IRAN fired a salvo of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday in retaliation for Israel’s campaign against Tehran’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.
Alarms sounded across Israel and explosions could be heard in Jerusalem and the Jordan River valley after Israelis piled into bomb shelters. Reporters on state television lay flat on the ground during live broadcasts.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Iran had launched tens of missiles at Israel, and that if Israel retaliated Tehran’s response would be “more crushing and ruinous”.
A senior Iranian official later told Reuters that the order to launch missiles at Israel was made by the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei remains in a secure location, the senior official added.
The Israeli army said Israel’s airspace was closed following the Iranian attack.
Reuters journalists saw missiles intercepted in the airspace of neighbouring Jordan. Israeli army radio said nearly 200 missiles had been launched into Israel from Iran.
Earlier, the military had announced that any ballistic missile strike from Iran was expected to be widespread and asked the public to shelter in safe rooms in the event of an attack.
Iran has vowed to retaliate following attacks that killed the top leadership of its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.
The firing of missiles came after Israel said its troops had launched ground raids into Lebanon, though it described the forays as limited. The Israeli campaign in Lebanon is the biggest escalation of regional warfare since fighting erupted in Gaza a year ago.
In Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden said the United States was prepared to help Israel defend itself from Iranian missile attacks.
“We discussed how the United States is prepared to help Israel defend against these attacks, and protect American personnel in the region,” Biden said on X about a meeting held with Vice President Kamala Harris and the White House national security team earlier in the day.
After a year of heightened tensions between Israel and Iran’s proxies in the region: including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen — an attack by Iran toward Israel could further tip the region toward full-scale conflict.
US and Arab diplomats are already concerned about what might happen after Iran’s expected attack, including the scale of Israel’s response. One major concern on their mind is Israel possibly using a forthcoming Iranian strike to respond by striking inside Iran.
“There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that’s true of the entire Middle East,” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said during his speech at the United Nations last week.
The US is prepared to do whatever it can to help Israel intercept anything Iran directs its way, similar to how the US offered its assistance in April when Iran launched a wave of drones and missiles towards Israel — the vast majority of which were successfully intercepted, a US official said.
The US anticipates attack from Iran against Israel could be similar in scope and scale to the one in April, a US official told CNN.
The US warned Israel early Tuesday morning ET (midday Israel time) that Iran was poised to launch an attack, according to a person familiar with the matter. The warning between the two countries came several hours before the White House announced publicly that it had indications Iran was preparing an attack.
The official said Iran has been postured to move quickly in an attack. After the onslaught of drones and missiles fired toward Israel in April, many of Iran’s assets remained in position.
Tensions between Israel and Iran have ratcheted up significantly in recent weeks as Israel has stepped up its efforts against Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group, and Israel on Monday launched a ground operation in southern Lebanon.
Netanyahu asked Israelis to “stand together” and keep following the frontline commands as fears of an imminent attack from Iran grow.
Netanyahu said Israel is in the throes of a “campaign against Iran’s axis of evil” and made specific demands from the Israeli public.
“What I ask of you is two things: One – to strictly obey the directives of the frontline command, it saves lives. And second – to stand together,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
The United States is “tracking events in the Middle East very closely” and “is committed to Israel’s defence,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday.
“We’re watching developments, as I said, very carefully at this moment,” Blinken said in brief remarks alongside his Moroccan counterpart. Blinken did not make any specific reference to Iran or the potential attack.
The US Embassy in Israel directed all US government personnel and family members “to shelter in place until further notice” because of “the current security situation,” it said in a security alert.
“This is provided for your information as you make your own security plans,” the alert said, without mentioning the specific warnings of an imminent attack from Iran.
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