Iran fired about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday, a sharp but brief escalation between Middle Eastern adversaries that threatened to trigger a fresh round of attacks as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate.
The barrage started around 7.30pm Israel time, after the US only hours earlier warned that an attack was imminent. The Israel Defense Forces said many of the missiles had been intercepted and reports indicated one person had been killed in the West Bank.
Tuesday’s strike was a reprisal after Israel carried out a dramatic series of attacks on Lebanon in recent days, killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a Beirut airstrike and sending ground forces across the border. Tehran had also threatened to retaliate after the political leader of Hamas was killed in Tehran in July — an attack blamed on Israel.
There was no independent assessment of the damage from the strike. While Israel and the US said it was limited, Iranian state television, citing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said 90% of the missiles hit strategic targets in Israel. Video taken of incoming strikes indicated some got through the country’s vaunted air-defence network.
“Iran made a big mistake tonight, and it will pay for it,” Netanyahu said at the opening of a meeting of his security cabinet. “The regime in Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and our determination to retaliate against our enemies.”
Hours later, the Israel Defense Forces said it had launched new strikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
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Oil prices surged more than 5% amid worries of supply disruptions from the energy-rich region. Meanwhile, the persistent rally in stocks was knocked off course while bonds and gold also rose as investors retreated to safe havens.
President Joe Biden said the strike appeared to have been “defeated and ineffective.” Earlier, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan called the attack a “significant escalation” by Iran and said the US was working with Israel on a response.
Biden had ordered the US military to aid in Israel’s defence, and US naval destroyers fired about a dozen interceptors during the attack, the Pentagon said.
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The attacks were the latest escalation of a wider conflict that began when Hamas, also supported by Iran, attacked the Jewish state on Oct 7. Israel has rebuffed calls for a cease-fire from the US and others, and said last month it’s switching the focus of military operations away from its Gaza Strip campaign toward Lebanon.
“We are on the edge of an all-out war between at least Israel and Hezbollah, which could be devastating to Lebanon and quite painful for Israel,” said Bruce Riedel, a former senior US intelligence officer and a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings’ Center for Middle East Policy. “If they bring in the Iranians as well, the whole region is going to be at risk.”
Tuesday’s attack came with minimal warning, contrasting to the April strike that Iran telegraphed well in advance and involved slower moving missiles and drones. That helped the Israeli air force shoot down the vast majority of projectiles with help from the US, UK, France and Jordan.
After that attack, Israel launched a minimal strike that appeared designed to demonstrate its capability to hit sensitive Iranian sites, without provoking all-out war.
On Monday, Israeli troops had begun what Netanyahu’s government said were “targeted ground raids” in Lebanon alongside airstrikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs, and the army later reported “intense fighting.” Hezbollah fired a salvo of rockets in response.
The European Union, which like the US has had little success controlling or ending the fighting in either Gaza or Lebanon, said in a statement “successive waves of attacks and retaliations have been fueling an uncontrollable spiral of conflict.”
The US has beefed up its military posture in the Middle East in recent days, the Pentagon said, and announced Monday it would send a few thousand additional troops to the region, including additional fighter jet squadrons. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant on Tuesday that the US is “well-postured” to defend allies, partners and US troops from Iranian threats. The two discussed the “severe consequences” for a direct strike on Israel, according to a readout of the call.
Iran has a “substantial” stockpile of ballistic and cruise missiles capable of striking targets as far as 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) from its borders, the US Defense Intelligence Agency said in April in its annual assessment of global threats. It added that last year Tehran “focused on fielding a new generation of long-range systems to counter Israel.”
Since early 2023, the DIA said, Tehran has unveiled three new missiles able to strike Israel from the western part of Iran, including a land-attack cruise missile and a ballistic missile it claims is hypersonic.
