Photo by JALAA MAREY/AFP via Getty Images
- Iran has launched a missile attack on Israel, the Israeli military said.
- The attack follows Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah’s leader and its invasion of Lebanon.
- The US has said it is ready to defend Israel from an Iranian attack, as it did in April.
Iran has launched an attack on Israel as tensions soar and violence further grips the volatile Middle East.
The Israeli Defense Forces said on Telegram that “a short while ago, missiles were launched from Iran towards the State of Israel.” On other social media pages, it said that “all Israeli civilians are in bomb shelters as rockets from Iran are fired at Israel.”
“The air defense system is fully operational, detecting and intercepting threats wherever necessary, even at this moment,” the IDF said. Air raid sirens could be heard across the country.
Video footage showed Israeli air defenses intercepting Iranian missiles over Jerusalem. Tehran reportedly fired more than 100 missiles in what appeared to be a first wave of launches.
The Iranian attack comes just days after Israel killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, in an airstrike in Beirut and hours after the Israeli military announced the start of a “limited” ground operation inside Lebanon.
Motivations for the attack may be complex, though, as Iran has also vowed to retaliate against Israel after Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas’ political wing, was assassinated in Tehran in July.
Earlier on Tuesday, a White House official said the US had indications that Iran was preparing to “imminently” launch a ballistic missile attack against Israel.
“We are actively supporting defensive preparations to defend Israel against this attack. A direct military attack from Iran against Israel will carry severe consequences for Iran,” the official said.
The US military has a wide range of assets in position around the Middle East and in the Eastern Mediterranean that can protect Israel, as American forces did in April when Iran launched a massive retaliatory missile and drone attack on the country.
The US now has more assets positioned in the region than it did at that time. It is unclear how many Iranian projectiles American forces shot down on Tuesday.
The US has repeatedly said that it is ready to defend Israel again and protect its own forces in the region from any attack by Iran or its regional proxies. Washington has repeatedly tried to contain rising tensions and conflicts in the Middle East to prevent it from escalating, but it has been unable to do so.
Speaking at the United Nations on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a warning to Iran that any direct attack by the country would be met with a response.
“If you strike us, we will strike you,” he said, adding that there’s no place in Iran where “the long arm of Israel cannot reach. And that’s true of the entire Middle East.”
After the unprecedented April bombardment, Israel then struck Iran directly.
