Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel on Tuesday night, hours after Israeli forces launched a ground offensive against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, as the country moves closer to full-scale war.
The Israeli military said about 180 missiles had been fired from Iran into Israel since the attack began at around 7:30 p.m. local time, forcing millions of people to flee to evacuation centers.
Sirens rang across the country as interceptor missiles were fired at Iranian projectiles.
“This attack will have consequences,” Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said. “We have a plan and we will operate at the places and times we decide.”
“We made a number of interceptions,” Hagari added. “There were several incidents in the center of the country and other parts of the south,” he said, adding that the military had no casualties.
The Iranian attack, which came with little warning, marked a major escalation in tensions between Iran and Israel, which has recently stepped up attacks on Tehran’s proxies, particularly Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it launched dozens of ballistic missiles into Israeli airspace in retaliation for the assassinations of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and a senior Guards commander in Beirut last week.
The Guard said the attack was also in response to what appeared to be an Israeli attack that killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.
The report noted that the decision to launch the missile attack was approved by Iran’s Supreme Council for National Security, chaired by President Masoud Pezeshkian, and said: “Defense and Aerospace Forces targeted the heart of the occupied territories.” .
“This is after a period of restraint… following the escalation of the Zionist regime’s aggressive actions,” he said, warning that any Israeli response would lead to “catastrophic” attacks against domestic targets. .
Iran subsequently announced that all flights to and from Tehran International Airport were cancelled.
In Washington, US President Joe Biden convened an emergency meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris and his national security team to discuss the attack.
Biden directs US military to ‘help Israel defend against Iranian attack’ [and] “We will shoot down missiles targeting Israel,” the White House said.
Hours earlier, US officials had warned that Iran was “immediately preparing a ballistic missile attack against Israel.”
Brent crude oil, the international benchmark oil price, fell on the day after the first missile alert was reported, but rose 5.2% to $75.39 a barrel on Tuesday. Gold prices also rose.
The Iranian attack is likely to provoke a strong Israeli response and came with much less notice than the previous barrage in April.
Tehran fired more than 300 missiles and drones at Israel in a telegraph attack, but the damage was limited. The United States and its allies helped defend Israel and intercepted most of the projectiles. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government retaliated with a coordinated missile attack on a base near the Iranian city of Isfahan.
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stepped up his rhetoric against Tehran in recent weeks. He warned Iran on Monday that “there is no place in the Middle East that Israel cannot reach.”
Tuesday’s Iranian attack came hours after Israel ramped up operations against Iran-backed Hezbollah after launching ground attacks in Lebanon and a wave of devastating airstrikes against the militant group.
In the past two weeks, Israel assassinated Nasrallah, carried out a bombing campaign that killed more than 1,000 people in Lebanon, and moved troops across the border.
Israel characterized the invasion of Lebanon as a “limited, localized and targeted ground assault” against Hezbollah in the country’s south.
The aim is to make northern Israel safe so that around 60,000 people displaced by Hezbollah rocket attacks can return home.
The regional escalation has also been accompanied by an intensification of Israeli rhetoric, with officials talking about “defeating” Hezbollah and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week pledging to “change the long-standing balance of power in the region.”
As the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip eases, Israeli forces are stepping up attacks on Iranian proxies in the region.
Iranian leaders have repeatedly said they do not want to become drawn into a broader Middle East war, adding that the Islamic Republic will not fall into what they term an Israeli “trap.”
But with its most important proxy, Hezbollah, having suffered a crushing blow from Israel and appearing weak domestically and regionally, the Tehran regime decided to risk a direct attack on the Jewish state. .
The United States has deployed additional troops since Israel assassinated Nasrallah on Friday and stepped up its bombing campaign against Lebanon. There are approximately 40,000 troops in the region.
Also on Tuesday, six people were killed and several others injured in a shooting near a light rail station in Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv, which Israeli police said was the work of “terrorists.”
Police said the gunmen had been “neutralized.”
Additional reporting by Raya Jalabi in Beirut, Mehul Srivastava in Tel Aviv and Rafe Uddin in London
