Israel launches strikes on Iran, risking escalation in Mideast wars
JON GAMBRELL, WAFAA SHURAFA and BASSEM MROUE
Associated Press
Updated
Israel Defense Forces
The Israeli military launched strikes early Saturday on military targets in Iran, officials said. It wasn’t immediately clear what the targets were. Iranian state media reported the sound of explosions around Iran’s capital, Tehran, without immediately elaborating.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israel pounded Iran with a series of airstrikes early Saturday, saying it was targeting military sites in retaliation for the the Islamic Republic fired upon Israel earlier this month.
Explosions could be heard in the Iranian capital, Tehran, though there was no immediate information on damage or casualties.
The attack risks pushing the archenemies closer to all-out war at a time of , where militant groups backed by Iran — including Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon — are already at war with Israel.
Israel said it launched "precise strikes on military targets." Two Israeli officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to discuss the operation with the media, said the strikes were not targeting nuclear or oil facilities.
"The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since Oct. 7 … including direct attacks from Iranian soil," Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a prerecorded video statement early Saturday. "Like every other sovereign country in the world, the State of Israel has the right and the duty to respond."
Initially, nuclear facilities and oil installations were seen as possible targets for Israel's response to Iran's Oct. 1 attack, but in mid-October the Biden administration that it would not hit such targets, which would be a more severe escalation.
Iran's state-run media acknowledged blasts that could be heard in Tehran and said some of the sounds came from air defense systems around the city.
Beyond a brief reference, Iranian state television offered no other details and even began showing what it described as live footage of men loading trucks at a vegetable market in Tehran in an apparent attempt to downplay the assault.
A Tehran resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said at least seven explosions could be heard in the first wave of attacks.
As explosions sounded, people in Tehran could see what appeared to be tracer fire light up the sky. Other footage showed what appeared to be surface-to-air missiles launching.
Iran closed the country's airspace, and flight-tracking data showed commercial airlines broadly left the skies over Iran, and across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
The White House said President Joe Biden was briefed and would continue to receive updates.
In Syria, the state news agency SANA, citing an unnamed military official, reported missile fire targeting military sites in the country's central and southern region. It said Syria's air defenses shot some of the missiles down. There was no immediate information on casualties.
Iran fired a wave of missiles and drones at Israel last April after two Iranian generals were killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike in Syria on an Iranian diplomatic post. The missiles and drones caused minimal damage, and Israel — under pressure from Western countries to show restraint — responded with a limited strike.
After Iran's early October missile strike, Israel promised a tougher response. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately said Iran "made a big mistake."
A forceful Israeli strike on Iran risks further entangling the U.S., which maintains a large troop presence in the Persian Gulf and helped Israel defend itself against attacks by Iran and its proxies.
Iran launched at least 180 missiles into Israel on Oct. 1, sending Israelis scrambling into bomb shelters but causing only minimal damage and a few injuries. Iran said the barrage was retaliation for attacks in recent months that killed leaders of Hezbollah, Hamas and the Iranian military.
Before Iran's October attack, Israel landed a series of , which has fired rockets into Israel near-daily for over a year — ever since the deadly Hamas attack against Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
Dozens were killed and thousands wounded in September when pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah exploded in two days of attacks attributed to Israel. A massive Israel airstrike the following week outside Beirut killed Hezbollah's longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his top commanders.
Israel then launched a ground invasion into southern Lebanon. More than a million Lebanese people were displaced, and the death toll rose sharply as airstrikes continued to hit in and around Beirut.
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Israel said it will continue to strike Hezbollah until it is safe for Israeli citizens displaced from their homes near the Lebanon border to return. Hezbollah vowed to keep firing rockets into Israel until there is a cease-fire in Gaza.
When Hamas and other militants attacked Israel last Oct. 7, 2023, they killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages into Gaza.
In response, Israel launched a devastating air and ground offensive against Hamas, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep it up until all of the hostages are freed. Some 100 remain and roughly a third are believed to be dead.
More than 42,000 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, according to health officials there, who don't delineate between civilians and combatants but say more than half of the dead are women and children.
Saturday's strikes on Iran happened just as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed back in the U.S. after a tour of the Middle East where he and other U.S. officials warned Israel to respond in a way that would not further escalate the conflict in the region.
Two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel notified the U.S. in advance of the strikes. They said the U.S. was not involved in the operation.
Israel and Iran have been bitter foes since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Israel considers Iran to be its greatest threat, citing its leaders' calls for Israel's destruction, their support for anti-Israel militant groups and the country's nuclear program.
Israeli strikes in Gaza, Lebanon continue
Israeli strikes on residential areas in southern Gaza killed 38 people on Friday, including 13 children from the same extended family, Palestinian health officials said.
In northern Gaza, health officials reported that Israeli forces raided Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the few medical facilities still functioning in the area. Israel renewed its offensive against Hamas in the north in recent weeks, and aid groups sounded the alarm over dire humanitarian conditions.
In Lebanon, Israeli strikes on the country's southeast killed three journalists working for news outlets that are considered to be aligned with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and its patron, Iran.
The Health Ministry in Gaza reported that Israeli airstrikes and shelling pounded the southern city of Khan Younis, killing 38 people and wounding dozens.
The Israeli military said its troops were dismantling militant infrastructure and killing Hamas fighters in the southern town. It said the figures from Gaza's health ministry "do not align with the information" it has, but did not offer its own casualty estimate.
Palestinians said the neighborhood was hit with no warning.
The victims were taken to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis as well as to the European Hospital, where records showed at least 15 members of the al-Farra family were killed. Six members of the Abdeen family also were killed, health officials reported.
The medical organization Doctors Without Borders said that one of its staff members — identified as 41-year-old Hassan Sobh, a father of seven who had worked with the charity for five years — had been killed in the attack. It said Sobh was its eighth worker to be killed in the past year of the Israel-Hamas war.
In response to reports that it stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, the Israeli military said only that it was "operating in the area" of the hospital based on intelligence that indicated the presence of militants and militant infrastructure.
Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — in which Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages — hospitals in Gaza have come under attack. The Israeli military accuses Hamas fighters of using hospitals, and tunnels beneath them, as bases. Hamas and Palestinian doctors denied that claim.
Israel's offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters but says more than half were women and children.
Some visitors to Israel have a new stop on their tours: Hamas' destruction in the south
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