JERUSALEM: Israel bombed military sites in Iran early on Saturday, but its retaliation for an Iranian attack this month did not target the most sensitive oil and nuclear facilities and drew no immediate vows of vengeance.
The risk of a wider conflagration between heavily-armed Israel and Iran has convulsed a region already on fire with warfare in Gaza and Lebanon, but Tehran’s initial response appeared muted.
Israel’s military said scores of jets had completed three waves of strikes before dawn against missile factories and other sites near Tehran and in western Iran, and warned its heavily armed arch-foe not to hit back.
Iran said its air defences had successfully countered the attack but four soldiers were killed and some locations suffered “limited damage”. A semi-official Iranian news agency said there would be a “proportional reaction” to the Israeli strikes.
Tensions between Iran and Israel have grown rapidly since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Iran-backed Hamas, raising fears of a wider regional conflict that could drag in global powers and imperil world energy supplies.
Fears of an escalation have increased since Oct. 1 when Iran launched about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, killing one person in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in response to earlier Israeli moves.
Worsening conflict in Lebanon, where Israel is waging an intense campaign against Iran’s main regional ally Hezbollah to stop it firing rockets into northern Israel, has raised the temperature still further.
Israel notified the US before striking, but Washington was not involved in the operation, a US official told international media. Targets did not include energy infrastructure or Iran’s nuclear facilities, a US official said.
US President Joe Biden had warned that Washington, Israel’s main backer and supplier of arms, would not support a strike on Tehran’s nuclear sites and had said Israel should consider alternatives to attacking Iran’s oil fields. Arab states situated between Israel and Iran have been particularly worried that use of their airspace could prompt retaliation against them.
Jordanian television quoted a source in the country’s armed forces as saying no military planes had been allowed through its airspace. A Saudi official also said that Saudi airspace had not been used for the strike.
Saudi Arabia, which has mended fences with Iran after years of rivalry, and had been edging towards better ties with Israel before the war in Gaza, condemned the attack as a violation of Iranian sovereignty and international law.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry said Iran would respond to the airstrikes, calling them a clear violation of international law as it asserted Tehran’s right to self-defense.
Israel characterised Saturday’s attack as a response to previous aerial assaults by Iran using missiles and exploding drones in April and another missile attack this month. Many of those projectiles were shot down before reaching their targets.
Iran could attempt another direct bombardment, though doing so risks provoking yet another direct Israeli attack on its territory at a moment when its defences are weakened.
It could also encourage allied militant groups such as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon to intensify their attacks, though both have suffered serious blows in their ongoing wars with Israel.
“Iran will play down the impact of the strikes, which are in fact quite serious,” predicted Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the London-based think tank Chatham House.