Two soldiers killed in Israeli attacks on Iran, Iran says

Israeli strikes on Iran, in retaliation for Iran’s rocket attacks earlier this month, have killed four Iranian soldiers, the Iranian military said.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said early on Saturday it had attacked missile factories and other sites near Tehran and western Iran.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said it has a responsibility to defend itself, but added that Iran “recognizes its responsibilities in regional peace and security,” a statement seen as relatively conciliatory.

Israeli retaliation for an Iranian barrage of nearly 200 ballistic missiles fired into Israel on October 1 had been expected for weeks.

Tehran said the attack was in retaliation for the killing of Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil in July. Many rockets were shot down by Israel and its allies, but a small number hit central and southern Israel.

Iranian authorities said locations in Tehran, Khuzestan and Ilam provinces were attacked. The military claimed the attacks were successfully repelled, although there was “limited damage” in some locations.

Following the Israeli attacks, Iranian state media circulated images showing traffic flowing normally in several cities, while school and sports activities reportedly took place as planned.

The Israeli military announced the operation on Saturday shortly after explosions were reported in Iran. IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said the army has shown its willingness “to defend the State of Israel.”

He also warned that if Iran were to launch a new round of escalation, Israel would be “obligated to respond.”

The US and Britain have both urged Iran not to hit back after the latest attacks, with President Joe Biden’s administration calling for an end to the cycle of violence.

Senior U.S. government officials said the U.S. had advance notice of the Israeli attacks and that Washington was not involved.

The attacks did not involve Iranian oil infrastructure or nuclear facilities — targets the Biden administration had called on Israel not to hit — an official said.

The official said the US had for weeks encouraged Israel to pursue a response that was “targeted and proportionate with a low risk of harm to the civilian population” and suggested that this was “exactly what happened on Saturday evening”.

British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said Israel has the right to defend itself against “Iranian aggression” and reiterated calls for Iran to avoid retaliation, saying Britain would work to “de-escalate the situation in the entire region”.

But Russia and other countries in the region, including US allies Jordan and Saudi Arabia, accused Israel of escalating the conflict.

Qatar expressed “deep concern about the serious consequences that could result from this escalation”, while Jordan described the attack as a “dangerous escalation”.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that “what is needed is that we should stop challenging Iran to retaliate, and we should get out of the spiral of uncontrollable escalation.”

The scale of the Israeli attacks and their precise targets were still unclear on Saturday morning.

Iran’s aviation authority briefly suspended the flights but announced they would restart from 9am local time (6.30am BST).

Hooman, a 42-year-old factory worker, was working in Tehran when he heard the explosions, he told the AFP news agency.

“It was an echoing sound… terrible and gruesome,” the agency quoted him as saying. “Now that there is war in the Middle East, we are afraid that we will be dragged into it.”

Israeli airstrikes also targeted locations in central and southern Syria, Syrian state media reported.

According to the IDF, Hezbollah fired 80 projectiles across the border into Israel after the Israeli attacks on Saturday afternoon.

Later, the AFP news agency reported that the Iran-backed group had fired a series of rockets at five residential areas in northern Israel, including the suburbs of Krayot near Haifa.