Israel could target Iranian oil refineries in retaliation for Tuesday night’s attack, in which Tehran launched an estimated 180 ballistic missiles at Tel Aviv and other targets across the country in a dramatic escalation of the conflict between the two countries.
The US website Axios has reported that Israeli officials are considering a “significant retaliation” to the Iranian attack within days that could target oil production facilities inside Iran and other strategic sites.
Israeli officials are understood to be conferring with the US on how to calibrate their military response, which could propel the Middle East closer to the brink of a regional war.
Analysts have also suggested that Israel could target Iranian nuclear programme facilities, although the US may want to rule out that option because of its likelihood to escalate the conflict further.
“There will be severe consequences for this attack and we will work with Israel to make that the case,” the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Tuesday evening, adding that the US would have “ongoing consultations with the Israelis this afternoon and this evening”.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, convened a security cabinet meeting on Tuesday night to discuss a military response to the attack. According to Axios, Israeli officials agreed in principle to launching a retaliation but needed to confer with US officials on defensive cooperation from US Central Command, as well as supplies of munitions and other operational support.
“Iran made a big mistake tonight – and it will pay for it,” 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 … They will understand.”
US lawmakers have backed a strike against Iranian oil production. Sen Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, said he would “urge the Biden administration to coordinate an overwhelming response with Israel, starting with Iran’s ability to refine oil”. In a statement, he said Iran’s oil refineries should be “hit and hit hard”.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on Wednesday announced they would send additional troops to join in ground incursions into southern Lebanon as part of the largest operation in that country since the 2006 war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.
In a message posted on Telegram, the IDF said it would send the 36th Division, including troops from three brigades, to join the “limited, localised, targeted raids on Hezbollah terror targets and terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon that began on Monday”.
“The soldiers are being accompanied by the IAF and the 282nd Artillery Brigade,” the announcement read.
Israeli media have reported that about 100 rockets had been launched into Israel from the direction of Lebanon so far on Tuesday, amid reports of the first direct clashes between Israeli ground forces and Hezbollah.
So far, Israel had only deployed the 98th Division to launch attacks into southern Lebanon, making the operation far smaller than the incursions that the military has launched into Gaza. The latest Israeli deployment indicates that Israel could intensify its operation there.
Israel continued to launch airstrikes against targets in Beirut overnight, and photographs showed smoke rising over the city at daybreak. Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip also killed at least 60 Palestinians overnight, including in a school sheltering displaced families, medics in the territory said.
IDF spokespeople overnight issued new warnings for residents of villages in southern Lebanon and some residents of the Beirut suburbs to evacuate, saying that their homes would be targeted as they were close to alleged Hezbollah facilities.
The Iranian missile salvo targeted several Israeli airbases but few casualties were reported from the attack. One person – a Palestinian man from near the West Bank town of Jericho – was reported killed on Tuesday night when shrapnel from a downed Iranian missile fell on him as he was crossing an intersection. Two more people were reported wounded.
Most of the Iranian missiles appeared to have been intercepted by Israeli and US air defences and Tehran appeared to be targeting several military bases, meaning that the missiles mostly fell outside of highly populated areas.
Guardian reporters in Jerusalem witnessed dozens of missiles flying overhead towards Israel’s main coastal cities in a huge attack shortly 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 defences, 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.
In the early hours of Wednesday, at least five Israeli strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, after the Israeli military issued multiple evacuation orders for buildings in the city, saying it was targeting Hezbollah sites.
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, including an IDF soldier, sowing further concerns that the rising cycle of violence could lead to terror attacks inside Israel.