Israel says it has completed a major assault on Iran after more than a year of fighting, which began with an attack by Iranian proxy group Hamas on the Jewish state and has grown into a multi-front conflict directly involving Tehran and its other regional proxies.
In a statement issued early Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces said its warplanes safely returned home after conducting “precise and targeted strikes against military targets in a number of areas in Iran.” It issued the statement about four hours after the first reports emerged of explosions in Iran around 2:30 a.m. Tehran time.
“Based on intelligence, Israel air force aircraft struck missile manufacturing facilities used to produce the missiles that Iran fired at Israel over the last year,” the IDF said. “These missiles posed a direct and immediate threat to the citizens of Israel. Simultaneously, the IDF struck surface-to-air missile arrays and additional Iranian aerial capabilities, that were intended to restrict Israel’s aerial freedom of operation in Iran.”
IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters that the Israeli airstrikes achieved their objectives but did not immediately provide evidence. There also was no immediate reaction from the Iranian government to Israel’s assault or to its assertions about targeted Iranian sites.
A senior U.S. administration official told reporters that Israel carried out “precision airstrikes against multiple military targets across Iran and outside populated areas.
“The president and his national security team, of course, worked with the Israelis over recent weeks to encourage Israel to conduct a response that was targeted and proportional, (with a) low risk of civilian harm. That appears to have been precisely what transpired this evening,” the administration official said.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were both briefed on Israel’s operation, the White House said Friday. Both were closely following developments and would continue to be updated, according to media reports.
A U.S. defense official told VOA, “We were given a heads up” on the strikes, “but we’re not involved.”
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant Saturday and received updates on the Israel Defense Forces’ strikes on military targets in Iran, according to a readout of their conversation from Pentagon Press Secretary Major General Pat Ryder.
Austin reaffirmed the ironclad commitment of the United States to Israel’s security and right to self-defense, the readout said. The secretary emphasized the United States’ ability to defend U.S. personnel, Israel, and partners across the region in the face of threats from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist organizations and the U.S. determination to prevent any actor from exploiting tensions or expanding the conflict in the region, the statement added.
The Israeli military said it conducted Saturday’s airstrikes on Iran “in response to the attacks by the Iranian regime against Israel and its citizens in recent months.”
Iran fired hundreds of cruise missiles and drones in its first direct attack on Israel in April. The barrage was in response to an Israeli airstrike that killed senior officers of Iran’s top military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in Damascus that month. The IRGC fired around 200 ballistic missiles in its second direct attack on Israel on October 1, saying it was retaliating for Israeli strikes that killed another IRGC commander and leaders of its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas in the preceding days and months.
The U.S. has designated the IRGC, Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations.
“Israel has made clear to the world that its response is now complete,” the U.S. administration official said. “Accordingly, we call on all countries of influence to press Iran to stop these attacks against Israel so that we can move beyond this direct cycle of attacks.”
Three hours after Saturday’s Israeli attack began, Iranian state news agency Tasnim cited “informed sources” in a Telegram post saying “there is no doubt that Israel will receive a proportionate response to any action.”
Videos shared on social media and deemed credible by VOA’s Persian Service showed Iranian air defenses firing into the night sky above Tehran, as some Iranians awoken by explosions filmed the scenes from their rooftops or windows.
Iranian state media tried to downplay the impact of the strikes, asserting that the Islamic republic’s air defenses were repelling the Israeli assault in various parts of the country.
Iran closed its airspace while the Israeli assault was under way. State news agency IRNA said at 6 a.m. Saturday Tehran time that the nation’s Civil Aviation Organization had canceled all flights in Iranian air space until further notice. The flightradar24 tracking website showed the airspaces of Iran, Iraq and Syria as clear of aircraft an hour later.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had warned Iran shortly after its October 1 ballistic missile attack that it “would pay” for what he called “a big mistake.”
In both of Iran’s aerial assaults on Israel, the Israeli military backed by U.S. forces intercepted most of the Iranian missiles and drones, preventing significant damage or casualties.
All of the additional U.S. forces that the Pentagon had ordered to the Middle East earlier this month had arrived in the region before the Israeli assault on Iran, a U.S. defense official told VOA.
IDF spokesman Hagari said Israel will know how to select additional targets in Iran and strike them if required.
“This is a clear message: Whoever threatens Israel, will pay a heavy price,” he said.
The senior U.S. administration official said that if Iran “chooses to respond [to Israel] once again, we will be ready, and there will be consequences for Iran.”
In a message to VOA, former IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said he believes the Israeli airstrikes will not be the last in Iran.
“As the sun will rise over Tehran, we will have a better assessment of the damage caused to the regime and its military. These Israeli strikes are the first round under a new strategy to hold the Iranian regime directly accountable for its actions,” he said.
Earlier this month, U.S. media outlets reported that the Biden administration had won assurances from Israel that its forces would not hit Iranian nuclear or oil sites in its threatened retaliation against Iran. There were no reports of any Israeli strikes on such sites.
A long-running low-scale conflict between Israel, Iran and its proxies erupted into open warfare on October 7, 2023, when Iran-backed Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel from Gaza, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 more as hostages to the Palestinian territory. Several Americans are among the 101 hostages whom Hamas still is holding, with a third of those hostages believed to be dead.
Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
VOA’s White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara, National Security correspondent Jeff Seldin and Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb contributed to this report, which was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Persian service.
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