Israel launches withering attack on Iran, spurring retaliation, fears of all-out war

Amman, Jordan – Iran launched successive missile dams on Israel on Friday, a reprisals for a punitive Israeli campaign on the same day which wiped out the upper levels of the Iranian military leadership as well as important parties of its nuclear and military infrastructure.

The exchanges constituted the most important escalation between long-standing opponents-increasing the possibility of prolonged conflict and fears that the United States mingled in another war in the Middle East.

Sirens resonated in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, with the night sky on the latter lit with yellow shards like missiles from the Israeli arrow defense system launched to intercept the Iranian ballistic missiles. The rhythm of bass of several explosions could be heard as far as neighboring Jordan.

Tel Aviv’s shows have shown a residential tower with a fire that raged in a number of apartments, while other video showed smoke reducing several buildings in the central parts of the city and missiles falling on empty intersections.

Videos of Iran and published on social networks have represented fires and damage visible to several residential buildings in Tehran. Others have shown whole buildings having collapsed, with rubble rubble in the street. An image – Times could not verify its authenticity – showed a bloody child lying on a soil covered with debris.

Israeli officials said more than 40 people had been injured and that the rescue teams were examining nine impact sites reported in the center of Israel. In Iran, the media reported 78 people dead and more than 320 injured in Israel’s attacks, which also struck residential areas.

Friday evening, at least five people, including three children, were injured by bursts of a missile shells which fell near the city of West Bank in the West Bank. The Israeli army, which said that the missile fell into the region came from Yemen, said: “No interceptor was launched”.

The body of the Islamic Revolution of Iran said in a statement that the Iranian forces had led a “overwhelming and precise response against dozens of targets, military centers and bases” in Israel.

“They started this and now they launched a war,” the supreme Iranian chief of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement, adding that Israel would not be allowed to carry out what he called “success” attacks without serious consequences.

“The Iranian nation must be sure that our response will not be half measured.”

The Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Iran “crossed the red lines after daring to pull missiles at concentrations of civilian population in Israel”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel had acted “to thwart the threat of nuclear and ballistic missile of the Islamic regime”, adding: “The more on the way. The regime does not know what has struck them, or what will strike them.”

Israel has launched an operation composed involving some 200 war planes and drones hitting more than 100 nuclear sites, ballistic missile factories and other military zones across the country, including in Natanz – which houses the main Iranian nuclear enrichment center – with Kermanshah, Tabriz and Isfahan.

President Trump welcomed the Israel’s operation, describing him in an interview with ABC News as “excellent” and warning more attacks would be to come if Iran management did not neglect a new nuclear agreement.

“I think it was excellent,” said Trump. “We gave them a chance and they did not take it. They were hit hard, very hard. They were struck as hard as you are going to be touched. And there is more to come.” Much more. “

The explosions began to rock Tehran shortly after 3 am, with explosions reported in the central, north-east and northwest districts of the Iranian capital.

Iranian demonstrators are holding Iranian and Palestinian flags on Friday during an anti-Israeli gathering in Tehran.

(Vahid Salemi / Associated Press)

The Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abbas Araghchi, said that Israel’s campaign was a “declaration of war”, adding a letter to the United Nations – and later published on his telegram channel – that the United Nations Security Council should “resolve this issue immediately”.

Strikes have turned out to be a devastating blow for the main military leaders of Iran and a demonstration of the infiltration of information from Israel, hitting the upper members of the Iranian chain of command in their homes.

The Iranian state and the local media confirmed the death of Major-General Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of staff to the Iranian armed forces; Major-General Hossein Salami, commander of the body of the Islamic revolutionary guard; Major-General Gholam Ali Rashid, an IRGC commander who heads the central seat of the army; And Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the chief of the aerospace forces of the Islamic Guard body. According to the semi-official Iranad-Mehdi Tehranchi, veterans nuclear scientists, Abdolhamid Minoucher and Mohammad-Mehdi Tehranchi.

Ali, a resident living in a few houses of houses from one of the targeted sites that only gave his first name to avoid harassment, prayed when he heard huge explosions around him.

“The ground started to tremble, so I stopped praying and I ran out,” he said. He went down to the street and found smoke out of the second floor of a six -story building, with people shouting in the street.

Later, an official of the Mossad of Israel said in an interview with the Israeli daily Times of Israel that the espionage agency had set up vehicles carrying weapons systems and built a secret explosive drone base in Iran before the operation. The manager added that the swarm of explosive drones was used to destroy ballistic missile launchers to paralyze Iran’s ability to thwart strikes.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesperson for the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, said in an interview on state television that there were no victims and that initial assessments showed that Natanz damage was “superficial”. He added that there was no external contamination.

Iranian worshipers attend an anti-Israeli rally under a portrait of the late revolutionary founding of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after their Friday prayers in Tehran on Friday.

(Vahid Salemi / Associated Press)

Iran’s management said Friday’s attacks were only the start of their reprisals.

However, we do not know how Tehran can be good at this threat. In the past, it could rely on a network of sympathetic militias and governments in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Gaza which were collectively known as “the axis of resistance”.

But the last 20 months have seen Israel systematically paralyze the Lebanese militant group of Hezbollah, while the fall of the Iranian President Syrian Bashar Assad denied a transition to the borders of Israel to Tehran; His allies of the Iraqi militia have kept a low profile in recent months and Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic jihad face their own large -scale offensives in Gaza. And the old ballistic dams and bravery by Iran and the Yemen Houthis had little impact on the Israeli defenses.

A few hours after the first Israeli strikes, crowds rushed to the streets of Tehran, calling for revenge and singing “Death to Israel. Death in America ”. Others line up before the service stations and supermarkets, preparing for what they thought was a long war.

While Iranian drones made their way to Israel, Jordan warned citizens to keep inside and avoid open areas. Later, the sirens sounded in Amman, even though the missiles and the interceptors that rose to meet them could be seen in the sky above the Jordanian capital. The Jordanian jets rushed to shoot down some of the steering wheel projectiles through the country’s airspace, after the evaluations said that the missiles were likely to fall on Jordanian territory, said the Jordanian army.

In the early hours of the strike, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to remove the United States from Israel’s attacks, describing them as a “unilateral action” that Israel believed “was necessary for its self-defense”.

But this messaging was probably undermined by Trump’s statements exerting pressure on the management of Iran to continue to negotiate.

“I gave Iran a chance after the chance to conclude an agreement. I told them, with the strongest words, to” do “, but no matter how much they tried, no matter how much they extend, they could not simply do it … They are all dead now, and that will only get worse!” Trump wrote in a social article of truth. He added that “Iran must conclude an agreement, before it remains.”

An American official, speaking on condition of anonymity to speak frankly, told Times that the Iranians had contacted Trump administration officials after the Israeli strike – a sign, for them, of the success of the Israeli operation and despair in Tehran. But we do not know what will remain to discuss Iran’s nuclear program, added the official.

“It will be difficult to get out,” said the manager, referring to the sprint of the fissile material for the warheads, “if you no longer have nuclear infrastructure.”

Netanyahu, in a television address, called on the Iranian people, saying that it was the time for them to introduce themselves to the repressive leaders. “It is your opportunity to get up and let your voices be heard. Woman, life, freedom – Zan, Zendegi, Azadi, ” Netanyahu said, employing the slogan of antigolander demonstrations in Iran.

The American navy has repositioned some of its forces in anticipation of Iran’s reprisal attacks. The USS Thomas Hudner, a guided missile destructive, was sent to the eastern Mediterranean while another destructive was made available if the White House asked, according to two American officials speaking to the Associated Press.

Israel’s operation has stimulated a series of convictions from regional countries. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia denounced the “odious Israeli attacks against the fraternal Islamic Republic of Iran”.

Oman, the main mediator between the United States and Iran in recent months, has said that attacks have been “an unacceptable and continuous aggressive behavior which undermines the foundations of stability in the region”.

In a press release, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for a “maximum reservoir” to avoid “descent into a deeper conflict”.

Trump insisted that there was still a chance of diplomacy.

“Two months ago, I gave Iran an ultimatum of 60 days to” conclude an agreement “. They should have done it! Today is day 61, “he wrote in an article on Truth Social.

“I told them what to do, but they just couldn’t get there. Now they may have a second chance! ”

Staff editor Michael Wilner has contributed to this Washington report.