Israel unleashed a series of predawn airstrikes against military sites in Iran on Saturday, saying it targeted facilities used to make the missiles fired at Israel. The attack risks pushing the archenemies closer to all-out war at a time of spiraling violence across the Middle East, where militant groups backed by Iran—including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon—are already at war with Israel, per the AP. Iran's military said early Saturday that Israeli strikes on the country targeted military bases in Ilam, Khuzestan, and Tehran provinces, causing "limited damage." Army officials said two soldiers were killed in the strikes. The statement from Iran's armed forces was read aloud on state TV, which showed no images of the damage described.
Iran's military claimed its air defenses limited the damage done by the strikes, without providing additional evidence. The Israeli military issued a statement saying its planes "have safely returned home." Its aircraft "struck missile manufacturing facilities used to produce the missiles that Iran fired at the state of Israel over the last year," the military said. "These missiles posed a direct and immediate threat to the citizens of the state of Israel." It added that it also "struck surface-to-air missile arrays and additional Iranian aerial capabilities, [which] were intended to restrict Israel's aerial freedom of operation in Iran." It offered no damage assessment. Israeli officials noted that no nuclear or oil facilities were targeted, per the AP. The early Saturday airstrikes on Iran were in retaliation for a ballistic missile assault on Oct. 1, Israeli officials said.
The attack, threatened for weeks by Israel, comes as the Middle East sits on the precipice of a regional war more than a year after an initial attack by the militant group Hamas on Israel. In the time since, Israel has launched a devastating ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and an invasion of neighboring Lebanon, targeting militants long armed and aided by Tehran. Iran's Foreign Ministry condemned the Israeli attacks on military bases and said Iran will respond. A statement by the Foreign Ministry called the attacks a clear violation of international law and the UN Charter. Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, meanwhile, praised the work of Israeli military but said it should have struck harder. "The decision not to attack strategic and economic targets in Iran was wrong. We could and should have exacted a much heavier price from Iran," Lapid wrote in a post on X. More here.
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