Israel launches long-awaited counterstrike on Iran

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******* launches long-awaited counterstrike on Iran

******* launched its long-awaited retaliatory strikes on Iran early Saturday local time, the ******** military said. ******* had vowed payback for Iran’s Oct. 1 *******, during which the Islamic republic launched about 180 ballistic missiles at *******. 

In a statement, ******* Defense Forces said that “in response to months of continuous attacks” from Iran, it conducted “precise strikes on military targets in Iran.”

A source told CBS News the ******** ******* was limited to military targets, and not nuclear or oil installations. And in a video posted later Saturday morning, IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari confirmed that the IDF had “concluded the ******** response to Iran’s attacks against *******.” No further details were immediately provided. 

The U.S. was given an advanced warning of the attacks, two sources told CBS News. 

Sean Savett, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, told CBS News in a statement that “as the Israelis have stated, their response was an exercise in self-defense and specifically avoided populated areas and focused solely on military targets, contrary to Iran’s ******* against ******* that targeted *******’s most populous city.”   

The U.S. did not participate in the operation, Savett added. 

A White House official told CBS News that President Biden was briefed on the strikes and is closely following the developments. Two defense officials confirm to CBS News that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to ******** Defense Minister Yoav Gallant Friday night.   

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

******** Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and ********  Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant monitor the ******* Defense Forces strikes in Iran, from the IDF’s command and control center. Oct. 25, 2024. 

Office of the ******** Minister of Defense

“The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking ******* since October 7th – on seven fronts – including direct attacks from Iranian soil,” the IDF said in its statement. “Like every other sovereign country in the world, the State of ******* has the right and the duty to respond.”

Very few of Iran’s missiles made it past *******’s advanced missile defense systems, and there were no casualties from the Oct. 1 *******, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had vowed to make Iran “pay for it.”

“The regime of Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves,” the ******** leader said in a statement shortly after the Iranian ******* on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the ******* New Year. “They will understand.”

Mr. Biden and Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris have both said ******* had the right to defend itself and respond to the Iranian *******, but Mr. Biden was clear that he would not support an ******** ******* targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities or major oil infrastructure. 

In anticipation of the ******** response — and any potential Iranian counter-response — the U.S. sent ******* a new missile defense system in mid-October. Austin said on Oct. 21 that the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system had arrived in *******, along with about 100 ********* troops.

Iran defended its missile ******* on ******* as a “legal, rational, and legitimate response to the ********** acts of the Zionist regime — which involved targeting Iranian nationals and interests and infringing upon the national sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

U.S. officials told CBS News before the Iranian ******* that Tehran had been ready to strike ******* on short notice since early August, when Iran first threatened to retaliate for the ************** of ****** leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. 

******* has ******* several senior Iranian and Iran-backed military and paramilitary commanders in strikes across the region, although it did not publicly claim responsibility for Haniyeh’s ******.

An Iranian diplomatic source told CBS News immediately after the Oct. 1 missile ******* that Iran’s leadership had been “under heavy pressure to take action” amid escalating ******** attacks on Iran’s close ally Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon and has long been designated as a ********** group by the U.S., ******* and many other countries.

******* has mounted a blistering offensive against Hezbollah — by far the most powerful of Iran’s so-called proxy groups in the region — since mid-September, ******** many of its senior leaders and ******** its strongholds in Beirut’s southern suburbs and across the south of Lebanon, near the ******** border. 

The ******* Defense Forces have also carried out ground operations in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese public health ministry says *******’s operations in the country since September have ******* about 1,500 people and displaced some 1.2 million from their homes.

The IDF said it had been forced to launch its ******** on Hezbollah in response to the group’s year-long barrage of rocket and drone ***** targeting northern and central *******. Hezbollah has vowed to continue those attacks on ******* until the war with its fellow Iranian benefactor ****** in Gaza comes to an end.

This is a developing story and will be updated. 

Margaret Brennan

contributed to this report.

Crisis in the Middle East

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Tucker Reals

Tucker Reals is CBSNews.com’s foreign editor, based in the CBS News London bureau. He has worked for CBS News since 2006, prior to which he worked for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C., and London.

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