Israel Launches Retaliatory Strike Against Iran

Israel retaliated overnight against Iran’s massive drone and missile attack on its territory, a person briefed on the matter said—a move that threatens to push the countries deeper into an escalatory spiral that could lead to war.

The strike targeted the area around Isfahan, the person said. Iranian media and social media reported explosions near the city, where Iran has nuclear facilities and a drone factory, and the activation of air-defense systems in provinces across the country after suspicious flying objects were detected.

State-run IRNA said that its reporters hadn’t seen any large-scale damage or explosions anywhere in the country and that no incidents were reported at Iran’s nuclear facilities. In Israel, the military said on Thursday night that there were no changes to the home-front command instructions that tell the public when to seek shelter.

State media said overnight that flights across Iran were put on hold. Friday morning, it said the restrictions had been lifted.

Much remained unclear about the extent or the impact of the Israeli action, meant as a response to an unprecedented direct attack by Iran on Saturday that involved more than 300 drones and missiles aimed at Israeli territory, most of which were shot down. That attack itself was retribution for a strike attributed to Israel that killed top Iranian officers in Damascus, Syria.

Israel was under pressure from the U.S. and Europe to moderate its response and faced the challenge of delivering a blow that would punish Iran for the attack without provoking a response.

Iran has ramped up warnings in recent days that it would respond aggressively to any Israeli strike. It also signaled Thursday that it could accelerate work on nuclear weapons if its nuclear facilities were targeted.

On Monday, Netanyahu told ministers from his Likud party that he is determined to respond to Iran, but that the action would be “sensible and not something irresponsible,” according to a person familiar with the matter.

The direct exchange of blows between Israel and Iran takes the conflict that began with militant group Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel to a dangerous new level, one that threatens to embroil the U.S. and Gulf states in a regional conflagration that they have worked hard to prevent.

Iran had long pursued its conflict with Israel through a network of Middle East proxies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen as it sought to avoid a full-scale conventional conflict. It changed that equation with the direct strike against Israel, gambling that it could reset the informal rules that have provided some predictability to the strikes and counterstrikes over the years.

Israeli officials have said the direct strikes demanded a response. The overnight strike isn’t its first attack within Iran’s territory.

In January 2023, an Israeli drone strike inside Iran hit an advanced weapons-production facility, according to people familiar with the operation. The operation was carried out by Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, and targeted a Ministry of Defense site in Isfahan in central Iran, hitting a building in four different areas with precision strikes, the people said.

Israel never acknowledged the operation. The people familiar with the matter compared it to an Israeli quadcopter drone strike in 2022 on Iranian drone-production sites in the western city of Kermanshah.

Israel is juggling a fast growing number of military challenges. It is already fighting on three fronts: in Gaza against Hamas, on its northern border with Hezbollah, as well as trying to quell unrest in the West Bank. It is under pressure to restore deterrence with Iran but also must hold together the tenuous strategic partnership that helped it block Iran’s attack.

Updates to follow as news develops.

Anat Peled and Benoit Faucon contributed to this article.

Write to Dov Lieber at [email protected]