Not fewer than 12 people have sustained several degrees of injuries as Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles toward Israel on Saturday night.
An Israeli army spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari confirmed this in a statement on Sunday saying “Last night, Iran fired over 300 ballistic missiles, UAVs, and cruise missiles toward Israel.”
In a separate statement, the Israeli military said that “dozens of surface-to-surface missile launches” were identified, with the majority intercepted before crossing into Israeli territory.
One of those injured was a seven-year-old girl from a Bedouin community near the southern town of Arad, who was in intensive care, according to the medical centre that received her.
Iran’s overnight attack came as a response to an Israeli raid on the Iranian consulate in Syria two weeks ago.
Hagari said 170 drones and 30 cruise missiles were launched, none of which entered Israeli territory, adding that 110 ballistic missiles were also fired and few of them reached Israel.
The raid in Damascus killed 12 people, including two senior generals in the IRGC’s elite Quds Force.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) confirmed the attack, saying it launched the drones and missiles under Operation True Promise as part of the punishment for “the Zionist entity’s crime of targeting the Iranian consulate in Syria” on April 1.
The escalation came more than six months into Israel’s devastating war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians and pushed the besieged territory to the brink of famine.
The war has driven up tensions in the region, spreading to fronts with Lebanon and Syria and drawing long-range fire at Israeli targets from as far away as Yemen and Iraq.
Meanwhile, western countries condemned Iran’s missile and drone assault, including the US, the UK, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Mexico, the Netherlands and Norway. Egypt and Saudi Arabia called for restraint, while the UN Security Council scheduled an emergency session to discuss the matter at Israel’s request.
US President Joe Biden cut short a weekend stay at his Delaware beach house to meet his national security team at the White House on Saturday afternoon. He also spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late on Saturday, reaffirming Washington’s “ironclad commitment” to its ally’s security.
Biden said he told Netanyahu that “Israel demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks – sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel”.
Netanyahu, in a brief post on X, said Israel will achieve victory.
“We intercepted, we repelled, together we shall win,” he added.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned Iran’s attack, saying he was “deeply alarmed about the very real danger of a devastating region-wide escalation”.
Russian Deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said on the Telegram social media app that in addition to a letter from Israel, the UNSC had received one from Iran asserting its attack was within the UN Charter framework governing the right to self-defence.
“The latter warns that if Israel responds, Iran will respond in a more powerful and decisive manner,” Polyanskiy said.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on all parties to “exercise calm and restraint”, describing the situation as the “latest spillover of the Gaza conflict”. It said it was deeply concerned by the escalation and said Israel’s war on Gaza “must end now”.
