Iran launches retaliatory attack on Israel with hundreds of drones and missiles, ‘99% intercepted’
- Israeli military spokesman said most Iranian drones and missiles were intercepted by air defences
- Iran had vowed retaliation for what it called an Israeli strike on its Damascus consulate on April 1
Iran launched explosive drones and fired missiles at Israel late on Saturday in its first direct attack on Israeli territory, a retaliatory strike that raised the threat of a wider regional conflict, as the US pledged “ironclad” backing for Israel.
Sirens wailed and journalists in Israel heard distant heavy thuds and bangs from what local media called aerial interceptions of explosive drones. Authorities said a 7-year-old girl was critically injured.
US President Joe Biden, who spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said he would convene a meeting of leaders of the Group of Seven major economies on Sunday to coordinate a diplomatic response to what he called Iran’s brazen attack.
Six months into war between Israeli and Hamas in Gaza and amid growing risks of a greater regional war, Axios quoted a senior White House official as saying Biden also told Netanyahu the US would oppose any Israeli counter-attack against Iran.
The UN Security Council was set to meet at 4pm ET on Sunday (4am Hong Kong time Monday) after Israel requested it condemn Iran’s attack and designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organisation, according to a schedule released late on Saturday.
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An Air Force base in southern Israel was hit but continued to operate as normal and a 7-year-old child was seriously hurt by shrapnel. There were no other reports of serious damage.
Israel praised the success of its defences in the face of the unprecedented attack by Iran. An Israeli military spokesman said the launches numbered more than 300, but 99 per cent of them were intercepted.
The Israeli military later said it was not advising any residents to prepare to take shelter. This revision of an earlier alert appeared to signal the end of the threat.
Israel’s Channel 12 TV cited an unnamed Israeli official as saying there would be a “significant response” to the attack.
Iran had vowed retaliation for what it called an Israeli strike on its Damascus consulate on April 1 that killed seven officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including two senior commanders. Tehran said its strike was punishment for “Israeli crimes”. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the consulate attack.
“Should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe,” the Iranian mission to the United Nations said, warning the US to “stay away”. However, it also said Iran now “deemed the matter concluded”.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said America did not seek conflict with Iran but would not hesitate to act to protect US forces and support defence of Israel.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned Iran’s attack, saying he was “deeply alarmed about the very real danger of a devastating region-wide escalation”.
China’s foreign ministry urged restraint, characterising the attack as “the latest spillover of the Gaza conflict” and calling for the implementation of a recent UN Security Council resolution demanding a ceasefire there, saying the “conflict must end now”.
“China calls on the international community, especially countries with influence, to play a constructive role for the peace and stability of the region,” it added.
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Russian Deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said on the Telegram social media app that in addition to a letter from Israel, the Security Council had received one from Iran asserting its attack was within the UN Charter framework governing the right to self defence.
“The latter warns that if Israel responds, Iran will respond in a more powerful and decisive manner,” Polyanskiy said.
Biden, who on Friday had warned Iran against an attack, cut short a weekend visit to his home state of Delaware and returned to Washington to meet with his national security advisers, including his secretaries of defence and state, in the White House Situation Room. He pledged to stand with Israel.
“Our commitment to Israel’s security against threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad,” Biden said on X after the meeting.
The war in Gaza, which Israel invaded after an attack by Hamas on October 7, has ratcheted up tensions in the region, spreading to fronts with Lebanon and Syria and drawing long-range fire at Israeli targets from as far away as Yemen and Iraq.
Drones were also reportedly launched against Israel by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group, British maritime security company Ambrey said in a statement.
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Those clashes now threaten to morph into a direct open conflict pitting Iran and its regional allies against Israel and its main supporter, the United States. Regional power Egypt urged “utmost restraint”.
While Israel and Iran have been bitter foes for decades, their feud has mostly unfolded via proxies or by targeting each other’s forces operating in third countries.
US and British warplanes were involved in shooting down some Israel-bound drones over the Iraq-Syria border area, Israel’s Channel 12 reported. The US military knocked down dozens of drones and missiles bound for Israel, three US officials said.
Biden said he had directed the US military to move aircraft and ballistic missile defence destroyers to the region over the course of the past week.
“Thanks to these deployments and the extraordinary skill of our servicemembers, we helped Israel take down nearly all of the incoming drones and missiles,” he said.
Netanyahu convened Israel’s war cabinet at a military headquarters in Tel Aviv, his office said.
Several Iranian airports including Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International have cancelled flights until Monday, Iranian state media reported on Sunday.
Major airlines across the Middle East have announced the cancellation of some of their flights while having to reroute others. Israeli airlines said operations were returning to normal on Sunday after the Iranian attack closed the airspace and led to flight cancellations.
Jordan, which lies between Iran and Israel, had readied air defences to intercept any drone or missile that violated its territory, two regional security sources said. Residents in several Jordanian cities said they heard heavy aerial activity.
Syria, an ally of Iran, said it was putting its ground-to-air defence systems around the capital and major bases on high alert, army sources there said.
The European Union, Britain, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Mexico, the Netherlands and Norway condemned Iran’s attack.
Biden’s Republican rival in November’s presidential election, Donald Trump, briefly referred to the air strikes at a rally in Pennsylvania, criticising his Democratic rival.
“They’re under attack right now,” Trump said. “That’s because we show great weakness. This would not happen, the weakness that we’ve shown, it’s unbelievable, and it would not have happened if we were in office.”
Israel had been bracing for an Iranian response to the Damascus consulate strike since last week, when Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Israel “must be punished and shall be” for an operation he called equivalent to one on Iranian soil.
Iran’s main ally in the region, the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah that has been exchanging fire with Israel since the Gaza war began, said early on Sunday it had fired rockets at an Israeli base.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
