Iran said an Israeli strike on Saturday targeted military sites in the Islamic republic, killing two soldiers, nearly a month after Israel vowed to retaliate for a barrage of rockets that raised fears of a large-scale war in the Middle East.
The Israeli military said its retaliatory airstrikes hit Iran’s missile production facilities, missile installations and other systems in several regions. It warned Iran that it would “pay a high price” if it responded.
Iran confirmed that an Israeli strike targeted military sites in Tehran province around the capital and other parts of the country, saying it had caused “limited damage”. The armed forces said two soldiers were later killed in the attacks.
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Israel had vowed to take revenge on Iran for its barrage of 200 missiles on October 1, the second-ever direct attack by Iran on its arch-enemy. Most of those missiles were intercepted, but one person was killed.
The Israeli retaliation drew condemnation from Hamas and Saudi Arabia, which warned of further escalation.
Israel is already engaged in a battle on two fronts: since last month, a full-scale war against the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, and in Gaza, where Israel has been fighting Palestinian Hamas militants for more than a year and the United Nations calls the “darkest moment” of that conflict was unfolding.
“Based on intelligence, IAF (Air Force) aircraft struck missile factories used to produce the missiles that Iran has fired against the State of Israel over the past year,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
Iran has carried out two direct rocket attacks on Israel since April, but for more than a year Hezbollah, armed and financed by Tehran, has been firing across Israel’s border.
“At the same time, the IDF (army) attacked surface-to-air missiles and additional Iranian air capabilities,” the Israeli military said, adding that the “retaliatory strike has been completed and the mission accomplished.”
Israeli planes “returned safely,” a military spokesman added.
Two dead in Israel
Together with Hezbollah and Hamas, armed groups in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, also affiliated with Iran, have carried out attacks as a result of the Gaza war.
At about the same time that Israel attacked Iran, Syria’s state news agency SANA said an Israeli airstrike targeted military positions in central and southern Syria.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose network of pro-Iranian factions, claimed responsibility for a drone attack on a “military target” in northern Israel before dawn on Saturday.
After the attacks on Iran ended, the Israeli military said it intercepted two drones entering Israel from Lebanon.
On Friday, two people died from shrapnel after a Hezbollah rocket attack on northern Israel, Israeli officials said.
US National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said Israel’s response to Iran was “an exercise in self-defense” aimed solely at military targets.
He urged Iran to “cease its attacks on Israel so that this cycle of fighting can end without further escalation,” and said the United States wants to “accelerate diplomacy.”
The Israeli military blamed “Iran and its allies” in the region for “mercilessly attacking Israel since October 7,” when Hamas’ attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Dozens of prisoners seized that day are still held by militants in Gaza.
Israel’s retaliatory bombings and ground war in Gaza have killed 42,847 people, the majority of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run Health Ministry, figures the United Nations considers reliable.
Flights resume
In late September, Israel turned its attention to Lebanon, escalating bombing of targets it believed were linked to Hezbollah, and then sending in ground troops. Israel said the goal is to make the north of the country safe for tens of thousands of Israelis to return.
At least 1,580 people have been killed in Lebanon since September 23, according to figures from the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Iran suspended all flights before dawn, but the aviation authority later announced that flights would “return to normal” from 9 a.m. (05:30 GMT).
In its first-ever direct attack on Israeli territory, Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles in April. According to the report, the barrage was in retaliation for an attack on Iran’s consular building in Damascus, which killed members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Explosions later in April rocked Iran’s Isfahan province, in what U.S. officials said was Israeli retaliation.
Iran’s Air Defense Force confirmed on Saturday that an Israeli strike targeted several military bases.
“This fake regime (Israel) attacked parts of military centers in Tehran, Khuzestan and Ilam provinces,” the report said in a statement, adding that the attack “caused limited damage” while it was intercepted.
Iranian state television had reported explosions around the capital due to the “activation of the air defense system” against an Israeli attack.
An AFP reporter in Tehran also heard explosions.
Possible ‘atrocities’
Iran said its Oct. 1 rocket attack on Israel was in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and a Revolutionary Guard general in Lebanon, as well as the killing in Tehran of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.
On Friday, Gaza’s health ministry accused Israeli forces of storming the last functioning hospital in the territory’s north, killing what it said were two children.
The Israeli military said its forces were operating around the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, but were “unaware of live fire and attacks in the area surrounding the hospital.”
The Israeli military says it is trying to destroy the operational capabilities that Hamas is trying to rebuild in the north.
Also in northern Gaza, the Gaza Civil Protection Organization said Friday that Israeli drone strikes killed 12 people waiting for help near the Al-Shati refugee camp. There was no immediate comment from the military.
Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Israel’s policies in northern Gaza “threaten to empty the territory of all Palestinians.”
“We are confronted with what could amount to atrocities, which may also extend to crimes against humanity.”
He said: “It is unimaginable that the situation is getting worse by the day.”