Live Updates: Iran Launches About 180 Ballistic Missiles at Israel
The attack, which ended shortly after it began on Tuesday evening, was a sharp escalation in the long-simmering conflict between Israel and Iran and could tip the region further into turmoil.
Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles into Israel on Tuesday, a sharp escalation between the two countries.
Raja Abdulrahim/The New York Times
People across central Israel sought cover as air raid sirens sounded during the attack.
Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
News of the attack on Israel was greeted with celebration in Tehran.
Iran fired several waves of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday evening, a sudden assault that left Israel fighting simultaneously on three fronts and raised the likelihood of an all-out conflict between two of the most powerful militaries in the Middle East.
The attack was the culmination of a dizzying sequence of events over less than 24 hours that began with Israel launching an invasion into Lebanon to pursue the Hezbollah militia, an Iranian ally. Israel pounded Lebanon from the air throughout Tuesday as its troops advanced on the ground and Hezbollah fired rockets deep into Israel. Iran fired about 180 missiles during its assault, the Israeli military said, making the barrage one of the largest of its kind and forcing millions of Israelis to take cover in bomb shelters for more than an hour. Many of the missiles were intercepted by Israel’s air defense system, while some fell in central and southern Israel, according to the Israeli military.
There were no immediate reports of casualties in Israel, but one Palestinian man was killed by falling shrapnel in the occupied West Bank.
Based on initial reports, Israel “effectively defeated this attack,” with the help of the U.S. and other partners, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said, adding that “the entire world should condemn” the Iranian strike.
President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters that American naval destroyers had joined Israel in shooting down inbound missiles. He said there was “meticulous joint planning in anticipation of the attack.”
The offensive left the region on edge. As Israel’s top commanders met to assess the situation, the chief military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said Israel would respond in a manner and time of its choosing. And Iran, for its part, said it would fire more missiles if Israel counterattacked.
A senior White House official said the United States would help defend Israel and warned that a direct attack against Israel would “carry severe consequences for Iran.”
The scale of the attack upended the assumption among Israelis that Iran had been deterred by Israel’s increasingly brazen escalations against Iran and its proxies in recent months. Since July, Israel has killed Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in the Iranian capital, and assassinated Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut, as well as many of his military commanders.
Those attacks prompted little response from Tehran until Tuesday evening, when Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said in a statement that its missile attack had been in retaliation for those assassinations.
During the attack, air raid sirens sounded across Israel, including in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Loud booming explosions were heard above both cities, as Israel’s interceptor rockets streaked across the night sky and collided with scores of missiles.
The attack came as Israel continued to fight Hamas, another Iranian proxy in Gaza, and mounted raids on Palestinian cities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Iran last attacked Israel in April, but Israel, with help from the United States, Jordan and others, intercepted almost all of the hundreds of missiles and drones fired at its territory. With the United States urging restraint, Israel’s response was muted; it fired at an air base near some of Iran’s nuclear facilities, but did not hit the facilities themselves.
Here is what else to know
U.S. troops: Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III spoke by phone with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of Israel on Tuesday, the Pentagon said in a statement, adding that Austin “made it clear that the United States is well postured to defend U.S. personnel, allies and partners in the face of threats from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist organizations.” The Pentagon announced on Monday that it was sending “several thousand” more U.S. troops to the region, adding to its force of some 40,000 already in the area.
Regional response: What sounded like celebratory gunfire could be heard across Beirut following news of the Iranian attack on Israel. The Israeli military has been conducting extensive airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in and near Beirut, including on Tuesday.
In Jordan: Witnesses said that loud explosions were heard in Amman, the capital of Jordan, a country sandwiched between Israel and Iran that helped intercept a launch from Iran on Israel in April.
Shooting in Tel Aviv: The Israeli emergency response service said at least six people were killed and several more injured when two gunmen opened fire on a light rail train in Tel Aviv shortly after residents were urged to seek shelter from an Iranian missile attack. No group claimed immediate responsibility for the shooting on Tuesday night. The authorities described the shooting as a terrorist attack.
Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, said the United States is working with airlines to “provide more seats” for American citizens who want to leave Lebanon, as the U.S. has urged them to do.
Two U.S. naval destroyers launched a dozen interceptors against the incoming Iranian missiles, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
The U.S.S. Bulkeley and the U.S.S. Cole fired the interceptors, Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said during a news conference. He said that no American troops – there are more than 40,000 in the region — were hurt in Tuesday’s attacks.
Israel launches invasion into Lebanon
It was not immediately clear where the Israeli military was operating in Lebanon, but Israel ordered residents of many southern towns to move north.
Lebanon
Awali River
Map
Area
Israel told residents to move
north of the Awali River.
Israel
Abel al-Saqi
Med.
Sea
Litani River
Towns Israel told
residents to leave
Abbasiyeh
Ghandouriyeh
Srifa
Touline
Rashidiya
Lebanon
Military zone
closed by
Israel
Deir Aames
Jebel al-Batm
Bint Jbeil
Golan
Heights
Aitaroun
Yaroun
Israel
Buffer zone established by the U.N.
at the end of the 2006 war
5 miles
Awali River
Lebanon
Map
Area
Israel told residents to move
north of the Awali River.
Israel
Towns Israel told
residents to leave
Abel al-Saqi
Litani River
Ghandouriyeh
Abbasiyeh
Srifa
Touline
Lebanon
Rashidiya
Military zone
closed by
Israel
Deir Aames
Jebel al-Batm
Bint Jbeil
Golan
Heights
Aitaroun
Yaroun
Israel
Buffer zone established by the
U.N. at the end of the 2006 war
5 miles
Source: Israeli military, United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon, OpenStreetMap
By Leanne Abraham, Agnes Chang and Lauren Leatherby
Anas al-Tayeb, a Palestinian living in northern Gaza, heard “powerful explosions” and saw lights flashing through the sky toward the sea. Gazans in his neighborhood, which was devastated in multiple Israeli raids against Hamas, cheered, he said. “People felt happy that something had happened to support them and their cause,” he said. “But then comes the fear — what comes next?”
A missile fell between homes in a Palestinian village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but it appears it didn't explode, according to residents. Fares al-Hawari, a resident, said he didn't hear a blast. “It sounded like something heavy fell out of the sky, but there was no boom,” Hawari, 27, said in an interview from the village, Azzun.
Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, also credited U.S. officials for defending Israel. He said there was “meticulous joint planning in anticipation of the attack.”
Asked for the U.S. view on whether Israel should retaliate, Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, says U.S. administration officials will continue to have conversations with their Israeli counterparts. He did not specify whether Biden had a call scheduled with Netanyahu.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, repeated Israeli assertions that Iran fired almost 200 ballistic missiles at Israel. American naval destroyers joined Israel in shooting down inbound missiles. Sullivan says they do not know of any deaths in Israel but they are tracking reports of the death of one Palestinian in the West Bank. “In short, based on what we know at this point, this attack appears to have been defeated,” Sullivan said.
Iranians are flocking to gas stations, fearing an Israeli attack that may impact gasoline distribution and require them to flee fighting, witnesses said.
Initial reports indicate that Israel, with the help of the U.S. and other partners, “effectively defeated this attack,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said. He added that “the entire world should condemn” Iran’s attack.
A video verified by The Times shows a crater inside the grounds of the Shalhavot Chabad elementary school in Gedera, Israel. The windows and facade of the school building next to the impact site were blown off.
Israel’s recent airstrikes in Lebanon dealt a blow to Hezbollah, but the group’s arsenal is still formidable.Credit...Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
Israel’s recent airstrikes in Lebanon destroyed about half of the missiles and rockets that Hezbollah had accumulated over more than three decades, dealing a blow to the militia’s capabilities, according to senior Israeli and American officials.
But the group’s arsenal remains formidable, with tens of thousands of projectiles across the country, and large barrages could overwhelm Israel’s “Iron Dome” anti-projectile defense system, the officials said.
Hezbollah scattered its weapons across Lebanon — the country is “peppered” with them, one Israeli official said — and has been using them since last October to fire mainly into northern Israel.
Israel had been making strikes in southern Lebanon, forcing tens of thousands of Lebanese to flee. But Israeli leaders decided around Sept. 17 to destroy as much of the arsenal as possible, so that the 60,000 or so Israelis who had fled northern Israel because of the persistent fire could return, two Israeli officials said. The Israeli Air Force began devastating strikes the next week.
Hezbollah, with help from Iran, took three decades to build up most of its stockpile, estimated to be anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 projectiles. After the initial attacks, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, asked Iran and Syria to replenish the arsenal, the Israeli officials and an American official said. That contributed to Israel’s decision to try to kill Mr. Nasrallah.
Since Mr. Nasrallah’s killing last Friday, Lebanese officials have heeded Israel’s demands to turn away Iranian planes trying to fly into Beirut, complicating Hezbollah’s effort to get additional arms quickly, American officials say.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had killed the Hezbollah commander in charge of arms transfers from Iran to Lebanon, Muhammad Jaafar Qasir, in an airstrike in Beirut.
U.S. officials say Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel, which began the day after Hamas carried out its devastating Oct. 7 assault in southern Israel, were an answer to Israel’s war in Gaza. They said that Hezbollah might have stopped if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, had agreed to a cease-fire.
But the United States, Qatar and Egypt have failed to get a Gaza cease-fire agreement in place after many rounds of diplomacy this year.
On Monday, Israel began ground operations in Lebanon. Officials said Israeli troops plan to destroy Hezbollah missile caches and launch vehicles.
The two Israeli officials say they intend to continue targeting Hezbollah’s arsenal and killing the group’s commanders while they have momentum. White House officials have said they hope the ground incursion is limited, and President Biden has made calls for a cease-fire from both sides. Hundreds of Lebanese civilians have been killed in Israeli strikes, and one million have been displaced.
“We are determined to return our residents in the north to their homes safely,” Mr. Netanyahu said on Tuesday.
Despite the sizable arsenal of missiles and rockets that Hezbollah still maintains, its fighters have not fired a huge number into central Israel.
American officials say one reason is that a series of Israeli attacks, culminating last Friday in the airstrike that killed Mr. Nasrallah outside Beirut, have severely damaged the group’s command-and-control structure, leaving few senior people to give orders to lower-level fighters.
The group could also be waiting for a signal from Iranian officials, who had helped build up the arsenal as a deterrent against any possible Israeli assault on Iran, officials say. If Hezbollah uses up most of the rest of its arsenal and is not able to replenish it, that deterrent disappears.
And Hezbollah might prefer for Iran itself to retaliate, with its much more potent arsenal. In April, Iran fired more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel in retaliation for a deadly attack on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria. Israel, the United States and partner nations in the region shot down almost all of those.
On Tuesday night in the Middle East, the Iranian military fired ballistic missiles at Israel. Air raid sirens sounded across the country, and residents saw defensive interceptor missiles flying through the skies. Iran’s mission to the United Nations said on social media that the attack was in response to “terrorist acts” by Israel that had violated Iran’s “sovereignty.”
Some Israeli and American officials said they thought Israel had successfully established deterrence with Iran through a strike that Israel carried out after that April barrage from Iran. In the follow-up assault, Israel damaged one or more S-300 antiaircraft batteries that the Iranian military had placed around the ancient city of Isfahan, American officials said.
Such a strike, coupled with the Israeli assassination in July of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, while he was in Tehran for a state funeral, showed that Israel could attack in the heart of Iran — and possibly kill Iranian leaders.
Some American officials stress that the top ranks of Hezbollah have been crippled by the sudden Israeli campaign. Its leadership has been decimated, not just by the killing of Mr. Nasrallah, but also by the pager explosions and other attacks that killed and injured top and midlevel leaders over the last three weeks.
The entire special operations command of Hezbollah, known as the Radwan Force, was wiped out in the Sept. 20 airstrike that killed Ibrahim Aqeel, effectively Hezbollah’s chief of military operations, in a southern suburb of Beirut, American officials say.
On Monday, Naim Qassem, the acting leader of Hezbollah after Mr. Nasrallah’s death, said contingency plans had been in place to ensure alternate commanders could step up if anything happened to the group’s leaders.
The heaviest recent wave of Israeli airstrikes hit 1,300 targets on Sept. 23, including sites with long-range cruise missiles, heavy rockets and drones, said Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman.
Still, American officials say it is an open question if Israel’s operations can be turned into a strategic gain. How long Israel remains in southern Lebanon, how deeply Iran engages in counterattacks, what Hezbollah does to respond and what political forces seize influence in Beirut will all be a factor in the long-term outcome.
Israel carried out a violent and failed occupation of Lebanon from 1982 to 2000, one that gave birth to Hezbollah.
Some American officials view the situation, particularly over the long term, with skepticism. They do not believe a military campaign in Lebanon can set back Hezbollah for long.
The group has a tunnel infrastructure that is impossible to destroy absent a long-term presence in the country, which Israeli officials say they are reluctant to reoccupy. The tunnels are dug deep into the rock under southern Lebanon and are difficult to hit with airstrikes. Parts of the network are big enough for large military equipment to move through.
These more pessimistic American officials say that even if Mr. Nasrallah was a singular and charismatic leader, the midlevel and even senior military commanders will be more easily replaced.
While Mr. Nasrallah appeared to have become wary about ordering big attacks on Israel after the widespread destruction in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, a new leader might not have the same sense of caution.
The man killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank was a 38-year-old man who was struck by shrapnel from a missile, according to Col. Nael al-Azzeh, the spokesman of the Palestinian Authority’s civil defense. The region's emergency officials were working to put out fires in the southern West Bank and to dispose of missile fragments and shrapnel in the northern part of the territory, Azzeh said.
The Israeli military said roughly 180 missiles were fired toward Israeli territory from Iran after the attack began at roughly 7:30 p.m. local time. Daniel Hagari, the military’s spokesman, earlier said that a substantial number were intercepted but that a handful landed in central and southern Israel.
Image
Credit...Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
A video verified by The Times that was filmed outside a shopping mall in Ramat Gan, east of Tel Aviv, shows two projectiles flying through the sky and falling to the ground, with at least one exploding on impact. It is unclear where exactly the impact occurred.
Some residents of Dahiya, the area just south of Beirut that has been pounded by Israeli airstrikes in recent days, rejoiced at the news of the Iranian attack — lighting up the night’s sky with machine-gun fire and setting off fireworks.
Others, however, feared it would only precipitate more bloodshed. “I think it will be a very violent night,” said Hussein Awada, 54, who was sleeping in his car but had gone back to the area on Tuesday to check on his home. He added, “You can smell the scent of war and death everywhere.”
One Palestinian was killed near the West Bank city of Jericho when a projectile landed nearby during the rocket barrage, said Hussein Hamayel, the Palestinian governor of the area. He said the man, originally from Gaza, was killed by falling shrapnel.
The U.N. secretary general, Antonio Guterres, condemned the “escalation after escalation” in the Middle East after Iran fired missiles at Israel, saying, “This must stop. We absolutely need a cease-fire.”
I felt a series of large explosions near my home in north Tel Aviv, not far from the headquarters of Mossad, the foreign intelligence agency, and Unit 8200, the signals and cyber intelligence agency. The whole house was shaking.
Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, said the attack would have “consequences,” adding, “We have plans, and we will act in the time and place we decide.”
In April, the United States, Israel, Jordan and others intercepted almost all of the hundreds of missiles and drones in a barrage that Iran fired toward Israel. Israel responded without escalating the conflict. Credit...Amir Cohen/Reuters
In recent days, American officials have been assessing how a missile exchange between Iran and Israel could unfold. The most optimistic prediction has been a repeat of what happened in April, when the United States, Israel, Jordan and others intercepted almost all of the hundreds of missiles and drones fired toward Israel.
Afterward, President Biden urged Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel to “take the win,”and Israel’s response was muted: While it fired at an air base in Isfahan, a city surrounded by some of Iran’s significant nuclear facilities, it avoided hitting the facilities themselves. The message, though, was clear: Next time, they could aim for assets Iran prizes.
The more extreme scenarios being explored this time, according to the American officials, involve Israel striking at the nuclear facilities, particularly at enrichment sites at Natanz, the heart of the Iranian program. It is at Natanz, north of Isfahan, that Iran has produced its near bomb-grade uranium, which American officials said could be converted to bomb-grade in days or weeks. It would take far longer to produce a nuclear weapon.
In April, Israeli officials said the Iranian attack involved 185 drones, 36 cruise missiles and 110 surface-to-surface missiles fired toward Israel. Most were launched from Iran, but a small number were fired from Iraq and Yemen. The weapons used in the barrage were more sophisticated than anything Israel had encountered during the first six months of fighting against Hamas in Gaza.
Israeli warplanes retaliated shortly after, firing missiles on Iran, according to Western and Iranian officials.
Grant Rumley, a former Pentagon official and senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Iran would likely replicate the April attack with a combination of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. “This time, it’s clear Iran wanted to avoid the failures of April by primarily using ballistic missiles, he said, “which travel much faster and can quickly overwhelm an air defense system.”
Unlike the April attack where Israel had days of warning to coordinate defenses with their allies in the region, Tuesday’s attack came with only hours of advance notice.
“As such, it’s hard to view this new attack as merely symbolic,” Mr. Rumley said. “It certainly looks like an escalation from Iran.”
Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, said that the Israeli authorities no longer identified “additional aerial threats from Iran,” indicating that the barrage was over for now. Many of the missiles were shot down by Israeli aerial defense, while a handful landed in central and southern Israel, Hagari said.
Israeli police officers keep watch near a cordon at the site of a shooting incident in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.Credit...Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Israeli police and emergency services said on Tuesday that at least six people were killed and 12 more were injured when two gunmen opened fire on a light rail train in Tel Aviv.
The police called the attack an act of terrorism and said the gunmen were killed on the scene. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the shooting.
Shortly after the attack, Israel’s air defense system intercepted a swarm of missiles over Tel Aviv. Loud booms and bright explosions filled the sky.
“The police forces are handling the scene under a missile attack,” the police said in a statement about the shooting. “The event is under control.”
The shooting took place a day after Israel invaded Lebanon after a series of punishing strikes on Hezbollah, the armed Lebanese militia and proxy to Iran. Haim Sargarov, the police commander of the Tel Aviv district, told reporters that the attackers were “not Israelis.” The police in Israel almost exclusively use the word “terrorism” to describe attacks carried out by Palestinian militants.
The shooting occurred on Jerusalem Boulevard, a major tree-lined thoroughfare and important public transportation route in the city’s Jaffa neighborhood. Israel’s emergency service agency, Magen David Adom, said it was treating the injured.
Nadav Matzner, a spokesman for the group, said six of the 12 people who were injured in the attack were severely wounded.
Images broadcast on Israeli television showed two gunmen in street clothes carrying large rifles. Video shared widely online showed injured people lying on the sidewalk on Jerusalem Boulevard.
Videos verified by The New York Times showed the aftermath of the shooting at the Ehrlich light rail station in Jaffa. Three motionless bodies were seen lying on the street. Two armed men were captured earlier in surveillance footage exiting a train at the station.
Recent incidents have brought Israel’s conflicts creeping ever closer to Tel Aviv, a city that often feels physically and psychologically removed from the violence.
The shooting came after several attempted aerial attacks on Tel Aviv by Iran-backed forces in Lebanon and Yemen, and six weeks after Hamas and Islamic Jihad took responsibility for what the groups said was a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.
The Israeli police did not describe that incident as a suicide bombing, but if it were it would have been the first suicide attack in the city since 2016. At that time, Hamas and Islamic Jihad had threatened attacks in response to the “continued civilian displacement and killings” of Palestinians.
The shooting on Tuesday took place shortly after Tel Aviv residents were advised by Israel’s Home Front Command to stay close to bomb shelters and to avoid any unnecessary travel or outdoor activities. The streets of the city were quickly emptied in anticipation of the Iranian strike.
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