Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel, Oct. 1, 2024 (Credit: Amir Cohen/Reuters)
Iran launched an aerial attack against Israel around 7:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, according to Reuters and several Israeli media. About an hour later, Iranian state media confirmed Iran "is firing" missiles at Israel.
Warning sirens sounded across all of Israel and videos circulated on local media show dozens of missiles streaming across the sky and impacting in Tel Aviv. Iranian state TV said that 80 percent of the military's missiles had hit their target. Israeli air defenses shot down dozens of Iranian missiles that flew over southern Syria, Reuters reported, citing sources in the Syrian army.
Israel reopened its airspace shortly before 9 p.m. around which time two Israeli officials told Axios they believed Iran had launched nearly 200 missiles in two waves. The army "made quite a few interceptions," according to its spokesperson Daniel Hagari, who added that several missiles had hit in central and southern Israel but that, following consultations with U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), "no additional threats from Iran are detected in Israel's airspace."
According to Israeli rescue services, two people sustained minor injuries, while the official military count remained at zero. Around half-an-hour before the missiles were detected, the Israeli military called on the public to prepare for a potential "large-scale" Iranian attack, follow civil defense directives and immediately seek shelter in case of an alert, remaining there "until further notice."
Some videos show missiles being intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome and Haaretz reported explosions heard across Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and at least one direct hit on a building north of Tel Aviv. According to al-Arabiya news, four people were injured in Tel Aviv in an explosion.
"Security sources expect 200 to 300 missiles to be fired in two waves," Charles Lister, director of Syria and counter-terrorism programs at the Middle East Institute, wrote in a post on X. Israeli media has reported similar figures.
Iron Dome missiles launched to intercept Iranian fire killed a Palestinian man in Jericho, originally from Gaza, Haaretz reported. Another impact wounded four Palestinian Authority security forces near Al-Bireh in Ramallah.
A fire also broke out near the Palestinian town of Qalqilia, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank while in the Gaza Strip, two explosions were reported, according to local media, one at sea and the other in the militarized Israeli corridor of Netzarim that cuts off the northern part of the enclave.
Axios reporter Barak Ravid spoke to a source "privy to the details," who said that the assessment in Israel and the U.S. in the lead-up to Iran's operation was that its scale would be similar to that of April, when Iran launched its first-ever direct attack against Israeli territory in retaliation for Israel's bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
In April, Iran sent more than 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, some of which took up to two hours to arrive in Israeli airspace, in an operation that was announced in advance and widely publicized. With the help of the American and British militaries, Israel claimed to have shot down or intercepted the majority of projectiles.
Several Gulf states, notably Jordan and Saudi Arabia, had participated in mitigating the Iranian attack that month, with some reports indicating that Jordan directly participated in intercepting Iranian missiles in its airspace. There are no reports regarding these states' involvement during the Tuesday attack.
According to Haaretz, this time, Iran reportedly "informed" international officials of the "scale and timing" of its attack against Israeli territory and a senior Israeli official told Ravid that the warning about the attack reached Israel around noon on Tuesday. The official said Netanyahu subsequently held a meeting for security consultations.
According to U.S. and Israeli officials cited by Axios, the Iranian attack was expected to consist solely of "ballistic missiles" capable of reaching Israel "within 12 minutes."
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah — aligned and supported by Iran, and the strongest proxy in its 'Axis of Resistance' — was assassinated in a massive Israeli bombing campaign on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday.
An Iraqi “resistance” group has declared that U.S. bases in Iraq will become a target if the U.S. intervenes in response to Iran or uses Iraqi airspace, Reuters reported.
