Israel’s military has reported minor damage after Iran launched dozens of drones and missiles towards it late on Saturday
- Iran attack on Israel – live updates
- Full report: Iran launches drones and cruise missiles against Israel
Iran has launched dozens of drones as well as cruise missiles towards Israel, the Islamic Republic’s first ever direct attack on the Jewish state in response to the 1 April strike on an Iranian diplomatic building in the Syrian capital of Damascus which killed a senior figure in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and eight other officers.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corp has said that it launched ballistic missiles at “specific targets” in Israel as part of what it called “Operation True Promise”.
The first wave reached Israel at around 2am local time (midnight BST), with sirens blaring across the country and explosions visible and audible in the sky in several places. Commercial capital Tel Aviv, the disputed city of Jerusalem, and Dimona, the desert city home to Israel’s nuclear plant, all appeared to have been targeted.
Iranian strikes caused “minor damage” to an Israeli base, army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Sunday, after Iran’s state media reported “heavy blows” to the base from its missiles. “Only a few missiles fell in the territory of the state of Israel with slight damage to a military base in the south, with only slight damage to the infrastructure,” Hagari said in a statement.
Most of the missiles launched by Iran were intercepted outside Israel’s borders, while a limited number fell inside the country’s territory, IDF spokesperson Avichay Adraee has said. He said that the total number of aerial units launched from Iran was about 200 and there were reports that one child had been injured.
US president Joe Biden cut short a weekend stay at his Delaware beach house and returned to the White House to meet his national security team and monitor the situation shortly before the attack was announced.
The US and UK reportedly helped Israel shoot down Iranian drones over Jordan, Iraq and Syria in an effort to blunt the attack and prevent an uncontrollable escalation. “US forces in the region continue to shoot down Iranian-launched drones targeting Israel,” a senior US defence official told reporters.
Royal Air Force fighter jets and refuelling aircraft were also involved, taking off from bases in Cyprus. Their role, according to the UK Ministry of Defence, was to fill in for the US air force in the sorties against the Islamic State normally carried out over Iraq and north-eastern Syria, but also to intercept Iranian drones if they came into the UK area of operations.
Reuters quoted two regional security sources as saying Jordanian jets had downed dozens of Iranian drones flying across northern and central Jordan heading towards Israel.
World leaders have condemned Iran’s attack with regional powers including Saudi Arabia and Egypt called for restraint. UN secretary general António Guterres said: “I am deeply alarmed about the very real danger of a devastating region-wide escalation. I urge all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid any action that could lead to major military confrontations on multiple fronts in the Middle East.”
