Iran has launched a drone attack on Israel, Israeli officials say
Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari is pictured in October 2023. Hagari said on Saturday that Iran had launched drones toward Israel.
Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images
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Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images
Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari is pictured in October 2023. Hagari said on Saturday that Iran had launched drones toward Israel.
Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images
In a major escalation of conflict in the Middle East, Israeli officials said late Saturday night that Iran had launched a drone attack toward Israel.
The drones would would take hours to arrive in Israeli airspace, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said. He warned Israelis to stay in safe rooms for 10 minutes if sirens in their areas go off.
The launch comes four days after Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed retaliation for an April 1 strike on an Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Iran said the strike had killed seven members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, including two generals, and it blamed Israel for the attack.
By Saturday, as anticipation grew over a possible retaliation, Israeli officials warned residents living in communities near Gaza and the Lebanon border to limit the size of gatherings and to work indoors or within reach of a shelter. Schools across Israel were closed through Monday. Officials said Israel would take any measures necessary to defend its citizens.
“Iran is a terrorist state — the world is seeing this now more than ever,” Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant said Saturday, hours before the launch. “We are determined to defend our citizens against this terrorism, and we know how to respond to it.”
In anticipation of a possible attack, President Biden had cut short a trip to Delaware in order to return to the White House Saturday. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel. And Iran will not succeed,” Biden said Friday.
The strike and retaliation represent an escalation that many officials worldwide had expressed worry about ever since the outbreak of war between Israel and the Gaza-based militant group Hamas on Oct. 7, the day Hamas led an attack on Israel that left some 1,200 people dead.
In the six months since, Israel has bombarded Gaza and conducted a devastating ground invasion that has left much of the territory in ruins and more than 33,000 Palestinians dead, according to Palestinian health officials.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
Additional reporting by NPR’s Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv and NPR’s Jane Arraf in Amman.