Israel has vowed to retaliate after Iran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles at targets across Israel in a dramatic escalation of a conflict that appeared to be spiralling out of control.
“Iran made a big mistake tonight – and it will pay for it,” Benjamin Netanyahu told a meeting of his security cabinet late on Tuesday. “The regime in Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and our determination to retaliate against our enemies.”
The unprecedented Iranian salvo of more than 180 ballistic missiles came less than 24 hours after the Israeli prime minister ordered the largest ground incursion into southern Lebanon in a generation.
Guardian reporters in Jerusalem witnessed dozens of missiles flying overhead towards Israel’s main coastal cities in a huge attack just after 7.30pm, with the engines of the rockets clearly visible from below.
Air sirens sounded across Israel as the missiles, many of them intercepted by Israeli air defenses, streaked across the night sky in trails of red and gold. Other missiles, still intact, appeared to continue on towards the coast and central Israel to the sound of distant explosions.
Minutes before Iran began the strike, at least two gunmen in the Israeli seaside city of Jaffa launched an attack that killed six and wounded 10, sowing further concerns that the rising cycle of violence could lead to terror attacks inside of Israel.
Israel’s military said it was not aware of any injuries from the missile attacks, but the Palestinian civil defence authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank said a man was killed near Jericho and falling rocket debris had caused damage and started fires in the area.
Iran said it launched the missiles toward three Israeli military bases as retaliation for a series of Israeli strikes in Lebanon against its proxy Hezbollah that has devastated the southern suburbs of Beirut, the capital, as well as villages in the country’s south.
The Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed by an Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday, dealing a heavy blow to the militant group.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, hailed the attack as “a decisive response to the aggression of the Zionist regime,” adding: “Let Netanyahu know that Iran is not a belligerent, but it stands firmly against any threat … Do not enter into a conflict with Iran.”
The order to launch missiles at Israel was made by supreme leader Ali Khamenei, senior Iranian officials told Reuters.
Diplomatic efforts to contain the conflict were unravelling quickly as the tit-for-tat attacks threatened to set the Middle East alight less than one week after the US and France announced a bid to broker a 21-day ceasefire between the two sides.
World leaders called for restraint, with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, condemning “escalation after escalation” in the region.
“This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire,” he said.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) described the Iranian attack as serious and vowed to retaliate. The US has also warned that Iran would face consequences for launching the strike, raising the spectre of a direct confrontation between Tehran and Washington.
“We are on high alert both defensively and offensively,” IDF spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, said in a broadcast statement before the attacks. “This attack will have consequences. We have plans, and we will operate at the place and time we decide.”
US destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea took down multiple missiles launched by Iran, US defense officials said. At the moment, those there include the USS Arleigh Burke, USS Cole, and USS Bulkely. Additional destroyers are in the Red Sea.
On the edge of the Old City, many stopped to watch the missiles flying overhead in what appears to have been an unprecedented attack, as explosions thudded in the distance at a staccato pitch. Millions of Israelis were told to take shelter as the country closed its airspace to civilian aircraft.
Orli Mircus, 56, a social worker and a physiotherapist from Tel Aviv, said she had witnessed the attacks and felt “fear … a lot of fear, mainly with the explosions over our heads.”
“At that moment I wanted to know where were our beloved ones were,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking, I was so afraid.”
“I am worried about what will come, I am worried about Israel reaction to the attack, who logically wants to defend itself and that will bring another reaction, possible not only from Iran,” she said.
Israeli media, citing the military, said the country’s air force would continue conducting “powerful strikes’ throughout the Middle East on Tuesday evening.
Already this week, Israel had launched strikes in three countries: Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.
The White House earlier warned it had “indications that Iran is preparing to imminently launch a ballistic missile attack” against Israel. The state department later said there had been no warning from Tehran, although some reports suggested the Iranians had told the Russians what they were planning.
“We are actively supporting defensive preparations to defend Israel against this attack,” a senior official said in a statement, warning that such an action “will carry severe consequences for Iran”.
What those consequences could be remain unclear.
Oil prices shot up 5% on the news of the Iranian missile strikes, which raise the prospect of a wider war between the two arch enemies.
The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, who was on the phone with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, when the barrage of missiles began on Tuesday, condemned the Iranian attack.
Downing Street said he reiterated to Netanyahu the UK’s commitment to Israel’s security and the protection of civilians, but emphasised the importance of seeking ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza.
On Monday Israel began a ground incursion into southern Lebanon, which it has called operation northern arrow, with a barrage of shelling across the border.
The ground incursion marks the first time Israeli troops have launched sustained operations in Lebanon since 2006, when the two countries signed a peace deal that ended a 34-day war between Israel and the Shia militia Hezbollah, which dominates large swaths of southern Lebanon.
In the first concrete demands since the military launched its incursion, Israeli officials on Monday ordered the residents of about 30 villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate. An Israeli military spokesperson told people to evacuate to north of the Awali River, nearly 35 miles (55km) from the blue line between the two countries, as the IDF targeted what it called Hezbollah “attack infrastructure” along the UN boundary.
The Lebanese prime minister, Najib Mikati, met UN officials on Tuesday and said it was “one of the most dangerous stages in [Lebanon’s] history”. He claimed that “about 1 million of our people have been displaced due to the devastating war waged by Israel on Lebanon”.
US officials have voiced cautious support for the operation, with the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, agreeing with the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, “on the necessity of dismantling [Hezbollah’s] attack infrastructure along the border”.
The Israeli offensive has followed a number of Israeli successes against Hezbollah that appear to have emboldened Netanyahu, to move against the Iran-backed organisation despite considerable diplomatic efforts to avert an escalation in the war.
Nasrallah’s death followed two weeks of strikes that began with the explosion of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members that killed dozens of people and injured thousands more. Israel has since continued to pound Beirut and has also launched strikes on Yemen and Syria, saying it was launching attacks against Iranian-backed militias across the Middle East.
Additional reporting by Quique Kierszenbaum in Jerusalem