Israel Strikes Targets Across Iran, Expanding Their Conflict

Israeli fighter jets carried out airstrikes on military targets across Iran early Saturday, delivering on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vow to retaliate for a missile barrage three weeks ago and fanning fear of open conflict between the two longtime adversaries.

The Israeli Defense Forces said it “completed precise and targeted strikes against military targets.” It said fighter jets struck facilities that made missiles used over the last year against Israel, as well as surface-to-air missile arrays. Numerous explosions were reported around Tehran, and Israel’s Channel 12 reported more strikes in the city of Shiraz. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The target choices indicated that Netanyahu refrained from attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities and energy infrastructure as US President Joe Biden had urged. A US official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said the US  had worked with Israel to come up with a “proportional” response and urged Iran not to retaliate again.

During the strikes, the Israel Defense Forces said it acted “in response to months of continuous attacks from the regime in Iran against the State of Israel” and that Israel had the “right and duty” to respond.

The Israeli statement about Saturday’s strikes was unusual as an open acknowledgment of action against Iran. Israeli is suspected of having conducted numerous assassinations against Iran in recent years, as well as a single strike after a previous Iranian attack in April that was a response to a strike on Iranian generals in Syria. But it hadn’t claimed direct responsibility for those attacks.

The early morning strikes fulfilled Netanyahu’s promise to hit back after Iran fired about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Oct. 1. The Islamic Republic said that attack was a reprisal after days of military and intelligence operations that killed Hezbollah militia members in Lebanon, which is Tehran’s most important proxy group and is deemed a terrorist organization by the US. 

The tit-for-tat strikes fanned fears of a direct and open conflict between Israel and Iran. The US and its allies said for weeks that Israel had the right to defend itself but had worked behind the scenes to keep Israel from launching an attack that would set off a wider war. 

Israel’s early Saturday attacks targeted military sites in Tehran Province as well as in Khuzestan and Ilam, near the Iraqi border, causing “limited damage,” Iran’s state TV reported, citing a statement from Iran’s Air Defense Headquarters. 

The statement condemned the attacks as a “provocative action” and said that Iranian defense systems had successfully intercepted the strikes.

In the US, National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said “it is our aim to accelerate diplomacy and de-escalate tensions in the Middle East region. We urge Iran to cease its attacks on Israel so that this cycle of fighting can end without further escalation.”

The US official who spoke to reporters said the Israeli attack should mark the end of the direct military exchanges.

The latest attack unfolded a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken left the Middle East, where he made a renewed US push for a cease-fire in Gaza and sought to exert fresh influence on Israel to temper its response to Iran. The Biden administration had worried that an assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be an unacceptable escalation and attacking the country’s oil infrastructure would roil global energy markets.

Biden was briefed on the Saturday morning airstrikes and was monitoring developments. The Israeli government advised the US of its plans in advance, according to a person familiar with the matter. But the US military wasn’t involved, another official said.

Last month, Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an airstrike on Beirut. That came after days of intense bombing that killed several of the organization’s commanders. In the weeks since, Israel has pressed ahead with its campaign against Hezbollah despite urging from western allies for a cease-fire. It also killed Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Iran-backed militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas raided southern Israel on Oct. 7 last year, killing about 1,200 people, kidnapping about 250 more and spurring a war with Israel. The ensuing fighting left more than 42,000 Palestinians dead, according to health officials in the Hamas-run territory, who don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.

The question now is whether Iran will feel compelled to respond once again to Israel, drawing the two countries even further into conflict.

The nature of Israel’s response suggested that Iran “could do a limited retaliatory strike and maybe they can call it done for this round,” said Emily Harding, a former CIA Middle East analyst and now a director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.