Airport cratered in the morning, Mashhad, Iran rocked by massive blast in the afternoon. The week before, Karaj felt an “earthquake” and was darkened and Bandar Abbas port was left badly broiled; IDF summons “tens of thousands” of reservists for Gaza offensive and home front defense as tensions ramp up.

Sirens cut through the central Israeli blue-sky morning when a Houthi‑launched hypersonic ballistic missile slipped past the ineffectual responses of Arrow and US‑manned THAAD batteries and punched into the access road beside Ben‑Gurion Airport’s Terminal 3. “You can see the scene right behind us here, a hole that opened up with a diameter of tens of metres and also tens of metres deep,” police commander Yair Hetzroni told reporters as ambulances lifted eight lightly wounded civilians. Windows in the terminal shattered; jet bridges shuddered.

Inside the control tower supervisors halted landings for thirty‑five minutes while runway crews swept for shrapnel. Long‑haul carriers Lufthansa, Air India and Delta diverted inbound jets to Larnaca and Amman, and domestic Arkia captains waited on tarmac until clearance returned. Israel Airports Authority said twenty‑seven departures were delayed up to ninety minutes. Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree boasted the airport was “no longer safe for air travel,” prompting Defence Minister Israel Katz to vow, “Whoever harms us will be harmed sevenfold.” Why not seventyfold?

The strike coincided with a cabinet vote on expanding the Rafah ground offensive. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu postponed the session and signed an immediate Tzav 8 call‑up. The IDF confirmed “tens of thousands” of veterans received mobilisation texts, many reporting for what they say is their seventh stint in nineteen months. Rear‑Adm. Daniel Hagari said the fresh manpower would “reinforce both defensive arrays and the Gaza maneuvering effort.”

By noon Sunday uniformed reservists crowded the platforms at Tel Aviv’s Ha‑Hagana station, rifle bags stacked beside baby strollers. Finance Ministry officials estimate each thirty‑day reserve cycle costs about ₪3.4 billion in direct pay and lost productivity. Software engineer Eli Tamir, summoned again, shrugged, “Code can wait; rockets don’t.” Veterans’ groups warn of exhaustion, yet volunteer lines outside logistics bases stretched for blocks as civilians dropped off energy bars and clean fatigues.

Less than seven hours after the airport blast, a massive detonation rattled Mashhad in Iran’s northeast. Videos posted by Iran International showed an orange flash on the western fringe, followed by secondary pops and a tower of smoke. Local accounts spoke of brief power outages; state media offered silence. One activist messaged, “Phones jammed; they’ve cut mobile data.”

Saturday night’s mystery in Mashhad followed a confirmed explosion two days earlier at the Montazer Qaem thermal plant near Karaj, forty kilometres west of Tehran. Residents told Iran International they heard “a huge boom” moments before a 4.0‑magnitude tremor registered on the Tehran University seismograph. The quake plunged swathes of Alborz and western Tehran into darkness; metro trains stopped mid‑tunnel.

Engineers restored electricity within eight hours, yet drone images showed scorched transformers and a collapsed roof over the turbine hall. Iranian officials insisted outages were “due to bad weather,” and the Energy Ministry promised an “impartial investigation.” Western intelligence sources, however, hinted at sabotage timed to distract IRGC air‑defence drills.

The chain of Iranian disasters began on 26 April when a container of sodium perchlorate exploded inside Bandar Abbas’s Shahid Rajaei port, the country’s busiest gateway. Port worker Mohsen Azad, now in Hormozgan Hospital, recalled “a white flash, then hurricane heat.” At least seventy died and more than 1,200 were injured as successive blasts shredded cranes and warehouses. An IRGC affiliate told the New York Times that “a container of sodium perchlorate exploded at the port and triggered a series of fires.”

Satellite passes showed three wrecked berths and the charred freighters Golbon and Jairan—both sanctioned for shipping missile chemicals from China. Marine insurers raised Hormuz premiums five percent; Maersk rerouted east‑bound cargo via Jebel Ali. Hormozgan governor Mehdi Dousti insisted operations would be “fully operational within a week,” though skeletal cranes still leaned at drunken angles.

Inside Israel the Ben‑Gurion crater was patched within hours, yet air‑defence officers admit privately they are studying how the missile—believed to be a two‑stage “Tufan‑5” with a manoeuvring re‑entry vehicle—evaded interception. Arrow battery commander Col. Roy Elbaz told colleagues the warhead executed “a final‑minute high‑g pull‑up,” confounding the firing solution. Intelligence officials suspect Iranian advisers in Sana’a uploaded new flight profiles after telemetry from January’s failed strikes.

Washington condemned the airport strike as “an indefensible assault on civil aviation,” and CENTCOM fighters hit two Houthi radar sites near Al‑Hudaydah. Britain’s Foreign Office summoned Iran’s chargé d’affaires, urging Tehran to “rein in its clients.” Lufthansa said it would resume Tel Aviv service only after a new risk assessment, while Heathrow boards flashed red “security event” banners beside Israeli departures. EU maritime authorities issued advisories for Hormuz traffic amid fears of further blasts.

The confluence of the airport hit, Mashhad’s unexplained blast, the Karaj blackout and the Bandar Abbas inferno underscores what one Western diplomat called “a regional duel of nerves.” Israel is fortifying its home front and massing reserve armour; Iran is scrambling to patch critical infrastructure while projecting reach through proxies. As the diplomat put it: “Each side is prodding for advantage—one through missiles, the other through mystery fires.” For civilians beneath the arc of explosions, the duel is already dangerously real.