Israel has said it has launched direct airstrikes against military targets in Iran, a retaliation that could bring the Middle East closer to a full-scale regional war.
The Israel Defense Forces said it had completed its air attack on Saturday morning, hitting missile and drone manufacturing sites and aerial defences in several areas in Iran. Israel’s public broadcaster said three waves of strikes had been carried out.
Iranian air defences said that Israel attacked military targets in the provinces of Tehran, Khuzestan and Ilam and that “limited damage” was caused to some locations.
Footage broadcast by local media showed air defences continuously firing at apparently incoming projectiles in central Tehran, without saying which sites were coming under attack.
The official news agency IRNA reported that two soldiers had been killed. “The army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in defending Iran’s security and protecting the people and Iran’s interests, sacrificed two of its fighters while countering projectiles from the criminal Zionist regime,” the statement said.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency said, citing sources: “Iran reserves the right to respond to any aggression, and there is no doubt that Israel will face a proportional reaction for any action it takes.”
A senior US official described the strikes as “extensive” and “precise” against military targets across Iran. The US did not take part in the strikes, the official said, but worked with the Israeli government to encourage a low-risk attack with no civilian harm. “The effect was a proportionate self-defence response. The effect is to deter future attacks and to degrade Iran’s abilities to launch future attacks,” they said.
The official stressed that the US considered the operation to be an “end to the exchange of fire between Israel and Iran”.
At least seven explosions were reported over the capital, Tehran, and nearby Karaj as well as over the eastern city of Mashhad at 2.30am local time on Saturday, with the attack lasting about four hours. Air defence systems were activated around the country.
Iranian media initially appeared to play down the airstrikes, airing footage of Tehran’s airport operating normally. There was no immediate official comment from Tehran about the source of explosions, which Iranian news outlets reported were under investigation.
In a statement, the IDF for the first time acknowledged the attack on Iran, in a confirmation that the decades-old shadow war between the states has now moved into the open. Dozens of fighter jets were involved in the operation, codenamed Days of Repentance, and all returned to their bases safely, the military said.
In a statement posted to X, the IDF said: “In response to months of continuous attacks from the regime in Iran against the state of Israel – right now the Israel Defense Forces is conducting precise strikes on military targets in Iran.”
Saturday’s attacks were widely expected as a retaliation to a missile barrage launched by Iran on 1 October in which an estimated 180 ballistic missiles were fired towards Tel Aviv and military bases. Tehran said the unprecedented salvo was carried out in support of its Lebanese ally Hezbollah after Israel’s ground invasion, as well as in response to the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s leader, in the Iranian capital in July.
While most of the missiles were shot down, dozens managed to strike the Nevatim airbase, demonstrating that Iran could at least partially penetrate Israel’s hi-tech air defence systems at some of its most strongly protected sites. One person was killed in the occupied West Bank.
The US president, Joe Biden, had said that Israel should not target Iranian nuclear or oil facilities, in an effort to prevent an escalation of the conflict that could lead to a direct war.
Miscalculation could propel Iran and Israel into full-scale hostilities; the US, Israel’s staunch ally and main arms supplier, is wary of being drawn into the fighting and of negative impacts on the global oil industry.
Before Israel launched the airstrikes on Saturday, Iran had repeatedly warned there were “no red lines” for Iran on the issue of defending itself. Last week, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, also indirectly threatened US forces against operating in Israel after Washington dispatched a Thaad advanced missile defence system battery and 100 troops to aid its ally amid the tensions.
However, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander hinted on Thursday that Tehran would be unlikely to retaliate further if Israel’s attack was considered “limited” and did not cause casualties.
The US news outlet Axios reported on Saturday that US and Israeli officials assess that Iran will respond militarily, but in a limited fashion. It also said that Israel had conveyed a message to Iran on Friday warning the Iranians not to respond.
There has been no change to the Israeli Home Front’s guidance for civilians, suggesting that an Iranian retaliation is not expected to be imminent.
In the statement on Saturday, Israel’s military said the attacks were a retaliation for a number of attacks against Israel, including the 7 October 2023 raid by the Iran-allied Palestinian group Hamas, in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 abducted.
Israel responded by launching the war in the Gaza Strip, which has devastated the region and killed at least 42,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas health ministry. Israel has also launched aerial and ground operations in Lebanon against Hezbollah, another powerful militia in Tehran’s “axis of resistance”, after a year of tit-for-tat cross-border fire that displaced hundreds of thousands of people on both sides of the border. The fighting in Gaza has drawn in other Iranian proxies operating in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
The IDF statement read: “The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since October 7th – on seven fronts – including direct attacks from Iranian soil. Like every other sovereign country in the world, the state of Israel has the right and the duty to respond.”
Israel is fearful of a costly war of attrition with Iran while it is already fighting ground operations in two different theatres. After Tehran fired its first ever direct salvo at Israel in April in retaliation for the killing of a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander in Syria, Israel heeded western calls for restraint, striking an air defence battery at an Iranian airbase.
Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said this week that enemies would “pay a heavy price” for trying to harm Israel.
The White House was notified shortly before Israel carried out airstrikes on Iran, a spokesperson said, and the president, Joe Biden, was closely following developments. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, had said on Wednesday that Israel’s retaliation should not lead to greater escalation.
“We understand that Israel is conducting targeted strikes against military targets in Iran as an exercise of self-defence and in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack against Israel on October 1st,” said Sean Savett, the White House national security council spokesperson.
State media in Syria also reported Syrian air defences had intercepted “hostile targets” and “sounds of explosions” near the capital city, Damascus, on Saturday.
