Iran launches missiles at Israel after Beirut strike, threatening wider Middle East conflict

Israel says Iran has launched missiles at it in the first such bombardment since a fragile ceasefire took effect in early April, complicating mediation efforts for a deal to end the war.

Iran’s state broadcaster confirmed the launch of missiles as multiple explosions were heard in northern Israel.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said their attacks on Israel on Sunday evening were a “warning” of a broader response that would encompass all US and Israeli targets in the region if “aggressions” were repeated.

Israel’s military said it was working on intercepting the missiles but “the defence is not hermetic,” adding that sirens sounded in several areas of the country.

Iran had warned of retaliation after Israel on Sunday struck Beirut’s southern suburbs without warning in defiance of a US request days ago to stand down.

Israel called it retaliation for the Iranian-aligned Hezbollah firing at northern Israel earlier in the day.

Iranian officials had warned that an attack on Beirut would renew full-scale war across the Middle East, even as Pakistan tries to restart talks between Iran and the United States.

Earlier on Sunday, influential Iranian MP Ebrahim Rezaei posted on X that Iran would deliver a “decisive and painful response” after the Israeli attack in Beirut.

“Look at the sky of the occupied territories tonight,” wrote Rezaei, who serves as the spokesman for parliament’s national security committee.

Details on whether Israel suffered any damage were not yet available.

Axios reported that US President Donald Trump, who was spending Saturday at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, had been briefed about the escalation between Iran and Israel.

Mr Trump has leaned on Israel to scale back its campaign in Lebanon to allow room for a peace deal with Iran, including rebuking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with obscenities in a phone call last week.

After the call, Mr Netanyahu called off air strikes on Beirut and agreed the latest truce plan with the Lebanese government.

But Israel has never fully halted its campaign in Lebanon, which has killed thousands of people and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes.

Hezbollah, which was not party to the truce and would be dismantled under its terms, has also continued attacks and says it will not give up its weapons unless Israel halts fighting and withdraws.

Mr Netanyahu said Sunday’s strike on Beirut’s southern outskirts, a district known as Dahiyeh that has long been a Hezbollah stronghold, was ordered in response to Hezbollah firing toward Israel.

The Israeli military had earlier said it had intercepted two projectiles fired over the border.

It issued an order for people to leave the southern Lebanese city of Tyre and surrounding areas ahead of possible strikes there.

Elsewhere in Beirut on Sunday, mourners held a military funeral for Brigadier General Wissam Sabra, a senior military officer killed in a strike on his vehicle in the south the previous day.

The wider war has been stalemated since the United States and Israel paused their attacks on Iran in early April, with Iran blocking most shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the main transit route for Middle East oil.

The US has imposed its own blockade of Iranian ports.

with AP