2024-04-28 15:10:25
Iran launched an attack with drones and missiles against Israel this Saturday, marking an escalation of unpredictable consequences in a region already shaken by more than six months of war between the Jewish State and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
This is the first direct attack by the Islamic Republic of Iran against the territory of Israel, its archenemy.
In parallel, Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, both allies of Iran, carried out their own attacks against Israel. The first fired rockets against the Golan, occupied by Israel, and the second launched drones towards Israeli territory.
For its part, the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, announced that they had also launched missiles against Israel as part of this operation in retaliation for the bombing of their consulate in Damascus on April 1, in which two of them died. his generals and which he attributed to Israel.
The Iranian attack was launched “in response to the numerous crimes committed by the Zionist regime, including the attack on the consular section of the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Damascus and the martyrdom of a group of commanders and military advisors of our country in Syria,” Iranian state television reported, citing the Guardians’ public relations department.
Immediately after the start of Iran’s retaliation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his war cabinet in a bunkered room at a secret location.
The United States, Israel’s main ally, indicated that it “will support the people of Israel,” after announcing on Friday the sending of military reinforcements to the region.
The Iranian mission to the UN indicated on the social network
– «Killer drones» –
“Iran launched drones from its territory against the State of Israel,” Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said on television shortly after 11:00 p.m. local time (8:00 p.m. GMT).
«We are closely monitoring the killer drones sent by Iran and that are on their way to Israel. “This is a serious and dangerous escalation,” she said, assuring that Israel works “closely” with the United States and its allies in the region to “intercept the drones.”
According to Defense sources, the United States shot down several of the drones fired from Iran.
An Israeli official had said Tehran launched more than 100 drones.
AFP journalists claimed to have heard several explosions in Jerusalem in the early hours of Sunday, shortly before the warning sirens began to sound, and also in Jericho, in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli army said sirens also sounded in the Negev region in the south.
Israel, which in the afternoon announced the closure of schools throughout the country “taking into account the security situation”, reported the closure of its airspace starting at 9:30 p.m. GMT.
Jordan and Lebanon, Israel’s neighbors, and Iraq, which shares a border with Iran, also reported closing their airspace, while Egypt said its air defense was on high alert.
A few minutes after the start of the Iranian operation, the X social network account of the supreme guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, republished a message stating that “the diabolical regime will be punished.”
France and the United Kingdom condemned the Iranian attack, as did the European Union, which called it an “unprecedented escalation.”
– War in Gaza –
On Saturday morning, the maritime forces of the Revolutionary Guards intercepted a ship “linked” to Israeli interests in the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the oil production of the Gulf countries transits, with 25 crew members on board.
This escalation occurs against the backdrop of the war between Israel and Hamas, a movement supported by Iran and in power in the Gaza Strip, triggered by a bloody incursion by Islamist commandos into southern Israel on October 7.
That day, Islamist movement fighters killed about 1,170 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
They also took 250 hostages, of whom 129 remain in Gaza, including 34 who are believed to have died, according to Israeli authorities.
In response, Israel vowed to “annihilate” Hamas and launched a relentless offensive that has already left 33,686 dead in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Ministry of Health of the territory, ruled by Hamas since 2007.
The conflict, in addition to the significant number of victims, has left the majority of Gaza’s almost 2.5 million inhabitants on the brink of famine, according to the UN. The Israeli siege prevents the entry of humanitarian aid required by the small territory.