Photo: Ahmad Gharabli Agence France-Presse The Israeli anti-aircraft system
France Media Agency
Published yesterday at 10:41 p.m.
- Middle East
Loud explosions were reported early Friday in central Iran, with senior U.S. officials saying an Israeli attack was in retaliation for unprecedented drone and missile strikes against Israel over the weekend. end last.
Tehran reported three explosions near a military base in the center of the country, the official Fars agency reported.
Drones have been shot down but there has been no missile attack “so far,” Iranian authorities said. And the nuclear installations based in the Isfahan region (center) are “totally safe,” said the Tasnim agency.
Iran activated its air defense in several provinces early on Friday after reports of explosions in the center of the country, the official IRNA agency said.
Commercial flights have been suspended from and to several airports, including Tehran, according to the Mehr agency, citing airport authorities.
State television reported early on reports of “loud explosions” heard in the central province of Isfahan, without elaborating on the causes.
According to American officials cited by several American television stations, including the ABC News channel, this is an Israeli attack carried out against Iran in retaliation for Iranian strikes against Israel last weekend.
Washington was warned of the Israeli attack on Iran, but neither approved the operation nor played any role in its execution, these officials were quoted as saying by US media.
NBC and CNN, citing sources familiar with the matter and a US official respectively, reported that Israel had warned Washington of the strike. “We have not approved the response,” a US official said, according to CNN.
The Israeli army told AFP it had no comment “at the moment” on explosions reported early Friday near a military base in central Iran.
The military said alarm sirens had sounded in northern Israel, the scene of exchanges of fire in recent months between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, supported by Iran.
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Israel against Iran
These new developments come as Israel threatened to respond to the attack on its territory last weekend launched by Tehran. Iran was responding to a deadly strike blamed on Israel against its consulate in Damascus, Syria.
Israel said it had intercepted with its allies almost all of the approximately 350 drones and missiles launched by Iran, and affirmed that the Iranian attack would not go “unpunished”.
This was the first direct attack ever carried out by Iran against its archenemy. The head of Iranian diplomacy, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said that Iran would make Israel “regret” any attack on its territory.
But by attacking Israel, Iran said it was acting in “self-defense” after the attack which destroyed its consulate in Damascus on April 1 and cost the lives of seven of its soldiers, including two high-ranking officers. Tehran accused Israel, which neither confirmed nor denied.
“Iran's self-defense actions and countermeasures are over, so the Israeli terrorist regime must stop any further military adventurism against our interests,” Amir-Abdollahian said during a meeting on the situation in the Middle East. -Orient.
“Widespread regional conflict”
Strikes also targeted the region of Soueida, in southern Syria, at dawn on Friday, “on a radar position of the Syrian army,” said Rayan Maarouf, activist and manager of online media Suwayda 24.
Israel had for a time considered quickly carrying out strikes in Iran in retaliation for the missiles launched by Tehran last weekend on its territory, but had ultimately revised its plans, Israeli and American media said Thursday
According to Israeli public broadcaster Kan, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided not to implement pre-approved plans for retaliatory strikes in the event of an attack, after discussions with US President Joe Biden.
Israel's first ally, the United States, urges Israel to exercise restraint, opting instead to strengthen its sanctions against “Iran's drone program, the steel industry and automobile manufacturers.” The European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom also announced new sanctions against Tehran.
“We are on the brink of a war in the Middle East which will cause shock waves in the rest of the world”, underlined for his part the head of diplomacy of the European Union, Josep Borrell, calling for restraint.
“The Middle East is on the precipice. The past few days have seen a dangerous escalation, through words and actions,” said Antonio Guterres.
“A miscalculation, a miscommunication, a mistake, could lead to the unthinkable, a widespread regional conflict that would be devastating for all those involved, and for the rest of the world,” he said. -he added, calling first for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“On the edge of the abyss”
Israel's campaign of intensive bombing, followed by a ground offensive, was triggered by the October 7 attack by Hamas commandos infiltrating from Gaza into southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians. , according to an AFP report established from official data.
More than 250 people were kidnapped during the attack and 129 remain held in Gaza, 34 of whom died according to Israeli officials.
But talks on a truce in Gaza associated with a release of hostages have stalled for months, with the belligerents accusing each other of blocking them.
In Tel Aviv, relatives of hostages demonstrated once again to demand their release before the Jewish Passover which begins Monday evening. “A hostage deal now! », “Stop the war”, proclaimed signs brandished by the demonstrators.
Meanwhile at the UN, the United States vetoed a resolution from Algeria calling for full Palestinian membership in the United Nations.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip and considered a “terrorist organization” by Israel, the European Union and the United States, condemned the American veto.
Ditto for the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas, whose administration is based in the occupied West Bank, which sees in the American veto a “blatant aggression against international law” pushing the Middle East “even further into the edge of the abyss.”