Israel launched airstrikes against Iran in early October in response to ballistic missiles ordered by Tehran

Israel’s military said it launched a “precision strike” on military targets in Iran on Saturday morning.

According to media reports from that country, explosions were heard in the capital Tehran and the city of Karaj.

After a few hours, israel defense forces (FDI) indicated that “our aircraft have returned home safely.”

Although the magnitude and specific objectives are still unclear, Iran decided Close your airspace and cancel flights Until further notice “due to regional tensions,” Reuters reported.

A news agency linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard claims that some military targets to the west and southwest of the capital have been attacked.

For weeks now, Israel has been expected to respond to Ballistic missile attack ordered by Iranian government Against his region on 1 October.

The Iranian attack was the second attack launched against Israel in six months.

Explosions were also heard in rural areas of Syria and the central area of ​​Damascus. However, Israel has not confirmed any attack on Syrian soil.

“The State of Israel, like any other sovereign country in the world, has the right to respond,” he said. Daniel HagariIsrael Defense Forces spokesperson.

And he said the decision is due to the fact that “the Iranian regime and its proxies in the region… have repeatedly attacked Israel since October 7, 2023.”

“Our defensive and offensive capabilities are fully operational,” Hagari said in a speech.

For their part, Iranian media spreads message of peaceThat contrasts with the reaction on the country’s social networks, according to Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior researcher at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, to the BBC.

“Based on the targets we’re seeing so far, it is designed to neutralize, not destroy, the Iranian long-range missile threat,” Taleblu says.

The White House has said that it understands that Israel is carrying out attacks in Iran “Self-defense practice.”

“We understand that Israel is carrying out targeted strikes against military targets in Iran as a self-defense exercise and in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Israel on October 1,” a National Security Council spokesperson told BBC affiliate CBS News. ” In America.

He also said that country’s President Joe Biden “had been informed and is following the events closely.”

Whereas the Secretary of Defense of the United States of America, lloyd austinAccording to CBS News, he spoke to his Israeli counterpart Yoav Galant.

The Middle East has been in a tense situation since last October 7, when the Palestinian military group Hamas launched an attack on Israeli soil, killing about 1,400 people and taking 200 others hostage.

Israel responded with a military offensive against the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 40,000 people.

By Azadeh Moshiri, BBC News

The international community was on alert, waiting to see how Israel would respond, in a region where the word “escalation” has been used many times more than world leaders.

US President Joe Biden made it clear that he does not support Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear research facilities or its oil facilities.

At this time, Iranian state media is downplaying the attack, as it usually does.

The main questions at this stage are:

How much damage has actually been done?

Will Iran feel the need to respond, at a time when its proxies have been weakened and it has suffered several humiliations this year?

Those humiliations include the assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Iranian soil.

Will this be another moment that leads this region down that catastrophic slippery slope?

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