Israel hits back at Iran with targeted strike on Ayatollah’s birthday
ISRAEL early today retaliated against Iran with a limited air strike targeting the region housing the nerve centre of the Islamic state’s nuclear programme, US officials said.
One Iranian official played down the incident — which came on the 85th birthday of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — as a foreign “infiltration” that did not necessitate a response, seeming to lessen fears of all-out war.
Rishi Sunak stressed this morning that it was a “developing situation”. The PM reiterated UK condemnation of Iran’s “reckless and dangerous barrage of missiles” against Israel on Saturday.
“But as I said to prime minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu when I spoke to him last week, and more generally, significant escalation is not in anyone’s interest. What we want to see is calm heads prevail in the region,” Mr Sunak said.
There was no formal acknowledgement from Israel’s government, but US officials briefed that at least one Israeli missile had hit Iran in the region around the central city of Isfahan, home to a major airbase and important nuclear sites including the Natanz uranium enrichment facility.
Iranian officials said the airbase was hit near Isfahan, but three drones were shot down and that a separate drone attack was thwarted in Tabriz, north of Isfahan. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed no damage to Iranian nuclear sites.
The IRNA news agency said air defences fired from the Isfahan airfield, home to Iran’s fleet of American-made F-14 Tomcats which were procured before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Dubai-based carriers Emirates and
FlyDubai began diverting flights around western Iran at about 4.30am local time. Iran grounded commercial flights in Tehran and across areas of its western and central regions, before allowing them to resume later in the morning.
The US officials indicated that Israel had delivered on its threats of retaliation after coming under an unprecedented direct attack from Iran involving more than 300 drones and missiles, which were nearly all shot down with the help of RAF jets. That attack was
staged in reprisal for a suspected Israeli strike on Iran’s embassy in Damascus.
Before later insisting that all was calm, Iranian media reported explosions in the night and the Revolutionary Guards posted footage of flashes of light in the sky above Isfahan. Ordinary Iranians reported hearing loud sounds.
But one senior Iranian official said any blasts were caused by air defence systems. “The foreign source of the incident has not been confirmed,” he said. “We have not received any external attack, and the discussion leans more towards infiltration than attack.”
G7 foreign ministers were continuing talks in Italy today after Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron called for a “clear and unequivocal message” from the bloc of wealthy nations to the Iranian attack on Israel, in terms of tougher sanctions.
The UK and US yesterday levied their own sanctions against Iranian commanders accused of orchestrating the attack, which was thwarted with the help of UK, US, French and Jordanian air support. But Lord Cameron has also been leading UK appeals for restraint from Israel, visiting Jerusalem for talks with Mr Netanyahu on his way to the G7 meeting in Capri.
Israel’s far-right security minister Itamar Ben Gvir denounced the apparent response as “feeble”. But experts said Mr Netanyahu was likely sending a calibrated message targeted at sites associated with Iran’s attack on Israel.
Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House in London, said: “As long as Iran continues to deny the attack, there is space for both to climb down the escalation ladder for now.”