Iran fired waves of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday evening, the Israeli military said, an attack that sharply escalated the conflict between Israel and Iran and threatened to engulf the Middle East in all-out war.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said in a statement that the missile attack had been in retaliation for the assassinations of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah; Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh; and an Iranian commander. The statement said Iran would launch more missiles if it were attacked.
Fiery balls of light could be seen falling from the sky over Jerusalem and loud explosions could be heard in Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel as air-raid sirens wailed. In Iran’s capital, Tehran, chants of “God is Great” could be heard from rooftops in several neighborhoods as supporters of the government cheered the attack, witnesses said.
A 38-year-old Palestinian man was killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank by falling shrapnel from the missile barrage, the local governor, Hussein Hamayel, said. Two other people were slightly wounded by shrapnel in Tel Aviv, according to Israel’s emergency service. There were no other immediate reports of deaths or serious casualties.
Israel’s air defenses, with the help of Western allies, appeared to limit substantial damage from the missile attack, which ended less than an hour after it began, about 7:30 p.m., the Israeli military said. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military’s spokesman, said around 8:30 p.m. that Israel had not identified “additional aerial threats from Iran.”
He said: “This attack will have consequences. We have plans, and we will operate at the place and time we decide.”
Shortly after residents were urged to seek shelter from the looming Iranian missile attack, at least six people were killed and several others injured Tuesday night, when two gunmen opened fire on a light rail train in Tel Aviv.
Videos verified by The New York Times show the shooting’s aftermath at the Ehrlich light rail station in Jaffa, a neighborhood in southern Tel Aviv. Three bodies could be seen lying on the street, and two armed men were captured on surveillance at the station exiting a train.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the shooting. The Israeli police, which called the shooting a suspected terrorist attack, said the gunmen had been “neutralized.”
Iran launched 180 missiles at Israel a day after Israeli forces began a ground invasion of southern Lebanon aimed at installations controlled by the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah. Earlier on Tuesday, the Israeli military told Lebanese civilians in more than two dozen villages to move north of the Awali River, over 15 miles from the Israeli border at its nearest point.
Although Israeli aerial defenses shot down many of the missiles, a few landed in central and southern Israel, Admiral Hagari said.
A video verified by The Times that was filmed outside a shopping mall in Ramat Gan, east of Tel Aviv, showed two projectiles flying through the sky and falling to the ground, with at least one exploding on impact. It is unclear where exactly the impact occurred.
President Biden, who was monitoring the attack with Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington, had directed the U.S. military “to aid Israel’s defense against Iranian attacks and shoot down missiles” that were targeting Israel, according to the White House.
Two U.S. Navy destroyers launched a dozen interceptors to shoot down the incoming Iranian missiles, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. The U.S.S. Bulkeley and the U.S.S. Cole fired the interceptors, Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said during a news conference. He said that no American troops were hurt in Tuesday’s attacks.
Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, told reporters on Tuesday, “Based on what we know at this point, this attack appears to have been defeated and ineffective.” He added, however, that it was “a significant escalation by Iran” and said the United States was looking next “at what the appropriate steps are to secure, first and foremost, American interests and then to promote stability to the maximum extent possible.”
He said, “We have made clear that there will be consequences, severe consequences for this attack, and we will work with Israel to make that case.”
President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran said in a post on X that Iran had acted based on its legitimate rights of self-defense. He warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel: “Iran is not seeking war but it will stand firmly against any threats. This is only a small glimpse of our powers. Do not enter into a war with Iran.”
Mr. Netanyahu, for his part, released a video statement vowing to exact reprisals against Iran for the ballistic missile barrage. “Iran made a big mistake tonight, and it will pay for it,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “The regime in Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and to retaliate against our enemies.”
The United States helped to defend Israel against Iran in April, when Tehran fired about 300 missiles — 120 of them ballistic — cruise missiles and drones at Israel, almost all of which were intercepted.
The scale of Iran’s attack on Tuesday upended the assumption among Israelis that Iran had been deterred by Israel’s increasingly brazen escalations against Iran and its proxies in recent months. Israel’s recent assassination of most of Hezbollah’s leadership in Beirut had prompted little response from Tehran until Tuesday evening.
The barrage also risked plunging the Middle East into a deeper war, nearly a year after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 triggered the war in the Gaza Strip. The U.S. secretary of defense, Lloyd J. Austin III, who spoke by phone on Tuesday with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, “discussed the severe consequences” for Iran in response to any attack against Israel, the Pentagon said in a statement.
Iran launched the missiles hours after the Israeli military said the United States warned that Iran was preparing to attack. The Israeli military told Israelis to stay in shelters, air-raid sirens were activated, and the American Embassy in Israel told its employees to return home and be prepared to enter bomb shelters.
Witnesses said that loud explosions were also heard in Amman, the capital of Jordan, which helped intercept a launch from Iran on Israel in April.
After the barrage on Tuesday, residents of Jerusalem received messages from Israel’s automatic alert system giving them the all-clear to leave their bomb shelters.
Some residents of Dahiya, an area just south of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, that had been pounded by Israeli airstrikes in recent days, rejoiced at the news of the Iranian attack, lighting up the night’s sky with machine-gun fire and setting off fireworks.
Others feared the attack would only precipitate more bloodshed. “I think it will be a very violent night,” said Hussein Awada, 54, who was sleeping in his car but had returned to the area on Tuesday to check on his home. “You can smell the scent of war and death everywhere,” he added.
For years, Iran and Israel have fought a shadow war, with Iran seeking Israel’s destruction and Israel aiming to blunt Iran’s regional influence, destroy its nuclear program and unseat its government.
Iran had faced rising pressure to come to Hezbollah’s aid and sustain its own prestige and influence, but it had also been weighing the need to avoid a devastating counterattack from Israel that could wreck its nuclear program or kill senior Iranian leaders.
In recent days, the consensus in Iran had moved toward responding to Israel “in order to kill the momentum that Israel has been able to gain for the past few days,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran director at the International Crisis Group. He warned that an Iranian attack was “still extremely risky because it would provide justification for Israel to strike back on Iran.”
The rise in tensions followed Israel’s decision over the past month to escalate its attacks on Hezbollah, culminating in its overnight ground invasion of southern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold. The Israeli military said that its operation was aimed at destroying Hezbollah infrastructure in the rugged border region.
It was the first such incursion by Israel into Lebanon since 2006, when Israel and Hezbollah fought a monthlong war. Israel also occupied southern Lebanon from 1982 until 2000 in an attempt to prevent cross-border attacks by Palestinian militants.
This time, Israel said that one army division — which usually consists of about 10,000 soldiers — was conducting “limited, localized and targeted raids” along the Israeli-Lebanese border. The force appeared to be smaller than the two divisions Israel sent into Gaza after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack, but the growing number of troops that Israel has sent to its northern frontier in recent days has fueled speculation that a broader invasion could be coming.
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