Israel hits Iran with missile, US officials say, as Tehran downplays apparent Netanyahu retaliation

Two U.S. officials told CBS News Thursday evening that an Israeli missile had struck Iran. The strike comes less than a week after Iran's unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to respond to.

U.S. officials have not provided any information on the location or extent of the Israeli attack, and the Israel Defense Forces would not comment on the attack when asked by CBS News.

Iran's official IRNA news agency said air defense batteries fired in several provinces, but it did not say why the batteries fired. Iranians reported hearing the sound of explosions in several places, but no urgent meeting of Iran's ruling High National Council was called, state television reported, and it appeared the Iranian government was trying to downplay the impact of the Israeli attack.

State media and Iranian sources interviewed by various media outlets only mentioned small drones flying over a few sites in the country, without any reference to a missile strike. There are no immediate reports of damage.

People ride bicycles on a street in Tehran, Iran, as daily life continues after explosions were heard in Isfahan and elsewhere in the country, and U.S. officials said Israel had struck Iran with a missile, April 19, 2024. Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu/Getty

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, speaking during a visit Friday to the town of Damghan, east of Tehran and hundreds of miles north of Isfahan, did not even refer to the Israeli strike . Instead, he spoke about Iran's assault on Israel a week earlier, which he called “necessary, obligatory” and “a sign of the power of the Islamic republic and its armed forces “.

A senior Israeli official told the Washington Post that the Israeli counterattack “was intended to signal to Iran that Israel can attack its territory.”

The Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed Iranian official as saying there were no plans in Tehran to respond to Israeli retaliation.

“I think it's a measured response,” Efraim Halevi, an Israeli intelligence expert and former director of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, told CBS News on Friday. “This is in no way proportionate to the attack we faced a few days ago, but it is enough to send a message to the Iranian leadership.”

Dubai-based airlines Emirates and FlyDubai began diverting flights to western Iran early Friday morning after news of the Israeli strike. The carriers offered no explanation, although local warnings to fliers suggested the airspace may have been closed.

Iran announced it had grounded commercial flights in Tehran and parts of its western and central regions, but state television later said normal flight operations had resumed.

“No damage to Iranian nuclear sites”

IRNA said Iranian air defenses fired on a major air base in the city of Isfahan, long home to Iran's fleet of American-made F-14 Tomcat fighter jets, purchased before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Isfahan is also home to several sites associated with Iran's alleged nuclear program, including its underground Natanz enrichment site, which has repeatedly been the target of suspected Israeli attacks.

Iranian state media, however, denied any attack on the country's nuclear facilities and described all sites as “completely safe.”

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency also said it could “confirm that there was no damage to Iran's nuclear sites.”

This file photo released on November 5, 2019 by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran shows centrifuges at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran. Iranian Atomic Energy Organization via AP

Iran denies having a nuclear weapons program and insists all of its enrichment work is for civilian purposes, but it has continued to enrich uranium and plutonium to higher purity levels , thus bringing it closer to the theoretical capacity to produce a nuclear weapon. Israel has pledged never to allow Iran to acquire this capability.

State television said three small drones were shot down in an area east of Isfahan, and the channel broadcast what it said was live footage showing calm and normal conditions in Isfahan.

Three Iranian officials told the New York Times that the attack on the air base included small drones that may have been launched from Iran, saying radar systems did not detect any unidentified aircraft in Iranian airspace .

Reaction to Israeli strike on Iran

“No one wants a war with Iran right now,” Natan Eshel, Netanyahu's close aide and former chief of staff, said in a statement shared Friday by the prime minister's Likud party. “We have proven to them that we can penetrate and damage their domain and they have not succeeded in ours. Messages are more important than quarrels. We currently have more important tasks also in Gaza and Lebanon, people have lucky to have a leader like Netanyahu.”

However, one of the toughest members of Netanyahu's cabinet, far-right politician and current National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, posted a one-word message on social media as news of the attack on Iran appeared, simply saying: “Lame.” “.

Netanyahu faced opposing pressure from the United States, which sought a calibrated response based on the minimal impact of Iran's missile and drone barrage, and from ultranationalist members of his government, like Ben-Gvir, who have since advocated military action against Iran has lasted for a long time. .

Two members of the Iranian Air Force walk past a huge anti-Israel billboard after a military parade marking the anniversary of Iranian Army Day at a military base in Tehran April 17, 2024. Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Oman, which often serves as an intermediary between Tehran and the West, condemned the “Israeli attack” on Friday, according to the French news agency AFP.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying it was becoming “increasingly evident that tensions initially sparked by Israel's illegal attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus risk turning into a permanent conflict.” , and urging “all parties to refrain from measures that could lead to permanent conflict.” to a broader conflict.

Turkey said the international community's priority “should be to stop the massacre in Gaza and ensure lasting peace in our region by establishing a Palestinian state.”

Speaking as he hosted a meeting of his fellow G7 foreign ministers, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Italy's top diplomat Antonio Tajani told reporters on Friday that the United States had been informed of Israel's military action “at the last minute, but there was no response”. involvement on the part of the United States – it was simply information provided. »

Blinken, speaking later, was pressed to confirm the Israeli strike but said only that the United States was “not involved in any offensive operations.”

Tajani said he believed “the small scale of the event”, referring to Israel's retaliation, was “also the result of the efforts of the G7”, which, alongside the United States, had urged Netanyahu to lead a measured response.

In a joint statement, G7 foreign ministers urged Israel and Iran to avoid further escalation.

Reports of strikes in Syria and Iraq

As the sound of the explosions was heard in Iran, Syria's official SANA news agency quoted a military official as saying that Israel had carried out a missile strike targeting an air defense unit in the south of the country, causing damage. damage.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitoring organization, said the strike hit a military radar installation. It is not clear if there were any casualties, the OSDH said. Israel has carried out a number of strikes in Syria in recent years, often targeting towns associated with Iranian-backed groups.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, where a number of Iran-backed militias are based, residents of Baghdad reported hearing sounds of explosions, but the source of the noises was not immediately clear.

The context of the Israeli strike

Iran launched an unprecedented retaliatory strike against Israel last weekend in response to a deadly attack on an Iranian consulate in Syria that killed seven officers, including two generals, of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Iranian attack on Israel included 170 drones, more than 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles, according to IDF and U.S. officials. None of the drones entered Israeli territory before being shot down by Israel and its allies, including the United States, the Israeli military said.

Five of the ballistic missiles struck Israel, four of which hit Israel's Nevatim air base, where Israeli F-35s are based, U.S. officials told CBS News. Officials believe the base was likely Iran's primary target because the strike on the consulate in Syria was believed to have been carried out by an F-35.

The United States and other Israeli allies have urged Netanyahu to exercise restraint in any response to the Iranian attack, and American officials have said the United States would not participate in an Israeli retaliation.

In the aftermath of the Iranian attack, which the IDF said caused “very little damage,” President Biden urged the Israeli prime minister “to think about what this success in itself says to the rest of the region,” according to the National Security Council. spokesman John Kirby.

— Margaret Brennan, James LaPorta, David Martin, Michal Ben-Gal, Olivia Gazis, Haley Ott, Tucker Reals and Brian Dakss contributed reporting.

Iran: The crisis in the Middle East

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