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Israel launched a wave of retaliatory missiles at Iran overnight, ignoring calls from Donald Trump to do the precise opposite.
Iran and Israel traded strikes starting last Sunday in the primary blows since an April cease-fire paused the US and Israel’s war within the Middle East.
Following an Israeli attack against Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, in Dahiyya, Lebanon, Iran responded by launching ballistic missiles.
Iranians celebrated the counter-strike in Qom and at Ferdowsi Square in Tehran until the early hours today.
Footage by Iran’s semiofficial Mehr News Agency shows Iranians cheering, riding motorcycles, playing drums and waving flags.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a robust arm of the Iranian military, said the missiles were a retaliation against Israel’s continued bombing of Lebanon, despite the cease-fire.
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‘Tonight’s operation was a warning, and if aggressions are repeated, the responses will likely be broader,’ it added.
A number of the drones fired at Israel carried the message, ‘We won’t abandon Lebanon’ and ‘We’re fighting the corrupt people of Epstein Island’, based on the Fars News Agency.
Israel’s military asked civilians to shelter before saying at around 11pm local time that it had intercepted the missiles.
The tit-for-tat has carried on well into this morning, with the Israel Defense Force saying that more missiles were fired from Iran a ‘short while ago’.
Iranian military officials said that Israel used air-launched ballistic missiles into the center of Iran.
Amid a storm, explosions tore through Tehran in addition to in Tabriz and Isfahan, while Tasnim News Agency reported blasts near Karaj and Mahshahr.
US president Donald Trump is to call Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to induce him to rein in his attacks.
‘I call the shots,’ Trump said, based on The Financial Times. ‘He doesn’t call the shots.’
The Iran war began in February when the US and Israel launched surprise attacks.
Trump insisted in a pre-recorded interview broadcast yesterday that he never pledged not to start out latest wars if elected for a second term.
He told NBC on Friday: ‘I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I even have built the strongest military on the earth?’
As a 2024 candidate, the Republican repeatedly said he wouldn’t drag the US into war.
And he reminded the world of this during his victory speech: ‘They said, “He’ll start a war”, I’m not going to start out a war. I’m going to stop wars.’
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