Warning sirens sounded across Israel on Friday as Iran fired dozens of ballistic missiles in a retaliatory attack after Israel launched overnight airstrikes. A second round of missiles targeted Israel a few hours later. Some made it through Israel’s missile defense system, causing damage and injuries, though the full extent of the damage is not yet clear.
A little after 4:30 a.m. Saturday local time, the Israel Defense Forces wrote on social media that “Israelis are currently running for shelter in northern Israel as sirens sound due to another missile launch from Iran.” It was not immediately clear if this marked a third round of missiles or was still part of the second wave.
In the first round, about 100 missiles were fired from Iran in two salvos, officials said. Israel has a robust missile defense system known as the Iron Dome, which intercepted most of the missiles, the IDF said. The IDF reported a limited number of hits on structures, some from interception failures.
Video and photos show a number of buildings damaged or on fire.
Dozens more missiles came in the next wave, and again the IDF said some, but not all, were intercepted. “Search and Rescue forces are currently operating in a number of locations across the country in which reports of fallen projectiles were received,” the military said.
During the strikes, U.S. troops at two bases in the Middle East were ordered into bunkers. Troops at Union III in the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq, and Al-Tanf Garrison in Syria spent about an hour in the bunkers,
The retaliatory action from Iran came after Israel launched over 200 airstrikes on Iran, continuing a major operation that began overnight, IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said Friday. Israel’s airstrikes are continuing, Defrin said.
Iran’s U.N. ambassador said Friday that 78 people were killed and more than 320 were injured in Israeli attacks.
Israel first launched airstrikes on Iran early Friday and announced its operation was targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, scientists and senior military commanders.
Tehran responded by launching more than 100 drones at Israel on Friday morning, Israel’s military said. Defrin said earlier Friday that Israel’s air defenses had worked to “intercept the threats.” Later Friday, an Israeli military official told reporters that while the threat wasn’t over, Israel had managed to intercept many of Iran’s UAVs.
“Throughout the day, we once again demonstrated our ability to remove threats in a coordinated, precise and daring manner,” Defrin said Friday night local time.
In a televised statement on Friday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the Iranian Armed Forces would respond fiercely to the strikes and leave Israel “helpless.”
Shortly after the statement, the IDF confirmed that its fighter jets had “completed a strike on the Iranian regime’s nuclear site in the Isfahan area.” Ishafan is in central Iran. The strike “dismantled a facility for producing metallic uranium, infrastructure for reconverting enriched uranium, laboratories and additional infrastructure,” the IDF said.
The IDF said its operation would continue for days, but that the first wave consisted of 200 Israeli fighter jets dropping “over 330 different munitions,” to hit more than 100 targets in Iran.
“The breadth and scale of these strikes — against senior Iranian officials and other military facilities in addition to nuclear sites — suggest this operation is intended to not just dissuade Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons, but also cripple any potential military response and even to destabilize the regime,” Matthew Savill, director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, a British military think tank, said in a statement.
“Israel has once again demonstrated its considerable conventional military superiority, and the size of the force allegedly assembled for this series of attacks represents the overwhelming bulk of their longer-range strike aircraft. They have the ability to conduct multiple such rounds of strikes, but operating for an extended duration over this considerable range will stretch even the Israeli Air Force,” Savill said.
Savill said Iran’s response “might be delayed or split into multiple phases, but their main weapon will be ballistic missiles, which have the best chance of inflicting damage on Israel, whereas drone and cruise missile attacks will face more extensive Israeli defenses. Israel operations have therefore targeted air defenses and ballistic missile sites to forestall this.”
Savill said that if Iran “believes the U.S. or others were involved” in the Israeli strike, then their retaliation could include targeting the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, and American air facilities in Qatar, “though both would widen the conflict to drag in others.”
Risk of an escalating regional conflict
Israel has carried out strikes against Iranian proxies in recent years, while Iran has backed foes of Israel, including the militant group Hamas.
In April of last year, Iran launched missiles and drones at Israel after a strike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus was widely attributed to Israel, but the Israeli military intercepted the vast majority of the weapons.
Six months later, Iran launched more missiles at Israel, which retaliated with strikes on Iranian sites.
Friday’s back-and-forth could escalate to be among the most severe clashes between Israel and Iran, which have been adversaries for decades. Mr. Trump warned earlier in the week that the strikes could snowball into a “massive” conflict.
Farea Al-Muslimi, a research fellow at the Chatham House think tank, said in a statement Friday that the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen could play a role in the Iranian response to Israel.
“With Iran currently weakened and humiliated, this marks the first time the Houthis will be called upon to repay decades of Iranian investment and support,” Al-Muslimi predicted. “Following the killing of Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon and the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, the Houthis have effectively become Iran’s first line of defense against Israel — an increasingly central role.”
Iran has a “huge arsenal” of shorter-range missiles, Hinz said, and there are a number of U.S. military bases in the region. He said Iran also has “lots of anti-ship capabilities.”
“Think of the Iranian shipping threat as similar in quality to the Houthi threat, but much larger in quantity,” Hinz told the AP.
Israeli attack casts doubt on fate of U.S.-Iran nuclear talks
The Israeli strikes and Iranian counterattack came amid efforts by President Trump to strike a new deal with Iran to limit the country’s nuclear ambitions — an idea Israel has long been dubious of.
The U.S. and Iran were set to hold talks Sunday, multiple U.S. officials told There was no immediate comment from any high-ranking Iranian officials that those plans would change after Israel’s attack, but some reports in Iranian media outlets indicated Iran would likely no longer participate in the negotiations.
“With Israel’s actions, the sixth round of negotiations with the United States will probably not be held,” Iranian lawmaker Aladdin Boroujerdi, a member of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said, according to Iranian media.
