Israel is shutting its embassies around the world and has urged citizens to stay alert and not display Jewish or Israeli symbols in public places, statements posted on embassy websites said on Friday after Israel launched large-scale attacks on Iran.

The statements said Israel would not be providing consular services and urged citizens to cooperate with local security services if faced with hostile activity.

No timeframe was given for how long the embassies would be closed. A person picking up the phone at the embassy in Berlin gave no further details.

"In light of recent developments, Israeli missions around the world will be closed and consular services will not be provided," the statement said.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, said Germany was stepping up protection of Jewish and Israeli sites.

Visible security was increased outside the Great Synagogue of Stockholm, with a police van and car parked near the building, a Reuters witness said.

Earlier, Israel said it had attacked nuclear facilities and missile factories in Iran and had killed a swathe of military commanders in what could be a prolonged operation to prevent Tehran building an atomic weapon.

US President Donald Trump suggested that Iran had brought the attack on itself by resisting US demands in talks to restrict its nuclear programme, and urged it to make a deal, "with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal".

MSH

At least 34 people, including two babies were killed when a contraband fuel depot exploded into flames in southern Benin near the border with Nigeria on Saturday.

According to Beninese Interior Minister Alassane Seidou, “a serious fire occurred in the town of Seme Podji. Another 20 people were seriously wounded in the incident.”

"I can't really give you the cause of the fire, but there is a large gasoline warehouse here and cars, tricycles and motorcycles come from morning to evening,” he added.

Nigeria is a main oil and gas producer where fuel smuggling is very common along its borders, particularly when the government maintains a subsidy to keep fuel prices low.

The majority of the victims were burnt and they could not be not be identified.

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content here', making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).