Iran Launches About 180 Ballistic Missiles at Israel

Iran fired waves of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday evening in an assault that was mostly thwarted, according to the Israeli authorities, but one that made the prospect of a direct all-out war between two of the more powerful militaries in the Middle East more likely.

The offensive left the region on edge awaiting a potential Israeli response.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said Tuesday night that U.S. forces, who helped Israel shoot down missiles, remained ready to protect U.S. troops and help defend Israel. In a statement, he called the attack by Iran an “outrageous act of aggression.”

Parts of Iranian missiles fell in Jordan, a country between Iran and Israel, Mohammed al-Momani, a government spokesman, told the state-owned Al-Mamlaka TV. Three people had minor injuries, he added. Momani didn’t say if Jordan, a U.S. ally that maintains a peace treaty with Israel, helped to intercept the missiles fired from Iran, but he appeared to suggest it may have. “Jordan’s position is always that it won’t be a place for anyone’s conflict,” he said. “Protecting Jordan and Jordanians is our first responsibility.”

The Israeli military said in a statement early Wednesday that its air force conducted strikes on Hamas operatives who it said had been using two former school compounds in the northern Gaza Strip as “command and control centers” to plan and execute attacks against Israel. They were the latest in a series of strikes on school compounds across the Gaza Strip that Israel had said were being used by Hamas as command centers. Thousands of Gazans have sought shelter in school compounds after being displaced by nearly a year of fighting across the enclave.

Mohammad Bagheri, Iran’s top military officer, said on state television that the missiles Iran fired at Israel today had targeted three military bases — Nevatim, Hatzerim and Tel Nof — and the headquarters of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. He said that Iran deliberately did not attack civilian targets and infrastructure.

ongressional Republicans on Tuesday urged Israel to retaliate fiercely against Iran’s missile barrage and demanded the United States supply the weapons to do it, while leading Democrats sounded a more cautious tone, promising to watch and wait as the situation unfolded.

“It is not enough to intercept missiles and drones moments before they reach civilians in Israel or U.S. personnel in the Red Sea,” Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, said in a statement. “It is time to replenish Israel’s supply of critical munitions. It is time for the world’s leading architects of terror, and their proxies, to face severe consequences.”

The missile attack Iran directed at Israel on Tuesday was a transition of the conflict in the region: Israel’s monthslong battles against Iranian-backed proxies now include Iran directly. Israel has been exchanging airstrikes with Hezbollah in Lebanon since the start of the conflict last October. Those strikes have ramped up in recent days, and late Monday Israel escalated its attacks, sending ground troops into southern Lebanon. On Sunday, Israel also launched a missile attack on the port city of Hudaydah in Yemen, targeting Houthi fighters there.

Sameh al-Asali was one of hundreds of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip sheltering in the city of Jericho in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, far from the war between Israel and Hamas back home.

On Tuesday, a fragment of an Iranian missile fell on him, making him the only person known to be killed in the attack targeting Israel, a victim of the escalating regional conflict between Israel and Iran and its proxies.

Israel has begun striking the Dahiya, and it has just issued another evacuation warning for the tightly packed area south of the Lebanese capital. I can hear the explosions from more than three miles away, and the thick black smoke is visible from my balcony.

After video footage verified by The New York Times showed Iranian missiles on the Israeli air base of Nevatim, in the Negev desert in the south of the country, Israel’s chief military spokesman said in a statement that Tuesday’s missile attack had “no impact” on the Air Force’s operational capability.” The spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, added that the Air Force would “continue to strike in the Middle East powerfully.” In another statement minutes later, the military said it was striking Hezbollah targets in Beirut.

Photos and videos of debris from Tuesday’s missile barrage suggest Iran used some of its most advanced weaponry to target Israel.

The weaponry includes ballistic missiles and may include Fattah missiles, which experts told The Times have not been seen in use before by Iran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps also claimed that they had deployed the Fattah missile, which is highly maneuverable and capable of flying at extremely fast speeds, for the first time on Tuesday.

Videos verified by The New York Times show the booster section — essentially the back of the projectile, containing the motor and guidance fins — of a large, black missile stuck into the ground in a backyard in Tel Sheva, Israel. Fabian Hinz, an expert in Iranian missiles based in Berlin for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the missile’s distinctive fin pattern matches that of Iran’s Kheibar Shekan and Fattah-1 missiles.

Both types of missiles use the same booster and are therefore difficult to tell apart. But, he said, of known Iranian missiles, “These are the most advanced, no questions asked.”

And while it’s unclear how many of the approximately 180 missiles the Israeli military said Iran fired toward Israel were Kheibar Shekan or Fattah-1s, videos from several sites across Israel and the West Bank show booster sections that appear to be from those types of missiles.

Iranian news media said Kheibar Shekan ballistic missiles were used in Iran’s attack on Israel in April, after Israel struck the Iranian Consulate in Damascus. Tom Karako, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’s Missile Defense Project in Washington, said that “unlike that previous attack, however, more missiles appear to be getting through.” It’s unclear whether the type of projectile may be related to these missiles reaching Israel.

The Kheibar Shekan and Fattah-1 are both new, precision-guided missiles with ranges sufficient to reach Israel if launched from Iran. In a statement on Tuesday night, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said Fattah missiles had been used to destroy missile defense radar systems in Israel. That claim could not be independently confirmed.

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