Iran launches ballistic missiles in two waves –

Iran launched a missile attack on Israel. A hail of ballistic missiles, 180 by the IDF’s count, was launched at Israel in the evening. Air raid sirens began to sound and citizens were ordered to take cover in shelters. As flashes lit up the Israeli sky, explosions were heard in both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The situation eased about an hour later, when the Israeli army announced to residents that they could leave the shelters. The toll is of a Palestinian citizen killed in Jericho, in the West Bank, and 2 slightly injured in Tel Aviv. The Iranian Pasdaran have made it known that this is a response to the killings of Ismail Haniyeh and Hassan Nasrallah. Haniyeh, political leader of Hamas, was killed on July 31st in an attack in the heart of Tehran, while Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s number 1, was killed in the massive Israeli raid on Beirut on September 27th.

Iran, which says it hit three Israeli bases near Tel Aviv with hypersonic missiles, also threatened that “if Israel responds militarily to this operation it will face a harsher response.” The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, renewed the call for a ceasefire: “I condemn the widening of the conflict in the Middle East, with one escalation after another. This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire fire”. An attack by Tehran was expected. A few hours earlier the United States had made it known that it was “imminent”, with ballistic missiles, and had warned that there would be “serious consequences”. “Days of great challenges” are coming, Benjamin Netanyahu said while addressing the Israelis. The IDF reiterated that there will be “consequences” after the attack was completed, warning that even during the night Israel “will continue to strike with power in the Middle East, as has happened in the last year”. The United States also participated in Israel’s defense, both in detecting threats and intercepting some missiles. US President Joe Biden and his deputy Kamala Harris followed the attack from the Situation Room and the White House said that the United States and Israel will consult on “next steps” and will continue to “monitor the situation for further threats and attacks from Iran and its allies.”

Immediately before the hail of missiles, a shooting also occurred in Jaffa, in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, resulting in 6 deaths; the 2 attackers were killed. Tehran’s attack – which led to the temporary closure of Israel’s airspace, which was later reopened, as well as Iran, Jordan and Iraq – came a few hours after another dramatic development in the conflict in the Middle East: Israel announced having launched ground operations in southern Lebanon, in what the IDF called “targeted ground raids”. Hezbollah denied that Israeli soldiers entered Lebanese territory, but the IDF responded by announcing that it has been conducting ground incursions in southern Lebanon for about a year. The IDF has warned the population to evacuate around twenty Lebanese border communities north of the Awali River, about 60 kilometers from the border with Israel. A greater distance than the Litani River, which is 30 km from the border and marks the northern border of a buffer zone declared by the United Nations after the 2006 war. The border zone has largely emptied in the last year, since the exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah began the day after October 7 and the start of the war in Gaza. The scope of the evacuation warning, however, has raised questions about how deep Israel plans to push its forces into Lebanon.