile warheads, complexes producing unique raw materials for missile engines, a missile engine mixing and casting facility, and a complex used for the research, development, assembly, and production of advanced cruise missiles.

Tobias Holcman contributed to this story.