Iran launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday, and Israeli civilians across the country were told to remain near bomb shelters.
Meanwhile, President Biden ordered the U.S. military to help repel the assault as the conflict across the Middle East escalated with the second direct Iranian attack against Israel in six months.
The salvo, which appeared to cause limited damage, escalated fears that the region could be on the verge of a full-scale war as Iran and its armed allies across the region escalated their clash with Israel and the U.S. government. While the bombs were falling, Israeli ground forces were pushing ahead with an incursion against Iran-allied Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon.
The Iranian barrage was defeated by U.S. and Israeli air defenses and was “ineffective” in its aims, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Tuesday afternoon after Israeli civilians were given the go-ahead to leave their bomb shelters.
Attention now turns to the inevitable Israeli response. Mr. Biden said the U.S. is in “constant communication” with Israel and is discussing the next steps.
“Make no mistake, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel,” the president said.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose forces have escalated their campaign against Hezbollah while continuing to battle Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, had a stark warning for Iran’s theocratic leadership.
“Iran made a big mistake tonight and will pay for it. Whoever attacks us, we attack them,” Mr. Netanyahu told a meeting of his top security advisers.
Iranian launched its attack after a series of Israeli military moves against Tehran-allied Hezbollah, including the killing of the Lebanese Shiite movement’s top leadership in an airstrike on Beirut last week. U.S. officials warned Iran of severe repercussions if it attacked Israel, though Tehran appears to have brushed off those warnings.
Iran’s state-controlled press said the country had launched some 400 ballistic missiles at Israel from sites in Isfahan, Tabriz, Khoramabad, Karaj and Arak. One of the targets was an Israeli intelligence facility in Tel Nof. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement that the salvo was only the first stage of the attacks on the “cruel Zionist regime.” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, personally authorized the mission, Iranian government sources told the Reuters news agency.
U.S. and Israeli officials gave a much lower figure for the number of missiles fired at Israel. They said Iran appeared to fire about 180 missiles. Iranian officials said 90% of the missiles hit their targets, but that appears to be wholly untrue based on information from the U.S., Israel and elsewhere.
Separately on Tuesday, Israeli authorities said several people were killed in a terrorist shooting in Jaffa. The Times of Israel reported that Israeli police had “neutralized” the two gunmen.
In social media posts as the missile attack unfolded, the Israel Defense Forces warned that as many as 10 million Israeli civilians could be in the line of fire.
“All Israeli civilians are in bomb shelters as rockets from Iran are fired at Israel,” the IDF said on X as Iranian missiles soared toward Israel.
Explosions were reportedly heard in Tel Aviv and near Jerusalem, though it appears the sounds were from Israel’s potent air defenses intercepting the projectiles.
No Israeli casualties were reported, and no damage to Israel’s military equipment was apparent. Mr. Sullivan said one Palestinian was reported killed in Jericho.
In a statement shortly after the attack began, the White House said Mr. Biden was monitoring the situation and had directed the U.S. to help Israel defend itself. Relations between Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu had been strained in recent months over failed American-led diplomatic efforts to force a cease-fire in Gaza and lower regional tensions more generally.
“President Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris are monitoring the Iranian attack against Israel from the White House Situation Room and receiving regular updates from their national security team. President Biden directed the U.S. military to aid Israel’s defense against Iranian attacks and shoot down missiles that are targeting Israel,” the White House said in a statement.
What comes next?
Despite the ineffectiveness of the Iranian attack, Israel pledged to retaliate. Some inside defense and national security circles fear that the coming Israeli response could spark yet another round of escalation.
“Iran carried out a serious act tonight and is pushing the Middle East to an escalation. We will act at the place and time of our choosing, in accordance with the guidance of the political echelon,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters after the Iranian attack. “Tonight’s event will have consequences.”
Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill condemned the Iranian attack. Some key lawmakers said that as long as the regime in Tehran remains in power, regional instability and threats to Israel’s safety and security will remain.
“Iran and its terrorist proxies — Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis — will never stop their campaign to eliminate Israel from the map. The Ayatollah’s regime must be eliminated,” Sen. Roger F. Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.
Committee Chairman Jack Reed, Rhode Island Democrat, blasted Iran but called for “wisdom” from Mr. Netanyahu’s government as it considers its next move.
“Iran must immediately cease its attack and have its proxy militias stand down to avoid a broader war that no one wants,” Mr. Reed said in a statement. “The United States will continue to stand alongside and assist Israel as it works to defend itself. I urge Israeli leaders to act with prudence and wisdom.”
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters that U.S. military leaders were consulting closely with their Israeli counterparts about any potential response to the Iranian attack.
“We do not want to see a wider regional conflict. But we also fully understand that this was a significant attack by Iran,” Gen. Ryder said. “We’re going to continue to support [Israel’s] defense.”
Israel’s air defenses succeed again
Across Israel, the orders to shelter in place were sent to Israelis’ mobile phones and announced on national television. TV stations reported sirens in parts of Jerusalem and central Israel.
The U.S. has dispatched fresh military assets to the Middle East in recent days to help Israel repel the Iranian attack.
Such a strategy worked in April when Iran fired hundreds of drones and rockets toward Israel, but nearly all of them were shot down by American and Israeli air defenses. It worked again on Tuesday, with the help of regional players such as Jordan. Just as it did in April, Jordan reportedly shot down some of the Iranian missiles that crossed through its airspace while headed toward Israel.
Iran brushed off U.S. warnings and proceeded with the airstrikes amid an intense Israeli campaign targeting Hezbollah and its leaders. Hezbollah was a critical cog in Iran’s network of anti-Israel and anti-U.S. allies in the region, and Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s longtime leader killed last week, had close ties with Iran’s leadership.
Palestinian Hamas militants, whose deadly surprise attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 sparked the region’s latest round of violence, issued a statement praising Tehran’s strikes.
“We congratulate the heroic rocket launch carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran on large areas of our occupied territories in response to the occupation’s continuing crimes against the peoples of the region and in retaliation for the blood of our nation’s heroic martyrs,” the statement said.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced the fears of many that the fighting could soon engulf the entire region.
“This must stop. We absolutely need a cease-fire,” Mr. Guterres said in a statement.
Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters that initial reports suggested the Iranian attack was “significant,” deploying twice the firepower of the attack Iran launched in April. The spokesman said U.S. Navy destroyers in the region fired about a dozen interceptor weapons against the incoming Iranian missiles, the only participation by American forces in the defense.
Some of Israel’s ongoing military operations have targeted Iran more directly. Iranian Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, a top commander in the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed in the same airstrike last week that killed Nasrallah. Israel is widely thought to have been responsible for a July strike in Tehran that killed Ismail Haniyeh, the former political leader of Hamas.
Israel has conducted other strikes in recent days against Iran’s proxy network and hit ports and power plants used by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, but the focus of the Israeli campaign has shifted to southern Lebanon.
Major Israeli airstrikes continued Tuesday in southern Lebanon. Israeli ground forces overnight crossed into Lebanon for the first time in decades in what military officials said were “limited and targeted raids” against Hezbollah terrorists plotting to stage an Oct. 7-style attack against communities in northern Israel.
A senior White House official told The Associated Press that an Iranian ballistic missile launch against Israel would bring “severe consequences.” The Biden administration and its allies have been working with little success to keep the fighting sparked by Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7 from expanding into a wider regional war.
Shortly before Iran began its air assault, the Pentagon said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“Secretary Austin made it clear that the United States is well-postured to defend U.S. personnel, allies, and partners in the face of threats from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist organizations and is determined to prevent any actor from exploiting tensions or expanding the conflict in the region,” the Defense Department said in a brief readout of their phone call.
• Mike Glenn contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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