Israel readying response to Iran missile attack

AFP | Jerusalem

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Israel was preparing a military response to Iran’s missile attack this week that heightened fears of a wider regional war, an Israeli official said yesterday, as fighting raged in Lebanon and in Gaza.

In its second-ever direct attack on its regional foe, the Islamic republic which backs armed groups across the Middle East on Tuesday launched about 200 missiles at Israel in revenge for a spate of Israeli killings of militant leaders.

The missile attack, which killed one person in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, caused some damage to an Israeli air base according to satellite images.

It came on the day Israeli ground forces began raids into Lebanon after days of intense strikes on Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon, transforming nearly a year of cross-border exchanges with the Iran-backed militants into full-blown war.

A high-level Hezbollah source said yesterday that the group had lost contact with Hashem Safieddine, widely tipped to be the next Hezbollah leader, after air strikes this week in Beirut. A second source close to the group also said communication had been cut off.

The movement has not yet named a new chief after Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah late last month in a massive strike in the Lebanese capital, triggering in part Iran’s missile attack.

The Israeli military official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to discuss the issue publicly, said the army “is preparing a response to the unprecedented and unlawful Iranian attack”.

He did not elaborate on the nature or timing of the response, which analysts and Israeli media said would likely be designed to deal an immense blow to Iran, despite international calls for de-escalation and warnings from Tehran it would retaliate.

Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, told AFP that both Israel and Iran were “taking huge gambles”.

Rapidly escalating violence this week also included intensifying Hezbollah rocket fire and strikes on Israel claimed by allies of Iran from as far away as Yemen, just before the first anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 unprecedented attack on Israel .