Iran fires a volley of ballistic missiles at Israel

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT, Oct 1 (Reuters) – Iran fired a volley of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday in retaliation for Israel's campaign against Tehran's ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Alarms sounded across Israel and explosions were heard in Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley after Israelis crowded into bomb shelters. State television reporters lay flat on the floor during live broadcasts.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard said Iran had fired dozens of missiles at Israel and that if Israel retaliated, Tehran's response would be “even more devastating and ruinous.”

A senior Iranian official later told Reuters that the order to fire missiles at Israel was given by the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei remains in a safe location, the senior official added.

The Israeli army said Israeli airspace was closed following the Iranian attack.

Reuters journalists saw missiles intercepted in the airspace of neighboring Jordan. Israeli army radio said nearly 200 rockets had been fired from Iran into Israel.

The military had previously said a ballistic missile attack from Iran would be widespread and urged the public to stay in safe spaces in the event of an attack.

Iran has vowed to retaliate after attacks that killed senior leaders of its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.

The rocket firing came after Israel said its troops had launched ground attacks on Lebanon, although it described the forays as limited. The Israeli campaign in Lebanon is the biggest escalation in regional warfare since fighting broke out in Gaza a year ago.

In Washington, US President Joe Biden said the United States was ready to help Israel defend itself against Iranian missile attacks.

“We talked about how the United States stands ready to help Israel deter these attacks and protect American personnel in the region,” Biden said on X about a meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris and the White House national security team earlier during the day .

The Iranian missile launches came after Israeli ground forces launched attacks on Lebanon and bombed its warplanes from the air.

QUICK ESCALATION

It represents the biggest escalation in regional warfare since fighting erupted in Gaza a year ago and follows weeks of intense air strikes that beheaded Hezbollah and killed most of its top leaders. More than a thousand Lebanese have been killed and a million have fled their homes.

Iran had announced retaliatory measures against Israel, raising fears that the war could spread beyond the region's borders despite efforts by the United States, Israel's closest and most powerful ally, to contain it.

In the latest announced killing of a senior Hezbollah member, Israel had previously said it had assassinated Muhammad Jaafar Qasir, describing him as a commander responsible for arms transfers from Iran and its allies.

The rapid escalation that has plunged Lebanon into war has claimed hundreds of lives. Near the Mediterranean city of Sidon, south of Beirut, mourners wept over coffins containing black-clad bodies of people killed in Israeli attacks.

“The building was demolished and I couldn't protect my daughter or anyone else. Thank God my son and I got out, but I lost my daughter and my wife, I lost my home, I became homeless. What do you want?” “My whole life changed in a second,” said resident Abdulhamid Ramadan.

“ALL LEBANON WILL FIGHT”

Many Lebanese said they were ready to resist Israeli forces.

“Not just Hezbollah, all of Lebanon will fight this time. “All of Lebanon is determined to fight Israel for the massacres it committed in Gaza and Lebanon,” said Abu Alaa, a resident of Sidon.

In Beirut, Israel struck a high-rise building in the central Jnah area and one in the capital's southern suburbs, briefly closing the road to Beirut airport. The Israeli military said it carried out a “precise attack.”

Israel has long said it would do whatever was necessary to secure its northern border and allow tens of thousands of Israelis to return to the cities they have fled since the war in Gaza erupted a year ago, when Hezbollah moved in solidarity with the Palestinians began firing across the Gaza border.

An Israeli security official said troops in southern Lebanon began limited raids in Lebanon overnight, extending only a short distance across the border, adding that no direct clashes with Hezbollah fighters had been reported. The military said there had indeed been similar raids of this kind in recent months.

But in a clear sign that the war could expand even further, the military announced that it would call up four additional reserve brigades for operational missions on the northern border.

Israel has always fought in Lebanon, where it invaded in 1982 in the middle of the Lebanese sectarian civil war. Israeli troops finally withdrew in 2000, but returned in 2006 to fight another major war against Hezbollah. Since then, the “blue line” of the border has been monitored by the UN

The United Nations said its peacekeepers had experienced sporadic Israeli incursions but not a full-scale invasion.

Hezbollah, a Shiite militia founded by Iran to resist Israeli forces in Lebanon, has become Lebanon's strongest military force and is equipped with an arsenal of rockets and missiles. It is also Lebanon's strongest political party and heads a network of Iranian-backed armed movements across the Middle East.

Israel killed its leader of more than 30 years, Hassan Nasrallah, on Saturday in a massive airstrike in Beirut that sparked panic, just days after the group was shocked when booby-trapped pagers and radios exploded across the country.

Sign in Here.

Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.opens new tab