Israel Defense Forces: Iran launched 200 drones and missiles

We begin with the aerial assault launched by iran against israel, the israeli army says more than 200 missiles and drones were fired from iran. Most of the missiles have been intercepted by israel and the us uk and jordan have also shot down drones. Air raid sirens have sounded across israel and explosions have been heard in jerusalem. The iranian revolutionary guard says the assault is in retaliation for an attack on its consulate in syria, which killed several generals. It's the first time iran has launched a direct military attack on israel. Despite decades of intense hostility, while there's been widespread, international condemnation of the iranian attack, us president joe biden repeated america's ironclad support for israel secretary general antonio gues criticized a serious escalation by iran.

The un security council has called an emergency meeting germany's foreign minister analena bok. Also condemned the attack saying it could plunge the entire region into chaos. The british prime minister, rishi sunak called the assault reckless and vowed to stand up for israeli security. Well, the israeli army has lifted its advice uh to people to go to air raid shelters. It says, there's been little damage so far iran launched dozens of surfac to surface missiles towards the state of israel. The vast majority were intercepted outside the borders of the state of israel by our air defense systems, a number of missiles fell in our territory. We know of one girl who was injured and a strike at a base in the south, with only minor damage to the infrastructure.

Let's go to jerusalem now where dw correspondent, tanya kramer, is standing by for tanya good to see you again so can you give us an update on the attack and the situation in israel? Well, as we just heard, we got some more details from the israeli military here, saying that about 200 drones and missiles were mostly intercepted, as they put it outside of uh israel uh, with their strategic partners, as they put it, and also um through their air defense system, but there were some hits identified. They only told us about one on a military base in the south of uh israel, so some made it through uh. The defense there's also uh one uh injured, uh child uh, critically injured uh. We don't know, probably from shrapnel uh what happened there now? We can still hear fighter jets in the air, because the army had also said, despite telling people that don't have to be near shelters. But this is an ongoing event so to speak, and we can still hear in jerusalem the fighter jets. We heard shortly before 2 a.m: uh um, you know those uh explosions, potentially the the interceptions that were really close by jerusalem, but they were all over uh. The country um uh also uh. So that was being heard, and now we also had in the past half an hour so again in the north, some aid sirant going off in northern israel, also on the occupied goen, that's probably more related to the crossb attacks. We've been seeing there in the past couple of weeks between hezbollah and uh israel, but also we understand diplomatically uh on that front, that us president joe biden and prime minister benyamin netanyahu uh were on the phone um of course.

Now the question is: how will israel retaliate to that or how will they respond to this attack tanya briefly, if could, how are israelis dealing with the current situation, I think everybody here is aware that this is a very dangerous situation. It's an unprecedented situation, uh the first time that we see such an escalation directly uh from iran. There was always talk about that. This could happen, but again uh, you know now it it has become reality and the question now that everybody here is of course asking uh is: where is this going from here? Um there's already a war uh between israel and hamas in gaza uh. We have the tensions and crossb attacks in the north of israel, with southern, with hezbollah and southern lebanon uh also attacks from the houthis and from from yemen and the past week. So where is this going? Can this be contained and israel had already said? If there's a direct attack from israel from iran on israel, then they would retaliate thanks, tanya t kramer in jerusalem, well, dw, correspondent, muhammad sha, is in the lebanese capital beirut.

He told us more about the reaction in lebanon to iran launching an attack against israel. Well, I just received uh reports on what appears to be uh, drones and missiles over uh lebanon's coast and cities this uh needs further verification, but lebanon actually announced that it has closed its uh airspace temporarily due to the escalation uh in uh in the region on the front on the southern front, uh with israel, and this front has been active uh since october 8th, not in an unusual way, over the past two days, I would say, but we just received reports that crossb shelling between uh hasbullah and the israeli army has intensified in the last couple of hours. The iranian back militant group announced that it targeted air defense bases in the golan uh heights, meaning that this started simultaneously with the uh um attack that iran launched against israel. This night, israel also is using extensive uh uh fire force to strike positions inside uh southern lebanon. All right is that then a further escalation of the situation, um um there in that region, I mean hasah, has already been involved in in uh uh.

This conflict since uh october 8, it's been trading um fire with israel um, since hamas launched the precedented attack on israel uh on october 7. The party is a key member as

as you may know, of the so-called resistance access along the hois in yemen, the popular mobilization in iraq and hamas in they all receive, fund and and logistic support from iran now hb's leader repeatedly said that it does not want further escalation, uh uh with israel, and that the the the combat that it's engaging with israel on this front is only in support uh to gaza as as uh he says, but the party is u engaging in combat with israeli army on a on a daily uh basis, uh so far now are they willing to escalate the situation further, this question, u is remain, remains unanswered, uh, but we will have to wait and see how israel responds to uh the unprecedented attack by iran tonight. Also muhammad. Briefly, if you could, how are the general population there in lebanon uh dealing with uh what what's happening uh tonight? Well, it definitely disrupted uh the life of of the lebanese um. Definitely, there's sense of fear and anxiety. All over the country, be's nights are usually wild and and busy. It hasn't been the case last night and uh uh tonight. It's significantly uh calmer since uh yesterday, as everyone was anticipating this uh attack a couple of hours ago, people have been rushing to petrol stations to fill their uh car tanks. I' I've I've seen the the the cues on petrol uh station, and this is out of fear of possible escalation. In the coming uh few days, everyone is watching the situation very carefully in lebanon thanks muhammad muhammad sha in beirut benam ben tblu is a senior fellow at the foundation for the defense of democracies in washington dc, he told me.

The attack by iran is unprecedented yeah. It's pleasure to be with you uh, unprecedented and historic. You know. For almost four decades the islamic republic of iran had been fighting a shadow war with the jewish state. You know they have been chanting for over four decades death to israel. They put their money where their mouth is, but now it really is indeed coming out of the shadows. Two quick reasons why it's unprecedented number one, the islamic republic, has never fired projectiles like uh ballistic missiles, for example, from its territory publicly against israeli territory. Number two in the public ballistic missile operations that the regime has been engaging in at least 11 or 12 since 2017, for example, it has never struck a defended target. For example, all the places iran did strike with ballistic missiles. Iraq syria pakistan were undefended targets against air and missile defenses. So israel, in fact, is one of the countries with the most advanced layered air and missile defenses, making an exceptionally hard target for these missiles.

Uh, which begs the question of what were the iranians hoping to achieve? Was this more of a test run? Was this an attempt to layer, drones and ballistic missiles, lots of oper questions here and the biggest one is indeed, how will israel respond correct? How will israel respond, but tell me this: what did you make of the type of attack? It's given israel plenty of time to prepare right in some way. You know the iranians for a little over a week and a half had been publicly telegraphing that there would be an operation and the first phase of the military operation that commenced was with lower and slower flying drones. Some had read this as an attempt to uh give the israelis time to repair but I actually think that would not be the case. The firing of drones first and marrying it with ballistic missiles later is because the fight time for some of those ballistic missiles can be, as short as 8, to 12 minutes to traverse over about 1,600 kilometers uh, for the drones to avoid existing air and missile defenses and hug the terrain they fly over, it indeed might take several hours, so the pre-firing and the publication of the drone strike I, don't think, was an attempt to prepare israel to make the strike less successful. I think it was an attempt to pair it together with a higher and flaster flying missile. All right, what's being said in iran.

Very interestingly, you've had lots of pro- regime media semiofficial media media related to the irgc, carrying in essence the full copy paste of the islamic revolutionary guard corps press statement, uh essentially saying that yes, indeed, this was a public operation. They are claiming success. They are claiming military targets were struck, so there is a fair amount of bragado doio in the iranian press, leading one to believe that this this operation as risky and bold h- and you know game-changing as it was uh also was intended to signal resolve to a domestic audience as much as it was looking to signal resolve to a foreign audience. Are we seeing a change in iran's approach to the decades long hostilities with israel? Slowly?

We are seeing an approach to how the islamic republic of iran adjudicates that hostility with israel uh some I think uh today have been looking at the missile strikes and the kind of embracing of the over posture with israel as iran moving full force. Uh out of the shadows I, don't think it's full force out of the shadows. It is marrying the existing asymmetric threat that the regime poses and slowly layering, on elements of this conventional threat architecture. The regime is trying to have uh the best of both worlds here and that's why I think, even though the israelis were very successful at intercepting the vast majority of these projectiles uh, the regime is not done with uh. You know marrying these threats up together and trying to dangle the capability to respond to israel as a sort of democles. Now we're running out of time but uh briefly, if you could h what do you expect from iran's proxies in the region uh already, there are allegations that the shia militias in irq had attempted to fire land attack cruise missiles at israel. That's reported but not confirmed that hezbollah had slowly uh began to also earlier in the day fire some rockets over the border uh I expect them in case there is an israeli overt military response to begin to feel fill the gap, and the question is: if america does get more involved directly I think those sh militias would move to begin targeting american assets, ben I'm, ben tblu, a senior fellow from the foundation for defense of democracy democracies in washington, washton dc.

Thank you

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