Iran has launched ballistic missiles at Israel, causing sirens to sound all over the country, the Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday.
U.S. officials warned earlier in the day that Iran was preparing a ballistic missile strike targeting Israel, a senior White House official and a Department of Defense official told NBC News Tuesday.
The assault follows Israel launching widespread attacks in Lebanon, including the killing of Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah and a ground invasion of the south of the country.
“The United States has indications that Iran is preparing to imminently launch a ballistic missile attack against Israel,” the White House official said. “We are actively supporting defensive preparations to defend Israel against this attack. A direct military attack from Iran against Israel will carry severe consequences for Iran.”
Iran is expected to target military and government sites, not civilians, the officials said.
Officials say the expectation is that this would potentially involve more firepower than Iran’s attack on Israel in April, which launched hundreds of drones that took hours to reach Israel followed by some ballistic missiles later. The number of ballistic missiles could be higher this time, the officials said, and Iran could try to launch many missiles simultaneously to overwhelm air defenses.
It’s unclear whether missiles will launch from any of Iran’s proxy militias in the region. U.S. officials also don’t know if America’s allies in the region will help with the defense of Israel against the Iranian attack, or allow flights over their territory to help the U.S. shoot down projectiles.
A spokesperson for the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations has no comments on the reports from the White House of an impending attack on Israel.
U.S. officials have been anticipating a response from Iran following Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah leadership last week, which U.S. intelligence officials and analysts described as a devastating blow to Iran’s proxy power in the region.
President Joe Biden has been briefed and updated on Iran’s possible attack on Israel and the overall situation in the Middle East over the last several hours, according to a senior White House official.
White House spokesperson Emilie Simons said in a post on X that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met with the national security team regarding the attack threat.
“They reviewed the status of U.S. preparations to help Israel defend against attacks and protect U.S. personnel,” Simons said.
Iran has signaled to the U.S. that it still does not want a wider war, the officials said.
In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly last week, United Nations General Assembly Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said Iran want to live in peace, adding that the Islamic regime is not seeking war with Israel.
Pezeshkian did lay the blame on Israel for escalating violence in the region and his remarks came days before an Israeli assassination of Nasrallah, an important ally.
Iran’s last attack on Israel was in April, which saw the launch of hundreds of drones and missiles into Israel, came only after significant public build-up. It was a retaliatory attack following a strike on an Iranian consular building in Damascus, Syria, and the death of seven members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
It took nearly two weeks for Iran to launch its attack and the weapons used took hours to arrive in Israel, allowing the country and its allies to mobilize quickly.
A ballistic missile from Iran could reach Israel in as short as 10 minutes, according to the American Jewish Committee.
Hezbollah began firing at Israel on Oct. 8 in support of Hamas, which is also an Iranian proxy and has been at war with Israel since its Oct. 7 terrorist attack, which killed 1,200 people. The group has been exchanging fire with Israel ever since, displacing tens of thousands of people on both sides of the Lebanese-Israel border.
Over the past few weeks, Israel has killed multiple members of Hezbollah’s senior leadership in Lebanon including Nasrallah on top of detonating a number of sabotaged communication devices carried by members of the group. It’s caused fear and instability in what was once considered Iran’s strongest proxy militias.
Hezbollah was formed in the 1980s in response to Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon as a Shia resistance militia that gained domestic popularity by fighting Israel’s presence in Lebanon until it left in 2000.
But its leadership has also pledged its allegiance to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei while billing itself as a group dedicated to Lebanese self-determination.
Hezbollah has been a U.S.-designated terrorist since 1997, according to the State Department.
Hours before news broke on a potential attack from Iran, Israel announced a ground invasion of southern Lebanon on Monday night. The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement it was conducting targeted ground raids on Lebanese villages along the border with northern Israel.
Critics cast doubt on the descriptions of Israel’s ground operations as limited, recalling similar characterizations of the IDF’s operations in Rafah before the Gazan city was leveled. Others also remarked that Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon was supposed to be limited in nature but Israel’s military presence went as far as Beirut at one point.
Nadav Shoshani, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, said Tuesday that a ground operation in Beirut “is not on the table.”
“We’re talking about limited, localized, targeted rates based on precise intelligence in areas near the border,” Shoshani said.
