Iran carries out large-scale missile attack on Israel

Iran has carried out a large-scale missile attack on Israel in a major escalation of the yearlong conflict between Israel and the Islamic republic’s regional proxies.

The Israeli military said the Iranian missile strike began about 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday and continued for around half an hour. It said Iran fired around 180 missiles in the attack.

Iranian state news agency IRNA published video of the missile attack on its Telegram channel. It also published a statement saying Iran’s top military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, attacked Israeli “security and intelligence” targets in retaliation for the July assassination of Palestinian Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Israel’s recent killings of other senior commanders of Lebanese Hezbollah and the IRGC itself.

Israel assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in a strike on the U.S.-designated terror group’s southern Beirut command center last Friday. IRGC Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan also was killed in that attack. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied killing Haniyeh.

IRNA said Tuesday’s missile strike on Israel, the second such attack from Iranian territory after an aerial assault in April, was approved by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, which serves under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Israeli military said 10 million civilians were under threat from the Iranian missiles, which triggered sirens across Israel.

About an hour after the Iranian missile strike began, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters the attack had ended and civilians could leave their shelters.

Hagari described the Iranian attack as more extensive and severe than the April assault. But he said defensive efforts by Israel and its partners led to many of the Iranian missiles being intercepted, with only a few impacts reported on the ground.

He said he was not aware of any casualties but warned without elaborating that Iran would face “consequences.”

A U.S. defense official told VOA that U.S forces in the region were defending against Iranian-launched missiles targeting Israel.

“Our forces remain postured to provide additional defensive support and to protect U.S. forces operating in the region,” said the official, who spoke on background.

The White House said President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were “monitoring the Iranian attack against Israel from the White House Situation Room and receiving regular updates from their national security team.”

Hezbollah rockets and Israeli incursion

Earlier Tuesday, Hezbollah fired rockets at northern Israel, a day after Israel began what it described as a “limited, localized and targeted” ground incursion into southern Lebanon to destroy terrorist infrastructure near its northern border.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, said Tuesday that any Israeli ground incursion into Lebanon is “in violation of Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

"We urge all actors to step back from such escalatory acts, which will only lead to more violence and more bloodshed,” UNIFIL said.

The U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said in a statement Tuesday that the violence is “spiraling to dangerous heights.”

“This cycle of violence will not end well — for anyone. A sliver of opportunity remains for diplomacy to succeed. The question now is whether it will be seized or squandered,” she said.

Almost a year of attacks across the Israeli-Lebanese border have forced tens of thousands of people on both sides to flee their homes.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, in a Tuesday meeting with U.N. and Lebanese officials, said his country is facing “one of the most critical moments in its history.”

A call for aid

In another development, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs appealed for $426 million in funding to help those affected by what it called “the largest escalation of conflict” since the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War.

“The ongoing violence and rapidly deteriorating security situation is putting hundreds of thousands of people’s lives at risk on both sides of the Blue Line [between Israel and Lebanon],” the humanitarian agency said in a statement.

VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb, U.N correspondent Margaret Besheer and White House correspondent Anita Powell contributed to this report.