Israel pounded Iran with a series of airstrikes early Saturday, saying it was targeting military sites in retaliation for the barrage of ballistic missiles the Islamic Republic fired upon Israel earlier in the month.

Explosions could be heard in the Iranian capital, Tehran, though the Islamic Republic insisted they caused only “limited damage.”

Saturday marked the first time Israel’s military has openly attacked Iran, which hasn’t faced a sustained barrage of fire from a foreign enemy since its 1980s war with Iraq.

Israel’s hourslong attack ended just before sunrise in Tehran, with the Israeli military saying it targeted “missile manufacturing facilities used to produce the missiles that Iran fired at the state of Israel over the last year.” It also said it hit surface-to-air missile sites and “additional Iranian aerial capabilities.”

Israel offered no initial damage assessment.

Initially, nuclear facilities and oil installations all had been seen as possible targets for Israel’s response to Iran’s Oct. 1 attack, but in mid-October the Biden administration won assurances from Israel that it would not hit such targets, which would be a more severe escalation.

Reports of explosions near Tehran began to emerge around 2:15 a.m. local time, with the Israel Defense Forces quickly releasing a statement confirming that it was attacking, in response to “months of continuous attacks from the Iranian regime against the State of Israel.”

The strikes were carried out in several waves over the course of several hours, in various areas of Iran, with the Islamic Republic closing its airspace for the duration and seemingly showing little ability to counter the assault. Strikes were reported in the Tehran, Karaj, Isfahan and Shiraz areas.

As explosions sounded, people in Tehran could see what appeared to be tracer fire light up the sky. Other footage showed what appeared to be surface-to-air missiles being launched.

As the campaign was underway, Syrian state media reported that Israel struck several military sites in the south and center of the country, action possibly taken to enable the IAF to operate more freely in Iran.

The next waves hit drone and ballistic missile manufacturing sites — those used in direct Iranian attacks on Israel on April 14 and October 1 — as well as sites used to launch such weapons.

Ynet cited an Israeli source with knowledge of the matter as saying: “The intelligence provided here by the IDF Intelligence Directorate was science fiction-like, beyond imagination.” He said the highly precise intel enabled Israel to hit “an irreplaceable factory” behind the manufacture of surface-to-surface missiles.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)