Israel hits Iran with airstrike
Retaliates for raid
Israel launched its expected retaliatory strike against Iran early Friday morning, according to multiple reports.
Israeli missiles hit at least one site in Iran, ABC News reported, citing US officials, and Iranian state media alerted citizens to explosions heard in the central part of the Islamic Republic.
The attack follows Iran raining down more than 300 drones and missiles toward the Jewish state last Saturday — though nearly all were intercepted by Israel and its allies.
Israel’s strike (above), however, appeared to be “limited,” a military source told Fox News.
Israeli officials notified the US on Thursday that it had planned to strike Iran within 24 to 48 hours, according to Bloomberg News.
The Biden administration “didn’t endorse” Israel’s response, a US official told CNN.
The city of Isfahan — home of Iran’s Natanz nuclear research facility and a major air base — appears to have been Israel’s primary target.
A scroll alerting viewers to a “loud noise” near Isfahan was displayed on Iranian state television, but provided no other information, according to The Associated Press.
State television claimed that all nuclear sites in the region were “fully safe.”
Hossein Dalirian, a spokesman for Iran’s civilian space program, said that the explosions were the results of three quadcopter drones that had been shot down, dismissing the threat Israel’s apparent retaliation posed to Iran.
Iran’s air defense systems were activated in several provinces after the explosions first rang out, state news outlet IRNA reported, according to CNN.
Meanwhile, flights bound for the cities of Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz have been diverted, an Iranian official announced on staterun television, according to the Times of Israel.
“We do not have anything to offer at this time,” a Pentagon spokesperson told The Post when asked about the reported airstrikes.
The White House did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
“Hearing [Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei] is having a blast today on his birthday,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wrote on X, shortly after reports of the Israeli strike began to emerge.
Khamenei, 84, was indeed born on April 19.
President Biden warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Saturday’s Iranian strike that the US would not take part in a counteroffensive.
The unprecedented weekend attack on Israel came in response to an Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, Syria, earlier this month, which killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members, including two top commanders.