By Patrick Kingsley, Aaron Boxerman, Eric Schmitt, Ronen Bergman and Farnaz Fassihi
Iran fired several waves of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday evening, a sudden assault that left Israel fighting simultaneously on three fronts and raised the likelihood of an all-out conflict between two of the most powerful militaries in the Middle East.
The attack was the culmination of a dizzying sequence of events over less than 24 hours that began with Israel launching an invasion into Lebanon to pursue the Hezbollah militia, an Iranian ally. Israel pounded Lebanon from the air throughout Tuesday as its troops advanced on the ground and Hezbollah fired rockets deep into Israel.
Iran fired about 180 missiles during its assault, the Israeli military said, making the barrage one of the largest of its kind and forcing millions of Israelis to take cover in bomb shelters for more than an hour. Many of the missiles were intercepted by Israel’s air defense system, while some fell in central and southern Israel, according to the Israeli military.
There were no immediate reports of casualties in Israel, but one Palestinian man was killed by falling shrapnel in the occupied West Bank.
Based on initial reports, Israel “effectively defeated this attack,” with the help of the U.S. and other partners, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, adding that “the entire world should condemn” the Iranian strike.
President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters that U.S. naval destroyers had joined Israel in shooting down inbound missiles. He said there was “meticulous joint planning in anticipation of the attack.”
The offensive left the region on edge. As Israel’s top commanders met to assess the situation, the chief military spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said Israel would respond in a manner and time of its choosing. And Iran, for its part, said it would fire more missiles if Israel counterattacked.
A senior White House official said the United States would help defend Israel and warned that a direct attack against Israel would “carry severe consequences for Iran.”
The scale of the attack upended the assumption among Israelis that Iran had been deterred by Israel’s increasingly brazen escalations against Iran and its proxies in recent months. Since July, Israel has killed Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in the Iranian capital, and assassinated Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut, as well as many of his military commanders.
Those attacks prompted little response from Iran until Tuesday evening, when Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said in a statement that its missile attack had been in retaliation for those assassinations.
During the attack, air raid sirens sounded across Israel, including in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Loud booming explosions were heard above both cities, as Israel’s interceptor rockets streaked across the night sky and collided with scores of missiles.
The attack came as Israel continued to fight Hamas, another Iranian proxy in the Gaza Strip, and mounted raids on Palestinian cities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Iran last attacked Israel in April, but Israel, with help from the United States, Jordan and others, intercepted almost all of the hundreds of missiles and drones fired at its territory. With the United States urging restraint, Israel’s response was muted; it fired at an air base near some of Iran’s nuclear facilities, but did not hit the facilities themselves.
Here is what else to know:
— U.S. troops: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke by phone with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of Israel on Tuesday, the Pentagon said in a statement, adding that 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.” The Pentagon announced Monday that it was sending “several thousand” more U.S. troops to the region, adding to its force of some 40,000 already in the area.
— Regional response: What sounded like celebratory gunfire could be heard across Beirut following news of the Iranian attack on Israel. The Israeli military has been conducting extensive airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in and near Beirut, including Tuesday.
— In Jordan: Witnesses said that loud explosions were heard in Amman, the capital of Jordan, a country sandwiched between Israel and Iran that helped intercept a launch from Iran on Israel in April.
— Shooting in Tel Aviv: The Israeli emergency response service said at least six people were killed and several more injured when two gunmen opened fire on a light rail train in Tel Aviv shortly after residents were urged to seek shelter from an Iranian missile attack. No group claimed immediate responsibility for the shooting Tuesday night. Authorities described the shooting as a terrorist attack.
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