For the second time since last October, my daughter — now a fully trained combat search-and-rescue soldier in the Israel Defense Forces — woke me at 2 a.m. Saturday. Once again, she was under fire.

This time, it was not from an Iranian proxy (Hamas) but from Iran itself. She, like much of Israel, was taking shelter from the hundreds of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and deadly explosive drones fired at Israel by Iran.

It was an air attack of unprecedented scale in modern history. The 110 ballistic missiles alone, each carrying a 1,600-pound warhead, sent almost 100 tons of high explosives toward Israel — a densely populated and small country where military infrastructure is often close to population centers. And that’s not including the tons of explosives sent via cruise missile and drone.

This was not a symbolic attack in any sense. It is crucial that the international community call this massive attack by name: it was the very definition of a “casus belli,” an overt act of war by one sovereign nation against another.

No more shadow dance of death via terror proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria or Yemen. On Saturday, the Iranian regime decided to rip off its mask and abandon the pretense of subterfuge.

As such, the international community needs to recognize that the attack was no less an act of war than Pearl Harbor, Russia’s attack on Ukraine or any other unprovoked attack by one sovereign nation on another — and react accordingly.

Why is it crucial to see Iran’s provocation for what it is? Because:

A red line was crossed: By way of example, there was plenty of subterfuge and proxy conflict in the US/USSR relationship over the decades of the Cold War, including against embassies and military personnel on foreign soil. Yet there was never an overt attack by Moscow on U.S. soil. Imagine if there had been such an attack. Iran’s overt attack was a game-changer in Israel’s previously covert struggle against Iranian expansionism and support of international terror.

The attack was unprovoked: Israel has never overtly attacked Iran on its own soil. What’s more, both Israeli and international legal analysts concur that the attack on an Iranian consulate outbuilding in Damascus that was attributed to Israel (yet never proven) would not constitute a violation of Iranian sovereignty, in any case. This makes the Iranian attack on Israel completely unprovoked.

The intention counts: Most headlines in Sunday’s major newspapers reported the results of the attack, not its intention. And the fact is, there were few results.

The reason? Israel has poured billions into our missile defense infrastructure over recent decades, and these systems performed admirably, to say the least. Yet the fact that Iran failed miserably to kill Israelis or damage our civilian and military infrastructure this time does not diminish the level of threat to Israel Saturday night, nor mitigate Iran’s deadly intent.

The narrative counts: You don’t have to look past the international response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to understand that narrative drives policy. A narrative of “Israel unhurt by Iranian attack” is very different than a narrative of “Iran Attacks Israel.” In other words, the news value should not be that Israel successfully defended itself, but that we were viciously attacked in the first place.

Clearly, Iran’s attack on Israel was not as dramatic in scale, intention or consequence as Pearl Harbor. Yet it was also no less an overt act of war.

As a longtime and vociferous detractor of Israel’s inept, corrupt, arguably racist and blatantly self-interested government, I have little confidence in its ability or desire to intelligently navigate this crisis.

Yet the international community’s recognition of Iran’s casus belli is a first and important step toward averting an all-out regional war.

Tell your elected representatives to call a spade a spade: Iran’s attack on Israel was unprovoked, unjustified and illegal under international law.

Steven Greenberg is a Fort Wayne native and a Tel Aviv-based novelist and writer.