Israel hits Iran with retaliatory airstrikes – live updates

Azadeh Moshiri
Presenter, BBC News Channel

The international community was on edge, waiting to see how Israel would respond, in a region where the word “escalation” has been used far more often than world leaders would be comfortable with.

US President Joe Biden has made it very clear that he does not support Israel targeting Iran’s nuclear research facilities, nor its oil installations.

At the moment, Iranian state media is downplaying the attack, as usual.

The most important questions in this phase are:

• how much damage has actually been done

• Will Iran feel the need to respond, at a time when its allies have been weakened and suffered a series of humiliations this year?

These humiliations include the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, on Iranian soil, and the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah.

Will this be yet another moment leading down that dreaded slippery slope in the region?

• Watch Azadeh report live on this story by pressing watch live above