World leaders call for calm after Israel 'hits back' at Iran with targeted strike near nuclear facility

Israel on Friday retaliated against Iran with a limited air strike targeting the region housing the nerve centre of the Islamic state’s nuclear programme, as world leaders called on Iran and Israel to try to avoid escalating tensions.

One Iranian official played down the incident - which came on the 85th birthday of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - as a foreign “infiltration” that did not necessitate a response, seeming to lessen fears of all-out war.

Iranian media and officials described a small number of explosions, which they said resulted from air defences hitting three drones over the city of Isfahan in central Iran. 

Notably, they referred to the incident as an attack by "infiltrators", rather