Two U. S. officials told CBS News last Thursday that an Israeli missile hit Iran. The attack came less than a week after Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel, to which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to respond.
U. S. officials provided data on the location or scope of the Israeli attack, and the Israel Defense Forces declined to comment on the attack when asked via CBS News.
Iran’s official news firm IRNA said air defense batteries fired in several provinces, but did not specify why they were fired. Iranians reported hearing the sound of explosions in several places, but no urgent assembly of Iran’s ruling National High Council was convened, according to state television. He reported, and it appears that the Iranian government was seeking to downplay the impact of the Israeli attack.
Iranian state media and resources interviewed through the media spoke only of small drones flying over some parts of the country, without any reference to a missile attack. There are no immediate reports of injuries.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, speaking of a stopover on Friday in the city of Damghan, east of Tehran and many miles north of Isfahan, did not even refer to the Israeli attack. Instead, he spoke of Iran’s attack on Israel a week earlier, calling it “necessary, mandatory” and “a sign of the strength of the Islamic Republic and its armed forces. “
A senior Israeli official told the Washington Post that the Israeli counterattack “was aimed at signaling to Iran that Israel can attack its territory. “
The Reuters news firm quoted an unnamed Iranian official as saying there were no plans for Tehran to respond to Israeli retaliation.
“I think it’s a measured response,” Efraim Halevi, an Israeli intelligence expert and former director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, told CBS News on Friday. “This is in no way proportional to the attack we had to face a few days ago. “”Not long ago, but it’s enough to send a message to the Iranian leadership. “
Dubai-based Emirates and FlyDubai airlines began diverting flights to western Iran early Friday morning, after the Israeli attack was announced. The airlines gave no explanation, local warnings to airmen recommending that the airspace would possibly have been closed.
Iran announced it had suspended advertising flights in Tehran and parts of its western and central regions, but state television later said general flight operations had resumed.
IRNA said Iranian air defenses fired on a main air base in the city of Isfahan, which has long housed Iran’s fleet of American-made F-14 Tomcat fighter jets, purchased before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Isfahan is also home to several sites related to Iran’s alleged nuclear program, its underground enrichment site of Natanz, which has been the target of several alleged Israeli attacks.
Iranian state media, however, denied any attack on the country’s nuclear facilities, describing it as “completely safe. “
The U. N. ‘s International Atomic Energy Agency also said it could simply “confirm that there is no damage to Iran’s nuclear sites. “
Iran denies having a nuclear weapons program and insists that all of its enrichment cadres are for civilian purposes, but it has continued to enrich uranium and plutonium to higher purity levels, bringing them closer to the theoretical capability to produce a nuclear weapon. Israel has pledged never to allow Iran to acquire this capability.
State television said three small drones had been shot down in a domain east of Isfahan, and the channel broadcast what it said was live footage showing general and calm situations in Isfahan.
Three Iranian officials told the New York Times that the attack on the airbase included small drones that would possibly have been introduced from Iran, saying the radar systems did not stumble upon any unidentified aircraft in Iranian airspace.
“No one needs a war with Iran right now,” Natan Eshel, a close aide and former leader of Netanyahu’s cabinet, said in a message shared Friday through the prime minister’s Likud party. “We have shown them that we can penetrate and wound their domains and ours have not succeeded. Messages are more vital than fights. Lately we have more vital responsibilities also in Gaza and Lebanon, others are lucky to be able to have a leader like Netanyahu. “
However, one of the most hardline members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, far-right and current National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, posted a one-word message on social media when news of the attack on Iran emerged, saying simply, “Lame. “.
Netanyahu has faced opposing pressure from the United States, which sought a calibrated reaction based on the minimal effect of Iran’s missile and drone barrage, and from ultra-nationalist members of his government, such as Ben-Gvir, who have long advocated tough measures. Army action opposed to Iran.
Oman, which acts as an intermediary between Tehran and the West, condemned the “Israeli attack” on Friday, according to the French news agency AFP.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry said it was “increasingly transparent that the tensions first provoked by Israel’s illegal attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus threatened to escalate into a permanent conflict,” and urged “all parties to refrain from taking measures that could simply lead to a permanent conflict. ” to a wider conflict.
Turkey said the foreign community’s priority “should be to prevent slaughter in Gaza and lasting peace in our region by building a Palestinian state. “
Italy’s most level-headed diplomat, Antonio Tajani, spoke Friday while hosting a gathering of his fellow G7 foreign ministers, adding to U. S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the U. S. had been informed of Israel’s military’s action “at the last minute, but no response. “USA. U. S. participation: data only provided. “
Blinken, speaking later, pressed for verification of the Israeli attack, but said only that the U. S. is “not involved in any offensive operations. “
Tajani said he believed “the small scale of the event,” referring to Israel’s retaliation, “is also the result of the efforts of the G7,” which, along with the United States, had proposed to Netanyahu to lead a measured response.
In a joint statement, the G7 foreign ministers suggested further escalation to Israel and Iran.
When the sound of explosions was heard in Iran, Syria’s official news firm SANA quoted an army officer as saying that Israel had carried out a missile attack on an air defense unit in the south of the country, causing damage to curtains.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U. K. -based war monitoring organization, said the strike hit an army radar facility. It is unclear if there were any casualties, the SOHR said. Israel has carried out a number of actions in Syria in recent times. years, targeting cities linked to Iranian-backed groups.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, where several Iranian-backed militias are based, citizens of Baghdad reported hearing sounds of explosions, but the source of those noises is not immediately clear.
Iran launched an unprecedented retaliatory strike against Israel over the weekend in reaction to a fatal attack on an Iranian consulate in Syria that killed seven officers, two generals, of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The Iranian attack on Israel included 170 drones, more than 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles, according to the IDF and U. S. officials. None of the drones entered Israeli territory before being shot down through Israel and its allies, the United States, the IDF said. .
Five of the ballistic missiles hit Israel, four of which hit Israel’s Nevatim Air Base, where Israel’s F-35s are based, U. S. officials told CBS News. It was reportedly carried out via an F-35.
The U. S. and other Israeli allies have suggested Netanyahu exercise restraint in the face of any reaction to the Iranian attack, and U. S. officials have said the U. S. will not participate in Israeli retaliation.
In the wake of the Iranian attack, which the IDF said caused “very little damage,” President Biden suggested to the Israeli prime minister “to think about what this good fortune itself says to the rest of the region,” according to the National Security Service. Council spokesman John Kirby.
Margaret Brennan, James LaPorta, David Martin, Michal Ben-Gal, Olivia Gazis, Haley Ott, Tucker Reals and Brian Dakss contributed reporting.