Israel carries out 'precision strikes' in Iran, where loud explosions heard

Photo: Agence France-Presse A general view of Tehran after several explosions were heard in Tehran on October 26, 2024. The Israeli military announced that it was carrying out raids on military targets in Iran “in response to months of continuous attacks” by the Islamic Republic. On October 1, Iran launched some 200 missiles at Israel in retaliation for strikes that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Ramin Khanizadeh – Agence France-Presse and Cyril Julien – Agence France-Presse in Jerusalem

Published yesterday at 9:15 p.m. Updated at 12:41 a.m.

• Middle East

Israel announced that it had carried out “precise and targeted” strikes in Iran on Saturday in response to the October 1 attack, which targeted missile manufacturing sites, with Tehran reporting “limited damage.”

These raids come in a context of regional tensions exacerbated for a year by the war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas, and its spillover into neighboring Lebanon, where the Israeli army is fighting Hezbollah. These two Islamist movements are allies of Iran, which arms and finances them.

On October 1, Tehran launched some 200 missiles at Israel, including for the first time several hypersonic missiles. Israel had vowed to make Iran pay for this attack.

The military aircraft “struck missile manufacturing sites […] that Iran has been firing at the State of Israel for a year. “These missiles posed a direct and immediate threat to the citizens of Israel,” the Israeli military said in a statement.

The strikes also targeted “surface-to-air missile batteries and other air systems that were intended to restrict Israel's freedom to operate in Iran,” it said, adding that the raids had ended.

“Our message is clear: Anyone who threatens the State of Israel and tries to plunge the region into a broader escalation will pay a high price,” said Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the army.

“Loud detonations”

The first detonations rang out at around 2:15 a.m. local time (5:45 p.m. EDT Friday), mainly west of Tehran, according to the official IRNA news agency.

Israel “attacked military centers in Tehran and the provinces of Khuzestan (southwest) and Ilam (west),” bordering from Iraq, “as part of an operation generating tensions,” the Iranian air defense forces said in a statement.

They specified that the attack had caused “limited damage in certain places.”

Iranian state television reported during the night “six loud detonations” around the Iranian capital, “linked to the activation of the air defense system.”

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After the six detonations reported by state television, continuous detonations accompanied by luminous trails were heard and seen from the center of the Iranian capital by AFP journalists.

Tehran announced the suspension until further notice of all flights in its airspace.

“No fire or explosion” was reported at Tehran's main refinery, the local news agency Tasnim said.

“Self-defense”

In Washington, the White House called the strikes “self-defense maneuvers” and called on Tehran to “cease its attacks on Israel so that this cycle of fighting can end without further escalation.” »

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The shots of Iranian missiles of October 1 were presented by Tehran as retaliation for Israeli strikes in Lebanon, which cost the lives of an Iranian general and the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, at the end of September.

The latter, who led the Lebanese movement for more than 30 years, had close ties with Iran.

Iranian officials also justified this operation by invoking a response to the assassination on their territory, attributed to Israel, of Ismail Haniyeh, then head of Hamas.

In recent weeks, Iran has played on both tension and détente, in the face of Israeli threats of reprisals for its missile attacks.

“We will strike you again painfully” in the event of an attack, warned General Hossein Salami, the head of the Revolutionary Guards, the powerful ideological army responsible for defending the regime of the Islamic Republic.

Diplomatic tour

At the same time, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has been engaged in an intense diplomatic campaign, visiting every Middle Eastern country except Israel in two weeks.

“We don't want war, we want peace,” Araghchi has repeatedly stressed, while assuring that Iran was “fully prepared to face a war situation.”

In April, Tehran had already fired missiles and drones against Israel, in an unprecedented operation that followed a deadly attack on its consulate in Syria, attributed to the Israeli army.

Detonations in central Iran were subsequently reported, with senior American officials then speaking in the media of an Israeli response. Israel has never claimed responsibility for any attack.

Iran, for its part, had downplayed these detonations, the origin of which has never been clearly explained.

Israeli strike in Syria

In Syria, the state news agency announced that Israel had carried out an air attack from the occupied Golan and the airspace of neighboring Lebanon against “military positions” on its territory during the night.

“Our anti-aircraft defense confronted the enemy's missiles and shot down a number of them,” said this source.

“The anti-aircraft defense was activated” in several regions, notably in Homs (center), in Damascus and its surroundings, to “try to target the planes “Israelis crossing Syrian airspace,” Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), an NGO with a vast network of sources in Syria, told AFP.

Iraq announced for its part the suspension of traffic at all its airports until further notice due to “regional tensions”.

The factions of the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq”, a nebulous group of Iraqi armed groups allied with Tehran, claimed responsibility for a drone attack on a “military target” in northern Israel at dawn on Saturday, after the announcement of Israeli strikes on Iran.