Israel launches airstrikes on Iran in fresh escalation

Israel launched airstrikes on targets across Iran early Saturday, fulfilling its promise to retaliate for a missile barrage three weeks ago and fanning fear of open conflict between the two longtime adversaries.

Numerous explosions were reported across Tehran in what appeared to be a first wave of strikes. More than an hour later, Israel’s Channel 12 reported more strikes in the city of Shiraz and said dozens of fighter jets were involved. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

“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,” the Israeli military said in a statement. Israel had the “right and duty” to respond to Iran’s attacks, it said.

The early-morning strikes met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise to strike back after Iran fired about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Oct. 1. The Islamic Republic said that attack was a reprisal for a string of Israeli attacks on the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, which is Tehran’s most important proxy group and is deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S.

The tit-for-tat strikes fanned fears of a direct and open conflict between Israel and Iran. The U.S. and its allies said for weeks that Israel had the right to defend itself but had worked behind the scenes to keep Israel from launching an attack that would set off a wider war.

The latest attack unfolded a day after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken left the Middle East, where he made a renewed U.S. push for a cease-fire in Gaza and sought to exert fresh influence on Israel to temper its response to Iran. The Biden administration had worried that an assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be an unacceptable escalation and attacking the country’s oil infrastructure would roil global energy markets.

President Joe Biden was briefed on the Saturday morning airstrikes and was monitoring developments. The Israeli government advised the U.S. of its plans in advance, according to a person familiar with the matter. But the U.S. military wasn’t involved, another official said.

“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 October 1st,” National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement.

Last month, Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an airstrike on Beirut. That came after days of intense bombing that killed several of the organization’s commanders. In the weeks since, Israel has pressed ahead with its campaign against Hezbollah despite urging from western allies for a cease-fire. It also killed Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Iran-backed militant group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas raided southern Israel on Oct. 7 last year, killing about 1,200 people, kidnapping about 250 more and spurring a war with Israel. The ensuing fighting left more than 42,000 Palestinians dead, according to health officials in the Hamas-run territory, who don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.

The Israeli statement about Saturday’s strikes was a rare acknowledgment of a direct Israeli attack on Iran. Israeli is suspected of having conducted numerous assassinations against Iran in recent years, as well as a single strike after a previous Iranian attack in April, but hadn’t claimed responsibility for any of those.

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(With assistance from Courtney McBride, Natalia Drozdiak and Ethan Bronner.)

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