Iran said it launched dozens of drones and ballistic missiles towards Israel on Saturday in a major attack following days of acute tension building up in the region and warnings from the US and elsewhere about a wider conflict erupting.
Air attack warning sirens began wailing over Jerusalem just before 2am local time on Sunday after the weapons were fired a few hours earlier from Iran with US and Jordanian military assisting Israel’s air defenses in intercepting the first incoming barrage.
With weapons believed to be still in the air en route to Israel, Iran’s mission to the United Nations posted on X: “Iran’s military action was in response to the Zionist regime’s aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus. The matter can be deemed concluded.”
However, it threatened more severe action in the face of further Israeli aggression and warned the US and Jordan specifically not to assist Israel.
Edit: here are links to the NYT and BBC live feeds.
Edit 2: updated summary and archive to reflect article changes.
This drone attack by Iran may have more to do with “showing” it’s little vassal terrorist groups it’s prodding and bankrolling into doing Iran’s dirty work that Iran is “doing” something militarily in support of Hamas and the Houthi.
What is a drone strike that is going to take 8 to 10 hours to arrive supposed to accomplish when it’s so easy to spot coming well ahead of time. It’s not like Iran doesn’t have missiles that can hit Israel in a handful of minutes if Iran really wanted to do damage.