Jerusalem | The Middle East moved closer to a long-feared regional war the day after Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel and Israel said it began limited ground incursions into Lebanon targeting the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia.
Israel said it intercepted many of the missiles, and officials in Washington said US destroyers assisted in Israel's defence. Iran said most of its missiles hit their targets. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed late Tuesday to retaliate against Iran, which he said “made a big mistake tonight and it will pay for it.”
An Iranian commander threatened wider strikes on infrastructure if Israel retaliates against Iran's territory.
The United Nations Security Council called an emergency meeting for Wednesday to address the spiraling conflict.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since Oct. 8, the day after Hamas' cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage.
Israel declared war on the militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.
Here is the latest:
The Lebanese army says Israeli forces breached approximately 400 meters into Lebanese territory on Wednesday and then withdrew “after a short period.”
The statement was the first official acknowledgement from Beirut that Israeli forces have carried out a ground incursion into Lebanon.
Earlier in the day, Hezbollah's chief spokesman, Mohammed Afif, told reporters touring sites of Israeli airstrikes in Beirut's southern suburbs that Hezbollah had “fought a heroic battle this morning” in the southern villages of Odaisseh and Maroun al-Ras against Israeli soldiers who launched a ground incursion into Lebanon.
Afif promised the destroyed areas would be rebuild “better and more beautiful than they were before” — echoing what former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last week, had said in 2006, when the militant group fought a monthlong war with Israel.
Israel's foreign minister says he is barring the United Nations secretary general from entering Israel, accusing him of being biased against the country.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that he was declaring Antonio Guterres “persona non grata” and that he would be prevented from entering Israel.
The move deepens an already wide rift between Israel and the United Nations.
Israeli police said on Wednesday that a total of seven people were killed in a shooting attack in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening minutes before the Iranian missile barrage.
Two Palestinian men from the Israeli-occupied West Bank town of Hebron opened fire in the Jaffa neighborhood of Tel Aviv, including shooting directly into a light rail carriage crowded with passengers that was stopped at a station.
Police said the two had no prior arrests though one had been involved with disturbing the peace at a demonstration. The two men were shot by security guards and armed pedestrians but their fate was not immediately clear.
Police and paramedics who responded to the scene treated another 16 people injured from the shooting as sirens blared across the country.
On Wednesday, locals left flowers and candles at the train stop, where bullet holes peppered the signs and train stop benches.
Maya Brandwine, a 33-year-old resident of the neighborhood, said she was at a local coffee shop on the street when the shooting broke out. During the subsequent Iranian missile attack she ended up sheltering in a bomb shelter with police carrying out sweeps for additional suspects.
“It's a nightmare, and we're starting to get used to it,” she said, blaming the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for the shooting attack and the general situation in Israel.
Greece's foreign ministry says a Greek national was among the people killed in Tuesday evening's shooting attack in the Jaffa neighborhood of Tel Aviv.
A ministry statement Wednesday said the man, whom it did not name, was a resident of Jerusalem.
The ministry condemned what it called a “terrorist” attack and expressed the “deepest sorrow” at the death of the Greek national.
Gaza's Health Ministry has raised the death toll to 51, with at least 82 people wounded, in a large Israeli air and ground operation in the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel's military has yet to comment on the operation, which began early Wednesday. Palestinian residents say ground forces pushed into three neighborhoods. Records at the European Hospital in Khan Younis show that seven women and 12 children, as young as 22 months old, were among those killed.
Another 23 people, including two children, were killed in separate strikes across Gaza, according to local hospitals.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei slammed the presence of American and European nations in the Middle East in his first remarks since Tehran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel.
Khamenei said on Wednesday that their presence is a source of “conflicts, wars, concerns and enmities” but made no mention of the missile attack the night before.
“Regional nations can manage themselves and ... they will live together in peace,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
He said Iran is hopeful of getting “rid of the enemies' evil” and also urged Western nations to “cut their badness.”
Iran has long seen the US troop presence on its doorstep as a threat and demanded their evacuation from neighboring Iraq and elsewhere in the region.
The Israeli military has warned people to evacuate another 24 villages across southern Lebanon.
The warning on Wednesday came days after the military launched what it said were limited ground operations near the border to combat the Hezbollah militant group.
The villages are in a UN-declared buffer zone established after Israel and Hezbollah fought their last war in 2006.
Iran's foreign minister has described his nation's ballistic missile attack on Israel as self-defense.
Abbas Araghchi made the comments in a television interview on Wednesday in Tehran.
“We sent a message to the American side through the Swiss Embassy suggesting them not to get involved in the story,” Araghchi said. “We will confront and answer any third party that enters any operation against us in support of the Zionist regime and we will have a crushing response.”
He also reiterated that Iran's response to Israel will be “harsher” if Israel attacks Iran in response.
Jerusalem | Israel's multilayered air-defence system appears to have passed another test after fending off Iran's latest missile barrage.
In Tuesday's night's strike, Iran fired over 180 missiles toward Israel. The attack set off air raid sirens across the country and sent residents scrambling for shelter, but caused only a handful of minor injuries and limited damage, in large part because many were intercepted or landed in open areas.
It was the latest success for an air-defence system that over the past year has intercepted projectiles fired from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran. They have ranged from short-range rockets to medium-range missiles to attack drones to long-range ballistic missiles like those fired Tuesday night.
In Tuesday's attack, the US and Britain said they assisted in shooting down the incoming missiles. Explosions also were seen over the skies of Jordan, though it remains unclear who carried out the interceptions.
But the vast majority of Israel's air defence over the past year has been carried out by Israel itself. Over the decades, Israel has developed a sophisticated system capable of detecting incoming fire and deploying only if the projectile is headed toward a population centre or sensitive military or civilian infrastructure. Israeli leaders say the system isn't 100 per cent guaranteed, but credit it with preventing serious damage and countless casualties.
Here's a closer look at Israel's multilayered air-defence system:
The Arrow
This system developed with the US is designed to intercept long-range missiles, including the types of ballistic missiles Iran launched on Tuesday. The Arrow, which operates outside the atmosphere, has also been used in the current war to intercept long-range missiles launched by Houthi militants in Yemen.
David's Sling
Also developed with the US, David's Sling is meant to intercept medium-range missiles, such as those possessed by Hezbollah in Lebanon. It has been deployed on multiple occasions throughout the war.
Iron Dome
This system, developed by Israel with US backing, specialises in shooting down short-range rockets. It has intercepted thousands of rockets since it was activated early last decade – including thousands of interceptions during the current war against Hamas and Hezbollah. Israel says it has a success rate of over 90 per cent.
Iron Beam
Israel is developing a new system to intercept incoming threats with laser technology. Israel has said this system will be a game changer because it would be much cheaper to operate than existing systems. According to Israeli media reports, the cost of a single Iron Dome interception is about USD 50,000, while the other systems can run more than USD 2 million per missile. Iron Beam interceptions, by contrast, would cost a few dollars apiece, according to Israeli officials — but the system is not yet operational.
