Israel attacked: Iran fires ballistic missiles in retaliation for Lebanon invasion, action against Hezbollah

Chaos in the Middle East has broken out as Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s campaign against Tehran’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.

The attack comes a day after Israel commenced a “target” ground invasion of Lebanon, vowing to dismantle Hezbollah and its ability to attack Israel and its citizens.

Alarms sounded across Israel and explosions could be heard in Jerusalem and the Jordan River valley on Tuesday after Israelis piled into bomb shelters. Reporters on state television lay flat on the ground during live broadcasts.

Israeli army radio said nearly 200 missiles had been launched into Israel from Iran. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Iran had launched tens of missiles at Israel, and that if Israel retaliated Tehran’s response would be “more crushing and ruinous”.

Israel’s military later sounded the all-clear and said Israelis were free to leave their shelters. Military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the military was not aware of any injuries resulting from the Iranian missile attacks.

He described the attack as serious and said it would have consequences.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters the order to launch missiles at Israel had been made by the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei remains in a secure location, the senior official added.

Reuters journalists saw missiles intercepted in the airspace of neighbouring Jordan.

Oil prices shot up five per cent on the news of the Iranian missile strikes, which raised the prospect of a wider war between the two arch-enemies.

A previous round of Iranian missiles fired at Israel in April - the first ever - were shot down with the help of the US military and other allies. Israel responded at the time with air strikes on Iran.

Iran has vowed to retaliate following Israeli strikes that killed the top leadership of its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, including that group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, a towering figure in Iran’s network of fighters across the region.

Israel said its troops had launched ground raids into Lebanon, though it described the forays as limited.

In Washington, US President Joe Biden said the United States was prepared to help Israel defend itself from Iranian missile attacks.

“We discussed how the United States is prepared to help Israel defend against these attacks, and protect American personnel in the region,” Biden said on X about a meeting held with Vice President Kamala Harris and the White House national security team earlier in the day.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, speaking after Iran fired its salvo of missiles at Israel, condemned what he called “escalation after escalation”, saying: “This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire.”

Though so far characterised by Israel as limited, a ground campaign into Lebanon for the first time in 18 years pitting Israeli soldiers against Hezbollah, Iran’s best-armed proxy force in the Middle East, would be a major regional escalation.

More than a thousand Lebanese have been killed and a million have fled their homes in weeks of intense Israeli air strikes.

In the latest announced killing of a senior Hezbollah figure, Israel said on Tuesday it had assassinated a commander named Muhammad Jaafar Qasir, describing him as in charge of weapons transfers from Iran and its affiliates.

Many Lebanese say they were ready to resist Israeli forces.

In Beirut, Israel struck a high-rise building in the central Jnah area and one in the capital’s southern suburbs that briefly closed the road to Beirut airport. The Israeli military said it had carried out a “precise strike”.

Israel has long said it would do whatever it takes to secure its northern border and let tens of thousands of Israelis return to towns they fled since the outbreak of war in Gaza a year ago, when Hezbollah began firing across the frontier in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

- With Reuters