Sirens and loud sounds could be heard across Israel late Tuesday after Iran launched a missile attack on the country. The Israeli military said the country’s missile defense systems made “a number of interceptions,” and a U.S. defense official said the United States intercepted some of the missiles in support of Israel’s defense.
About 45 minutes later, the Israel Defense Forces announced it was safe for people across Israel to leave their shelters, with spokesman Maj. Gen. Daniel Hagari saying the military had “not identified any additional air threats from Iran.” Ta.
Hagari said some of the Iranian weapons had actually landed and that an evaluation was underway, but the Israel Defense Forces had “no casualties.”
U.S. officials said nearly 200 missiles were fired from Iran toward Israeli territory, while the Israel Defense Forces said, “Since the Iranian missile attacks began…IDF systems have been launched from Iran toward Israeli territory.” “We have identified approximately 180 missiles that were attacked.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the attack a failure, but vowed that “Iran will pay reparations.”
“The Iranian regime does not understand our determination to defend our country,” Netanyahu said. He also thanked the United States for its “support to our defense efforts.”
“Israel is moving forward and the axis of evil is retreating. We will continue this trend and achieve everything,” the Israeli leader said in a speech on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I will do whatever it takes to achieve this,” he concluded his speech. The goal of the war, primarily the return of all abductees, and securing our existence and future. ”
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a press conference from the White House on Tuesday that a U.S. Navy destroyer had joined Israel in “launching interceptors to shoot down incoming missiles.”
In Tel Aviv, the missiles appeared to come in waves, each starting with a blaring siren, followed by a loud thud, then silence until the next siren sounded.
“The explosions you hear are caused by interceptions or falling missiles. Air defense systems are constantly detecting and intercepting threats,” the Israeli military said.
An Israeli security official said most of the missiles were intercepted in “cooperation” with U.S. Air Force Central Command, but “several missiles were confirmed to have landed and the damage situation is currently being assessed.”
A projectile is intercepted by Israeli military defense systems over Tel Aviv on October 1, 2024. JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty
Sullivan said President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are monitoring the attack and response from the White House Situation Room. He said the United States was not aware of any deaths in Israel but was monitoring reports of deaths of Palestinian civilians in Jericho in the West Bank.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that Iran’s attack was “totally unacceptable and should be condemned by the entire world.”
He said initial reports suggest that “Israel, with the active support of the United States and other partners, effectively repelled this attack.”
In Jerusalem, Bill Schechter, a retired trauma surgeon from San Francisco, said he took shelter in his apartment after receiving a cellphone alert.
“I heard multiple bangs. I think Iron Dome may have shot down a missile,” Schechter said, referring to Israel’s defense systems. “There were two waves. The first time we heard a thump. Then it went quiet and we went outside. Then we heard another series of thumps and we had to go back to the bomb shelter. It didn’t happen.”
A missile fired by Iran is seen over Jerusalem from Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on October 1, 2024. Wissam Hashramoun/Anadolu/Getty
Iran’s mission to the United Nations issued a statement confirming the attack on Israel and suggesting that direct attacks had ended.
Iran’s statement said: “Iran’s legal, rational and just response to the Zionist regime’s terrorist acts targeting Iranian people and interests and violating the national sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran was appropriate.” Ta. Iran supports a number of proxy groups in the region, but it was not clear whether any of these groups might launch additional attacks against Israel after the Iranian missile salvo. .
After the attack, Iranian state television claimed victory, claiming that many missiles had penetrated Israeli defense systems and hit their targets, but there was little evidence to support that claim.
No one was apparently killed by the Iranian missile, but Israeli police said two gunmen opened fire on civilians on the streets of Tel Aviv shortly before the rocket was fired. Six people were killed in the attack before the two suspects were killed, the Associated Press reported, citing police.
The explosion from the Iranian missile attack came just hours after a senior White House official told CBS News that the United States has indications that Iran is preparing a ballistic missile attack on Israel. Israeli officials said they had conveyed the warning.
Israel expands attacks on Iranian proxies, strengthens military presence near Lebanon border 02:21
The last time Iran fired a volley of ballistic missiles at Israel was in April, in retaliation for an Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital that killed scores of senior Iranian military officers.
Iran fired more than 300 missiles and drones at Israel in the April attack, but Hagari said at the time that virtually all of the weapons were intercepted before entering Israeli territory and that only a few missiles were fired. It said it reported only minor damage to two military bases. Land in that country. One 10-year-old girl suffered “severe fragmentation injuries” from the intercepted missile, but the Israel Defense Forces reported no additional casualties.
U.S. officials told CBS News earlier Tuesday that Iran was prepared to attack Israel again on short notice for the first time since early August, when Tehran threatened to retaliate for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. .
Iranian diplomatic sources told CBS News on Tuesday that the country’s leadership is “under intense pressure to take action” against Israel amid escalating attacks on close ally Hezbollah, but Iranian He said he believed any attack on Israel would be limited in scope. Iran framed the missile attack on Israel as a response to the assassination of a senior Iranian military official earlier this year, rather than to Israel’s operations against Hezbollah.
The Iranian attack came a day after Israel announced the launch of a “limited, localized and targeted ground assault” against Iran-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
President Biden has repeatedly called for a ceasefire amid weeks of escalating gunfire between Israel and Hezbollah over Lebanon’s southern border. White House, State Department and Pentagon officials have all laid bare the risk of an all-out war between Israel and armed Iranian proxies in Lebanon, warning that it could escalate into a broader regional conflict. .
CBS News
On September 30, Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters that the deployments of many U.S. troops already deployed to the Middle East would be extended and replaced by overlapping troops scheduled to be replaced. Ta. This includes F-16, F-15E, A-10, and F-22 fighter jets and the personnel who fly them, increasing the number of U.S. troops in the region by “several thousand more.” She said it was equivalent to that.
U.S. defense officials told CBS News on Tuesday that U.S. forces in the region are now larger than when Iran launched missile attacks on Israel in April, including 40,000 troops. He said he was there.
Iran supports a wide range of groups across the region, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The Iranian government calls these groups a “front of resistance” against Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory, while Israel calls them an axis of evil with the ideological goal of wiping the Jewish state off the map. .
Hezbollah claims rocket and drone attacks against Israel are legitimate support and defense of Palestinians in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and the Houthis have targeted commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea for months. He claims there are similar reasons for what he did.
One of the biggest risks to the United States is that Iranian proxies, including small militias based in Iraq and Syria, could target American forces in the region in retaliation for Washington’s support for Israel. They have already done so since Oct. 7, firing rockets and drones at U.S. military bases more than 165 times. Most attacks cause little damage, but a drone strike on a U.S. military outpost in Jordan in January, claimed by an Iranian-backed group in Iraq, killed three U.S. soldiers and killed dozens of others. I was injured.
Ahead of an Iranian missile attack, the Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday tightened internal security measures in most areas of the country. Among the new measures announced by the IDF Home Front Forces were limits on the number of people allowed to gather in public throughout northern Israel, near the Lebanese border.
Emmet Lyons, Eleanor Watson, Charlie D’Agata and Margaret Brennan contributed to this report.
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