{"id":285950,"date":"2024-04-19T07:00:28","date_gmt":"2024-04-19T07:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=285950"},"modified":"2024-04-21T07:06:38","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T07:06:38","slug":"us-officials-confirm-israel-carried-out-operation-against-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=285950","title":{"rendered":"Updated: US officials confirm Israel carried out operation against Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel launches retaliatory strikes against Iran<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Bita Ghaffari in Tehran, James Shotter in Jerusalem and Henry Foy \u2013 The Financial Times Feb 19, 2024<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Israel launched strikes against Iran early on Friday morning, Israeli and western officials said, in what appeared to be limited retaliatory action for last week\u2019s drone and missile attack by Tehran.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s air defences shot at incoming targets and explosions were reported near the cities of Isfahan, in central Iran, and Tabriz in the north-west, local authorities and media said. Iranian state media played down the damage from the attacks and Iran lifted flight restrictions imposed overnight.<\/p>\n

Three western officials confirmed the strike on Iran had been launched by Israel. The country notified the US of its intention to carry out strikes in Iran on Thursday evening, giving its closest ally a few hours\u2019 official notice, an Israeli official said.<\/p>\n

The warning did not include details of the attack, but made clear that Israel intended to avoid Tehran and its vicinity and was focused on a specific military programme or facility related to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the official said.<\/p>\n

Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani also said on Friday that the US had been informed at \u201cthe last minute\u201d ahead of the strike.<\/p>\n

Separately, Syria\u2019s Sana state news agency reported that Israeli missiles had targeted air defence positions in its southern region, citing a military source.<\/p>\n

A person familiar with the matter said the strike in Iran had hit a military target involved in the large-scale Iranian attack on Israel a week ago, and that they were not aware of any casualties.<\/p>\n

The person said that \u201csome targets\u201d had also been hit in southern Syria. \u201cGeographically it shows that Israel can get to wherever it wants in Iran,\u201d the person said. \u201cThat was part of the message.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isfahan houses both an Iranian military air base and an important site in Iran\u2019s nuclear programme, which Tehran insists is purely peaceful but which the west fears could put the Islamic republic on the threshold of weapons capacity.<\/p>\n

The Tasnim news agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guards, reported that the air base and nuclear facility near the city were safe and dismissed reports of any attack from outside the country.<\/p>\n

Abdolrahim Mousavi, Iran\u2019s top army commander, was quoted by state media as saying that air defence batteries in Isfahan had shot at a few airborne objects, leaving no damage. He said experts were conducting further investigations and their findings would be announced in due course.<\/p>\n

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN\u2019s nuclear watchdog, said it could \u201cconfirm that there is no damage to Iran\u2019s nuclear sites\u201d but called for \u201cextreme restraint\u201d.<\/p>\n

A senior EU official described Friday\u2019s strike as \u201ca very limited attack\u201d, with \u201cno human consequences or huge damage\u201d.<\/p>\n

They added: \u201cOf all the options, it is clear that this is a very minor action on the side of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oil prices jumped in the immediate aftermath of the strikes before giving up their gains as traders bet against further escalation. Brent crude was down 0.6 per cent on the day at $86.57 a barrel, having earlier climbed above $90. Stock markets fell, with the Stoxx Europe 600 index down 0.4 per cent.<\/p>\n

At a press conference, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that \u201cIsrael absolutely has the right to self defence\u201d. But he added: \u201cSignificant escalation is not in anyone\u2019s interest. What we want to see is calm heads prevail across the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

In accordance with Israel\u2019s long-held policy of ambiguity regarding its operations against Iran, spokespeople for the government and military declined to comment. But in contacts with allies before the strike, Israel had indicated that, while it reserved the right to respond to Iran\u2019s attack, it was not seeking escalation, according to a western diplomat.<\/p>\n

Tally Gotliv, an Israeli lawmaker from the ruling Likud party, wrote on X that Israelis should have their \u201chead\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009held high with pride\u201d over its strength, adding: \u201cMay we regain our power of deterrence.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a more cryptic post, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel\u2019s far-right minister for national security, who had called for a \u201ccrushing attack\u201d against Iran, wrote on X: \u201cWeak!\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s President Ebrahim Raisi made no mention of the Israeli attack in a nationwide televised speech on Friday, but hailed last week\u2019s strike on Israel as an indication of his own country\u2019s military prowess.<\/p>\n

Tension has been high in the Middle East over possible Israeli retaliation after Iran fired more than 300 armed drones and missiles at the Jewish state last weekend, the first time Tehran has targeted the country directly from its own soil. Iran said the strike was a response to an attack on its embassy in Damascus that killed senior military commanders, which Tehran blamed on Israel.<\/p>\n

Deraa24, a Syrian opposition news website, added that Israeli jets had hit a military battalion near the town of Qarfa in the country\u2019s southern Deraa province. A vehicle carrying missiles linked to the battalion was also struck, it said.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Mehul Srivastava in London, Felicia Schwartz in Capri, Raya Jalabi in Beirut, Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv and Philip Stafford in London.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israel launched a series of retaliatory strikes on Iran early Friday. However, the strikes appear to have been limited, so as not to escalate a potentially explosive situation <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":265740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-285950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Iran","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=285950"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":285960,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285950\/revisions\/285960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/265740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=285950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=285950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=285950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}