Iran launched more than 200 drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday night, in the Islamic Republic’s first ever direct attack on the Jewish state, bringing a years-long shadow war into the open and threatening to draw the region into a broader conflagration.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that drones, cruise and ballistic missiles had been used in the unprecedented attack. Israeli air defences, with support from the US, Jordanian and British air forces, intercepted many of the drones and some cruise missiles over Syria, Iraq and Jordan, before they reached Israel from about 2am local time.
Other incoming drones and missiles were brought down over Israeli territory by the Iron Dome air defence interceptor system, which lit up the night sky with multiple detonations, while air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities. The roar of Israeli air force jets could be heard across the country in the early hours of Sunday.
Some projectiles penetrated the defensive shield, but the only casualty reported by the early morning was a 10 year-old boy near a desert town in southern Israel. The IDF said a military base in southern Israel had been slightly damaged.
The New York Times cited Israeli intelligence sources as saying the main targets appeared to be Israeli military installations in the occupied Golan Heights, in the far north, and the Negev desert, in the far south. Tehran’s ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah, fired volleys of rockets at the Golan at the same time as the Iranian bombardment, and the Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen, claimed they had also joined the attack.
Earlier on Saturday, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had boarded a ship in the Strait of Hormuz by helicopter assault and taken it into Iranian waters. The cargo ship, the MSC Aries, is Portugese-flagged but linked to an Israeli company.
Through its mission at the UN, Iran declared the mass aerial attack, which Tehran dubbed “Operation True Promise” was a retaliation for the bombing of an Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus on 1 April, and that it now considered the matter closed, unless there was further action by Israel.
“The matter can be deemed concluded, the statement said. However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe,” the statement on the X social media platform said. “It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the US must stay away!”
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke by phone for 25 minutes with US president Joe Biden at 4am Israeli time, as the aerial attack appeared to peter out.
After the call, Biden said he had reaffirmed to Netanyahu “America’s ironclad commitment to the security of Israel”.
“I told him that Israel demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks – sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel,” Biden said, adding that on Sunday he would convene G7 leaders “to coordinate a united diplomatic response to Iran’s brazen attack”.
“My team will engage with their counterparts across the region. And we will stay in close touch with Israel’s leaders,” Biden said. “And while we have not seen attacks on our forces or facilities today, we will remain vigilant to all threats and will not hesitate to take all necessary action to protect our people.”
An IDF officer said the Israeli leadership would consider its response early on Sunday, and meanwhile Israel called for an emergency session of the UN security council to condemn the attack. The meeting is expected at 4pm on Sunday (9pm BST).
In the days leading up to the assault, US officials had predicted it would be an unprecedented operation launched from Iran on Israeli territory. They said that if it did not cause mass casualties, Washington would urge Israel to moderate its own response, to prevent tit-for-tat escalation spiralling out of control, drawing in other countries and the US itself.
Biden interrupted a weekend break at his house on Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and arrived back at the White House just after the first drones had been launched, and met his top security officials in the underground situation room. US surveillance planes in the region tracked the incoming attack, and US fighter jets shot down incoming drones and missiles.
The Jordanian air force was also reported to have intercepted some of the projectiles over its territory, and the UK’s Royal Air Force said it was contributing fighters and refuelling planes, mostly to fill in for the US in conducting aerial patrols over Iraq and Syria as part of its campaign against the Islamic State, but the defence secretary, Grant Shapps, said British planes could also “intercept airborne attacks within range of our existing missions”.
There had been nearly two weeks of speculation about when, where and how Tehran or its proxy forces would respond to the 1 April strike on an Iranian diplomatic building in the Syrian capital of Damascus which killed Gen Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior figure in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and eight other officers.
Israeli officials almost never claim responsibility for attacks carried out on foreign soil. Tehran has blamed Israel for the strike.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has repeatedly promised to respond against Israel over the attack, while Israeli officials have warned several times that the country’s forces would strike Iran directly if it launched any retaliatory action from its territory, raising fears over what is now a rapidly escalating tit-for-tat.
Iran’s defence minister, Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, told state TV in response that “any country that allows its airspace or soil to be used for Israel to attack Iran will receive a firm response from us”.
Israel has attacked scores of Iranian-linked targets in Syria during the 14-year-old civil war there with the apparent intent of disrupting arms transfers and other cooperation with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran.
Since the war in Gaza began six months ago, there have been near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah along the Israel-Lebanon border that have threatened to escalate into full-blown conflict.
A direct attack by Iran on Israel, however, was not believed to be on the cards: Tehran’s leaders have previously made clear that they are not seeking a war with Israel, which could also draw in the US.
Iran has never responded with such force to previous attacks, including many covert Israeli operations on its soil, or the US assassination of the powerful Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020.
The latest war between Israel and Hamas, sparked by the Palestinian militant group’s 7 October attack in which 1,200 were killed and another 250 abducted, has already spread to fronts with Lebanon and Syria and drawn long-range fire at Israeli targets from as far away as Yemen and Iraq.
More than 33,000 people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza, where the 2.3m population is facing a dire humanitarian crisis and some areas have slipped into famine.
