[🇮🇷] Iran launched ballistic missiles towards Israel

[Ghazi52]

Iran extends closure of airspace until Thursday morning​

From CNN’s Leila Gharagozlou

Iran will extend the closure of its airspace until Thursday morning, according to the semi-official outlet Mehr News on Wednesday.

“To maintain the safety of flights and conditions in the region, all flights across the country will be canceled until 5 am tomorrow,” Mehr reported, quoting a spokesperson of Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization.

The organization had announced late Tuesday that all flights nationwide would be canceled until Wednesday morning.

 

[Ghazi52]

Iran says 200 missiles fired in Tuesday's attack on Israel​

From CNN’s Artemis Moshtaghian and Lucas Lilieholm

Israeli rescue force members inspect the site where a missile fired from Iran hit a school building in central Israel, on October 1, 2024.
Amir Cohen/Reuters

Two hundred missiles were fired during Iran’s Tuesday attack on Israel, according to the Commander-in-Chief of the country’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

A video posted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Wednesday shows Sardar Salami reportedly speaking by telephone with Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian from the command room of the military operation.

“200 missiles were fired in this operation,” he said on the call.

The Israeli military said its initial estimate was that Iran had fired “approximately 180 projectiles.”

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Iran had launched “nearly 200 ballistic missiles” towards Israel.

A statement from the IRGC, reported by Iran’s English-language Press TV, said that 90% of the missiles had successfully struck their targets.

But both Israel and the US have downplayed the effectiveness of the strike. Israel said the attack “failed.”

Sullivan said it was “defeated and ineffective.”

Iran’s missile attack took place over the course of about one hour on Tuesday.

The first nationwide alert was issued by the Israeli military at 12:32 a.m. local time (5:32 p.m. ET) followed by an update at 1:34 a.m. to civilians that it was safe to leave shelters.

 

[Ghazi52]

White House believes Israel is yet to decide its Iran response, senior US official says​

From CNN’s Kayla Tausche

The White House does not believe that Israel has made a determination on how to respond to Iran’s unprecedented missile attack, a senior US official told CNN.

Top Biden administration officials and their Israeli counterparts have been in touch constantly in recent days and weeks, as they braced for a potential Iranian strike in retaliation for attacks on top Hamas and Hezbollah targets. Nearly 12 hours after that attack materialized, US counterparts had yet to receive detailed and decisive information about what to expect.

“At some point, they will have to come to us with more details,” the official said, noting that the US made no proactive specifications for how Israel should respond.

Some background:
After the US helped Israel intercept hundreds of drones and missiles fired by Iran in April, President Joe Biden urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “take the win,” CNN reported at the time.

Israel pursued a more limited response against Tehran several days after the initial barrage, though the senior US official acknowledged this week’s attack – given the types of weapons used, with little notice, headed for intelligence and military targets – was on a “much bigger scale.”

 

[Ghazi52]

Iran wanted to do real damage, and Israel's response may not be as restrained as last time​

Jeremy Bowen. International Editor, BBC News
Reporting from Jerusalem

Reuters
Iranian missiles seen intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome on 1 October

When Iran attacked Israel in April, it seemed like it was making a point – but Iran effectively gave notice of the attack in terms of how it carried it out, and everything was pretty much shot out of the air by Israeli and American defences.

This time around it’s different. The Iranians looked like they wanted to do some serious damage and were making a much more aggressive point.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps put out an announcement saying that they were retaliating to the killings of senior leaders in Hamas and Hezbollah, and warned that if Israel retaliated, in turn they would strike back.

Last time around, Joe Biden said to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu – “Take the win”, don’t carry out a big response - and they didn’t. This time around in Israel the mood is very different.

Look at the tweet from former prime minister Naftali Bennett last night, using very strong language, saying: “This is the greatest opportunity in 50 years to change the face of the Middle East.” He was arguing that Israel should go after Iran’s nuclear facilities, in order to “fatally cripple this terrorist regime”.

Now he’s not prime minister (although he is widely tipped to be a future one, so he was making a point to show he is tough) but it does reflect a certain mood in the country.

I would not rule out attacks by Israel on anything at the moment – nuclear sites, petrochemical facilities, anything that could cause damage to the Iranian economy.

The scenario always was that Iran had a forward defence in the shape of Hezbollah in Lebanon, with a massive arsenal of sophisticated weapons, to be used, in theory, if Iran and its nuclear facilities were attacked.

But in the last couple of weeks, Israel has decapitated the Hezbollah organisation, destroyed half of its weapons, according to American and Israeli authorities; and invaded Lebanon.

The deterrent Iran had, you could argue, is not just gone – it’s smashed into a thousand pieces. So I think the Israelis are feeling more free to act. And Joe Biden is moving another carrier battle group to the Mediterranean, signalling to the Iranians that if you hit Israel, you hit the US too.

This is why people were talking about the fear of the war spreading: the instability, the turbulence that comes from everything that’s been happening – now we are seeing it play out and it leaves very little room for diplomacy at this moment.

 

[Bilal9]

As we all saw, the Iranian missile attacks targeted Nevatim, Hatzerim and Tel Nof Airbases as well as the primary Mossad HQ.

Nevatim and Tel Nof Airbases house the F-35 fighter while Hatzerim Airbase (much larger than the other two and having three runways) houses the advanced F-15s (F-15IA: Meet Israel's Own Special Version of the F-15EX Fighter Jet).

These airbases and aircraft housed within them were used in attacking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. So naturally these were targeted by the Iranian missiles.