Iran said it launched dozens of drones and ballistic missiles towards Israel on Saturday in a major attack following days of acute tension building up in the region and warnings from the US and elsewhere about a wider conflict erupting.

Air attack warning sirens began wailing over Jerusalem just before 2am local time on Sunday after the weapons were fired a few hours earlier from Iran with US and Jordanian military assisting Israel’s air defenses in intercepting the first incoming barrage.

With weapons believed to be still in the air en route to Israel, Iran’s mission to the United Nations posted on X: “Iran’s military action was in response to the Zionist regime’s aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus. The matter can be deemed concluded.”

However, it threatened more severe action in the face of further Israeli aggression and warned the US and Jordan specifically not to assist Israel.

MBFC
Archive

Edit: here are links to the NYT and BBC live feeds.

Edit 2: updated summary and archive to reflect article changes.

  • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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    7 months ago

    Yeah, Iran sucks and everything, but didn’t Israel start this by bombing their embassy in Syria? If Israel had been held to account for that, maybe we wouldn’t be looking at yet another flashpoint involving a nuclear armed state.

    I don’t know what anyone expected Iran to do here.

    • Hyperreality@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      didn’t Israel start this by bombing their embassy in Syria?

      Israel bombed their embassy in Syria as a response to Iran helping Hezbollah and Hamas. At one point an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps spokesman said October 7th was a response to the death of Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, although they later retracted that. The Israelis wanted Soleimani gone because of his role in supporting Hamas and Hezbollah and earlier attacks on Israel, including his involvement in the 2006 war in Lebanon. Etc. etc. etc. on and on back to before Iran became Iran.

      The middle-east is an illustration of the idiom “An Eye for an Eye Will Make the Whole World Blind”.

      • matcha_addict@lemy.lol
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        7 months ago

        If we keep going back, Israel has committed far too many hostilities that were never responded to. Hell, they bomb syria most weeks without any retaliation form Syria. They commit horrors against west bank citizens all the time.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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        7 months ago

        Yep. Most places the UN would come in and try to settle everyone down, but the US basically blocks anything like that, and it’s possible that’s mostly because of mystical prophecies they believe.

    • Billy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 months ago

      iran is funding and arming hamas, hizballah and the houthis, all of which were attacking israel.
      in addition to their attacks on usa bases.

      • avater@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        iran is funding and arming hamas, hizballah and the houthis, all of which were attacking israel. in addition to their attacks on usa bases.

        don’t forget that those fucks also support Russia with their drones…

      • Altofaltception@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Wasn’t Hamas created in response to Israeli aggression?

        Not defending Hamas, but they don’t exist in a vacuum.

      • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Meanwhile Israel funds and arms terrorist groups in Iran like the Mojahiden-e-khalq or Al-Nusra in Syria, in addition to their cyber attacks on Iran and assassinations of Iranian scientists.

        • Billy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 months ago

          al-nusra in syria is funded by qatar, which syrians are suing for that.

          the mek was allegedly supported also by israel, along with the saudis and the usa.
          which had to start after their funding and cooperation with saddam hussein. so after 2003. much after iran’s support for hamas since the 1990’s and the founding of hizballah in the 1980’s.

          and since then they’ve barely done anything other than the 2 assassinations related to iran’s nuclear program. not even close to hamas, houthis’ or hizballah’s actions. and they barely have any weapons or funding compared, let alone thousands of rockets and drones.

          • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Of course Saudi tries to blame their enemy Qatar. That was more of an accusation than any solid proof, at which point the CIA likely helped them to since they were toppling Assad.

            Meanwhile according to Wikipedia:

            There were cases of al-Nusra combatants receiving medical aid in Israel and returning to fight. Former head of Mossad, Efraim Halevy, in an interview for al-Jazeera implicitly confirmed that such practices had taken place

      • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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        7 months ago

        Yes, it does, and it sucks. It’s basically war over there. That said, attacking an embassy is a line where Israel’s actions should have been condemned. The point is not that Iran is in the right in any way, the point is Israel is just as wrong here.

        • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          Iran’s response isn’t proportional though. Israel made a single strike on military leaders using a nearby embassy. Launching dozens of drones is an escalation.

          It’s not even a smart escalation. It allows Israel to claim they were attacked disproportionately and launch strikes on Iran’s actual military in country. Iran has much worse defenses against cruise missiles and drones. Now they may lose what sympathy they had from other countries.

          I predict the US will free the ship Iran took today within a few weeks. Maybe the Navy will knock out all Iran’s anti-air radar in the south, just as a show of force, and then not attack anything. That would be a good way to tell them to stop without killing.

          • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
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            7 months ago

            The US just tried to negotiate with Houthis over the attacks in the Red Sea, an omission admission that things aren’t going so well. Iran is in a stronger position than Houthis, I think your over estimating the US right now.

          • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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            7 months ago

            Israel escalated by striking an embassy, breaking the Vienna convention, to Iran arming insurgents. That was Israel launching four missiles at Iranian sovereign territory, targeting high-ranking Iranian military officials, on ground that is considered to be sacrosanct internationally to preserve diplomacy in times of war.

            The thing is, the drones are proportional retaliation, but still, it should be on both sides to try to de-escalate.

            What I see though is that Israel wasn’t even condemned for the attack, in fact they tried to claim it wasn’t even an embassy they hit. Now the problem is that Iran, with its leadership and government being how it is, can’t let this go as they are humiliated. When Trump killed Soleimani, which was a similar strike (but not at an embassy!), Iran launched attacks at US bases, wounding US troops which the US let go without retaliation. That’s how it got de-escalated.

            Your point with “let’s humiliate Iran by performing a show of force” is that they won’t take it and de-escalate. It will make it worse. I’m not saying we should let Iran walk all over us, but stepping in to cover one shitty side against another will just lead to either war or another 9/11.

            • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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              7 months ago

              You didn’t mention the ship they took. If you think the missiles and drones (dozens) are proportional, then the ship makes no sense. Commandeering a civilian ship is clearly extra and disproportionate. They’re probably not going to give that up without getting something in return.

              The leaders of Iran are desperate to seem tough to their domestic audience, like Putin. That’s why they did this. Unfortunately for the people of Iran, this is going to hurt them further with sanctions.

          • Fiona@discuss.tchncs.de
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            7 months ago

            Iran attacked the specific military installations that Israel used to perform their highly illegal attack on the Iranian embassy. This is the most textbook example of textbook examples of appropriate, proportional and measured self-defense we have seen in a very long time in the entire region. The relevant thing to count is not the number of missiles or drones, but the number of targets and their relevance to the case.

      • NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth
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        7 months ago

        Let’s not forget the same thing I have to say every fucking time in one of these posts: Just because the United States did something wrong does not mean others should follow

        You guys need to learn from our fuck ups!

        • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          But maybe it wasn’t judged as a fuck up. Maybe it just gave license for others to replicate.

          • NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth
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            7 months ago

            No I stand here and tell you as a natural born American that our military actions have an infinitesimally small good to bad ratio.

            We have like the independence war and WWII and even that has atomic bombs involved.

            WWI was just a giant clusterfuck and idk that there were good and bad guys in that one.

            WWII at least had hitler going after the Jews, gays, and non-aryans, plus japan going after China and well honestly I don’t know why people remember the holocaust so much and forget all about the super fucked up shit Japan did.

            • Aqarius@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Good/Bad isn’t the point. The point is if you do something that shouldn’t even be on the table and get away with it, it’s now on the table for everyone.

      • machinin@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Has the US ever bombed an embassy? Knowing your post history, I have a feeling you left out that detail for a reason.

          • machinin@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Good, 25 years ago and not a part of this conflict. And it was a huge issue. The OP is trying to omit that part of the story.

            In any case, hopefully Israel gets what it deserves for the genocide it’s committing.

        • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          The Syrian Israeli strike was not on Iran’s embassy. It was on a building next door. An embassey is where you practice consultant affairs. Having a place to discuss military strategy doesn’t count.

      • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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        7 months ago

        Theocratic dictatorships tend to be like that. Iran does not care about MAD either, I reckon.