Israel’s military responded to an Iranian missile attack by conducting “precise strikes on military targets” in Iran early Saturday, a move that appeared to push the Middle East to a more dangerous and multi-front phase of conflict a year after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on the Jewish state.
“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,” Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. “Like every other sovereign country in the world, the State of Israel has the right and the duty to respond.”
Israel said its “defensive and offensive capabilities are fully mobilized.”
“We will do whatever necessary to defend the State of Israel and the people of Israel,” the Israeli military said in its statement.
In Washington, a senior administration official said the U.S. was notified in advance of the Israeli strikes but did not take part in the military operation.
“We understand that Israel is conducting targeted strikes against military targets in Iran as an exercise of self-defense and in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack against Israel on Oct. 1,” said Sean Savett, spokesman for the National Security Council.
He referred other questions to the Israeli government.
The White House said President Joe Biden has been briefed by his national security team on Israel’s military operations and is closely following the latest developments.
The scope of Israel’s attack was not immediately clear. Iran’s state TV said several strong explosions were heard around the capital Tehran. Semi-official Iranian media said explosions were also heard in the nearby city of Karaj.
The Tasnim news agency said that “nothing has been reported about hearing the sound of rockets or airplanes in the sky of Tehran so far”.
State TV cited unnamed Iranian intelligence officials as saying that the origin of the loud explosions “could be from the activation of Iran’s air defense system.”
The Israeli airstrikes also targeted some military sites in Syria’s central and southern parts, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
Syrian air defense forces intercepted missiles launched by Israel “from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights and the Lebanese territories” and shot down some of them, SANA added.
Earlier on Saturday, SANA reported explosions in the vicinity of Syria’s capital Damascus.
Israel’s operation came after Iran fired around 180 missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 in what Tehran described as a retaliation for Israel’s killing of Hassan Nasrallah and other top Lebanon-based Hezbollah leaders. Most of Iran’s missiles were intercepted with help from the U.S. military. A Palestinian man was killed in the West Bank.
An all-out war between arch-foes Israel and Iran has been threatened for decades.
But the two regional powerhouses have been caught in an escalatory spiral after Hamas attacked communities in southern Israel last year, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 251. Israel responded by launching a war in the Gaza Strip that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, laid waste to Gaza and sparked an uptick in military actions against Israel by groups that Iran trains, funds and supplies with weapons to promote its interests.
These groups, sometimes referred to as Iran’s “axis of resistance,” include Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Houthis rebels in Yemen and various Iraq-based militias. Among their shared interests with Iran are opposition to the state of Israel and a desire to drive western powers, chiefly U.S. troops, from the Middle East.
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Iran launched a barrage of more than 300 missiles and drones at Israel in April. With U.S. and western allies, Israel shot down almost all of them. Over the summer, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated by a bomb hidden in the wall of a government guest house in Tehran. Israel is believed to be behind the assassination.
Yahya Sinwar, the elusive leader of Hamas regarded as the mastermind behind group’s brutal attack on Israel last year, was killed last week during an Israeli military operation in Gaza. His body was found in the rubble of a building. DNA testing confirmed his identity.
In recent days Israel launched what it characterized as a “limited” ground operation inside Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure. Israel’s new strikes on Iran mean it is effectively fighting a war on multiple fronts against a web of non-state and state actors spread across four countries: Iran, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.
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Biden has ordered the U.S. military to aid Israel in its defense, a move that some national security experts believe risks pulling the U.S. into a war in the Middle East.
Rosemary Kelanic, Middle East director at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank that argues for a smaller global U.S. military footprint, said that surging more U.S. troops to the region recently has “only encouraged Israel’s brinkmanship and raised the risk of a war with Iran that serves no U.S. interest.”
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Kelanic said that “if the past 20 years of failed policy have taught us nothing else, conflict in the Middle East is quicksand. The more the U.S. fights it, the deeper we are drawn in.”
Contributing: Reuters
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel launches retaliatory military strikes in Iran
