Air raid sirens and loud booms sounded across Israel as Iran on Saturday evening launched dozens of drones and missiles at Israel in a retaliatory attack, Israeli authorities said.
Over 200 missiles and drones were fired from Iran towards Israel, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari reported, saying that the vast majority were intercepted. Hagari, though, indicated an unknown number of missiles fell in Israeli territory. He said at least one child was wounded in the attack.
The IDF stated in a separate social media post there were some injuries from the Iranian-launched missiles, including at a military base in southern Israel, but no further details were immediately provided.
Israel had closed its airspace at midnight and fully activated its air defense systems ahead of the aerial assault. It took several hours before the drones reached Israeli airspace. Alerts started to sound across Israel close to 2 a.m. local time Sunday, the IDF said. Alarms went off in southern Israel, by the Dead Sea, in Jerusalem, and the Shomron area.
“The IDF Aerial Defense Array is on high alert, along with IAF fighter jets and Israeli Navy vessels that are on a defense mission in Israeli airspace,” the IDF said in a statement earlier Saturday. “The IDF is monitoring all targets.”
In a statement released late Saturday night, President Biden said he condemns the Iranian attack “in the strongest possible terms” and acknowledged that the U.S. “helped Israel take down nearly all of the incoming drones and missiles.”
U.S. forces “intercepted dozens of of missiles and UAVs en route to Israel, launched from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in his own statement.
U.S. warships shot down Iranian-launched missiles headed towards Israel, two U.S. officials told CBS News.
The president disclosed that over the last week, U.S. forces had “moved aircraft and ballistic missile defense destroyers to the region” in anticipation of the attack.
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