Iran attacks Israel directly for the first time with hundreds of missiles and drones.
Israel claims to have intercepted the most bulk of Iran's 300 drone and missile launches with assistance from US and UK military.
Iran's retaliatory attack on Israel resulted in the injury of a seven-year-old girl and minor damage to an Israeli military base. Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones toward Israel in what was its first direct attack on Israeli soil.
Air defenses intercepted the rockets, causing explosions and setting off air raid sirens in places throughout Israel, including West Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, late on Saturday night.
The Iranian volley, according to the Israeli military, contained around 300 "killing drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles," but 99 percent of them were intercepted with assistance from US, UK, and French forces.
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It added that in addition to Yemen and Iraq, Iran was the source of the launches.
While the IDF stated that "a small number of hits were identified, notably at [an Israeli military] installation in southern Israel, where minimal damage was inflicted to infrastructure," medics reported that a girl in southern Israel had been injured by shrapnel from an intercepted drone.
The strike was verified by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which claimed that it had carried out the operation under Operation True Promise and had used the drones and missiles as retaliation for “the Zionist entity’s crime of striking the Iranian consulate in Syria” on April 1.
12 persons were slain in the Damascus raid, two of whom were top generals in the IRGC's special Quds Force.
The Iranian embassy in Damascus has an ambulance parked outside following an Israeli strike on April 1, 2024. [Image: Reuters/Firas Makdesi]
Israel has not acknowledged or refuted being behind the attack on the consulate.
Iran's UN envoy declared that the situation was now "concluded" in light of the missiles and drone attack, and threatened to take "considerably more serious" action against Israel if it "made another mistake."
It also warned the US to stay out of the conflict.
Fears of a wider escalation
This is the sixth month that Israel has escalated its war on Gaza, which has raised tensions throughout the region, extending to fronts with Syria and Lebanon and attracting artillery fire from as far away as Yemen and Iraq aimed at Israeli targets.
According to the Reuters news agency, prior to the Iranian response, Syria activated its Pantsir ground-to-air defense systems, which are manufactured in Russia, to protect major bases and Damascus. Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon also declared temporary closures of their airspace.
A container ship connected to Israel was taken by Iranian military troops earlier on Saturday in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz.
Western nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Norway, denounced Iran's attack with missiles and drones. Egypt and Saudi Arabia urged moderation, and at Israel's request, the UN Security Council summoned an emergency meeting to address the issue.
US President Joe Biden canceled his weekend getaway at his beach property in Delaware on Saturday afternoon in order to meet with his national security staff at the White property. He also reiterated Washington's "ironclad commitment" to its ally's security in a late-Saturday conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Israel displayed a tremendous capacity to fight against and defeat even unprecedented attacks - sending a strong message to its opponents that they cannot effectively undermine the security of Israel," according to Biden's account of his conversation with Netanyahu.
In a brief post on X, Netanyahu declared that Israel will prevail.
He went on, "We intercepted, we repulsed, and together we shall conquer."
Speaking with his Israeli counterpart, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin "made clear that Israel could count on complete US support to protect Israel against any strikes by Iran and its regional proxies" during their conversation, according to a Pentagon report.
Along with denouncing Iran's attack, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his "great worry about the very real possibility of a devastating region-wide escalation."
Dmitry Polyanskiy, the deputy ambassador of Russia to the UN, stated on the social media platform Telegram that the UNSC had received a letter from Iran claiming that its attack fell within the parameters of the UN Charter that govern the right to self-defense, in addition to one from Israel.
In the words of Polyanskiy, "the latter threatens that Iran will respond in a more powerful and definitive manner if Israel responds."
Asking for "calm and caution" from all sides, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the current state of affairs as the "latest spillover of the Gaza conflict." It expressed extreme alarm over the intensification and declared that Israel's bombardment on Gaza "must end quickly."
Iran's attack on Israel was characterized by analysts as having been precisely timed to avoid escalation.
Professor of international affairs at the University of Qatar Hassan Barari stated, "What the Iranians are attempting to do is come up with a controlled, deliberate strike in order to recover deterrence and not to be regarded as weak in front of their own proxies."
He did, however, voice concern that the attack would make things worse in Gaza.
The world's focus has switched to Iran-Israel, therefore certain right-wing leaders in the administration will likely use this as an opportunity to do something horrific in Gaza, he added.