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0:00 Iran missile and drone attack on Israel - what we know so far
- Iran launched hundreds of drones as well as cruise missiles towards Israel, in the Islamic Republic’s first ever direct attack on the Jewish state, in response to the strike on an Iranian diplomatic building in the Syrian capital, Damascus, which killed a senior figure in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards and eight other officers.

Benny Gantz, a member of the war cabinet, said that Israel will exact a price from Iran in response to its mass missile and drone attack when the time is right. Tehran has warned it will strike again with greater force if Israel or the US retaliate for the Iranian strike on Israel by more 300 drones and missiles. The Islamic Republic’s first ever direct attack on the Israeli state brought a years-long shadow war into the open and threatened to draw the region into a broader conflagration as Israel said it was considering its response. However, the attack, mostly launched from inside Iran, caused only modest damage in Israel as most were shot down with the help of the US, Britain and Jordan. An air force base in southern Israel was hit, but continued to operate as normal and a seven-year-old child was seriously hurt by shrapnel. There were no other reports of serious damage. Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said that 99% of the launches had been intercepted.

Most of the Iranian drones flying over Syria’s airspace during Tehran’s strikes overnight were downed by Israeli and US jets before reaching their targets in Israel. Iran informed Turkey in advance of its planned operation against Israel, a Turkish diplomatic source has told Reuters. The source also said that the US conveyed to Iran via Ankara that its operation must be “within certain limits”. These reports come after Iran’s foreign minister, who said in a meeting with foreign ambassadors in Tehran that Iran had informed the US that its attacks against Israel will be “limited” and for self-defence only. UK Royal Air Force fighter jets and refuelling aircraft were also involved in Israel’s defence, taking off from bases in Cyprus. Their role, according to the UK Ministry of Defence, was to fill in for the US air force in the sorties against Islamic State normally carried out over Iraq and north-eastern Syria, but also to intercept Iranian drones if they came into the UK area of operations.

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