Israel hits Iran with retaliatory air strikes

Israel conducted missile strikes against Iran Thursday night, as confirmed by a senior American military official to NPR. Explosions in Iraq and Syria have also been reported.

Despite Joe Biden’s warning, Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have decided not to “take the win,” following an Iranian retaliatory attack Saturday night, when more than 300 drones and missiles launched from Iran. This in turn followed an Israeli air strike that had destroyed an Iranian consulate building in Damascus, killing Mohammed Reza Zahedi, a top commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.

Ninety-nine percent of the Saturday barrage may have been intercepted by Israel’s superb Iron Dome — the aforementioned “win” — yet the assault also marked the first time the Islamic Republic launched a direct attack on Israel from Iran itself. That and the sheer proportion of Iran’s retaliation are part of the justifications for the early Friday morning response shared by backers of Netanyahu’s government.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency claims that Israel’s air strikes targeted a major air base in Isfahan, which is known to house a fleet of F-14 Tomcats. These are American carrier-capable, supersonic fighter aircraft acquired before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Isfahan is strategically crucial for Tehran, as it includes not only major military bases but also research facilities. Forty miles northeast from it is Natanz, which contains one of the country’s nuclear power plants. This site was previously sabotaged in what appeared to be an Israeli operation, which led to speculation over Israel potentially targeting it in its retaliatory attack. Iranian state media is reporting that the nuclear facilities in the region are secure.

The targeting of such facilities appears unlikely, considering that doing so would elevate the conflict to even greater levels. Still, the rhetoric of Iranian leaders like Brigadier General Ahmad Haghtalab had concerned those who view nuclear exchange as a possibility. Haghtalab was quoted by Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, saying, “The nuclear facilities of the Zionist enemy have been identified and all the necessary information from all targets is at our disposal.”

As tensions rise further, with Netanyahu defying Biden, it is unclear what may happen next. But tonight Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei celebrates his eighty-fourth birthday with the sky lit up with missiles.