Israel says it’s shot down 300 Iranian drones and missiles with US help | BBC News

Welcome to Jerusalem, as a new chapter is now being written in the turbulent history of the Middle East after decades of shadow wars and covert operations. Iran and Israel, long-time archenemies, are now in direct confrontation in the early hours of the morning here in this region. Iran launched hundreds of

drones

and

missiles

on Israeli territory Israel, backed by its allies, said almost all the projectiles were

shot

down,

says

the attack was thwarted and this morning Israel is still on high alert and the Israeli military

says

it is now weighing your answer. just watch this video of the events that occurred overnight here in Jerusalem and throughout Israel what you hear are the air raid sirens in Jerusalem and many other cities what you see on the screen is Israel's air defense system, the Dome Working Iron Tower flickers in the Jerusalem sky as

drones

and

missiles

are

shot

down.

A coalition of Israel's allies, including the United States and the United Kingdom,

help

ed shoot down some of the Iranian projectiles before they reached Israeli territory. which shows the interceptions in the skies over Damascus in Syria and you can see there the objects being hit in the sky and two a reminder of how regional this crisis is in Iraq, plus more drones and missiles were intercepted while some of them were traveling. the drones that took hours to reach Israel were intercepted before reaching Israel's borders. These are momentous times, let's recap here at 10:00 in the morning in Jerusalem and in many countries in the region, what we know so far.

Israel says Iran has attacked its territory with around 300 drones and missiles, including ballistic missiles, as we have just seen, major explosions in the sky over Israel are being caused by interceptions of Israel's much-vaunted air defense system, the Dome. Iron, says the Israeli army. shot down up to 99% of drones and missiles fired from Iran on the night US President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, condemned Iran's attacks and said the US also shot down some Iranian drones Forces of The UK coalition were also involved in defensive operations and President Biden says he will call a meeting of the G7 countries later today to coordinate what he called a united diplomatic response in terms of the damage.

The Israeli military said a 10-year-old girl was wounded and they expect her to recover and that minor damage was caused to an air base in southern Israel. We are still waiting for details of that now this morning, after these overnight attacks, these unprecedented overnight attacks, the first time Iran has directly attacked Israel from Iranian territory, the war of words continues with Iran warning Israel in the United States that Any response from Israel would be met with an even harsher response and Iran's representatives in the region have also been speaking and were also in action last night shooting. rockets against Israel let's listen to Daniel Hagari um, the IDF spokesperson, who gives us this update.

We'll bring it to you in a minute, but let's bring in my colleague in London, Maran Mashiri. Thank you very much, indeed. Yes, Daniel Hagari will hear that. uh, I quote in one or two moments, but I want to take a quick look at some of the main international reactions. President Biden rushed the Situation Room in Washington to keep events going. The White House released a photo of the Situation Room that you can see here. the president's entourage founded by some of his top security officials Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin Secretary of State Anthony Blinkin, among others, President Biden has spoken by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to tell him that he condemns the attacks in the strongest possible terms in a statement President Biden said after speaking with Prime Minister Netanyahu to reaffirm the United States' ironclad commitment to Israel's security.

I told him that Israel demonstrated a remarkable ability to defend itself and defeat even unprecedented attacks, sending a clear message to its enemies that they cannot effectively threaten Israel's security. He went on to say this. I will convene my fellow G7 leaders to coordinate a united diplomatic response. to Iran's brazen attack. Well, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was also quick to issue a statement overnight which said this: I condemn them in the strongest terms. The Iranian regime's reckless attack on Israel, he said in the statement. "These attacks risk inflaming tensions and destabilizing the region. Iran has shown once again that it is intent on wreaking havoc in its own backyard.

The UK will continue to defend the security of Israel and all our partners. regionals, including Jordan and Iraq, together with our allies, we are working urgently to stabilize the situation and prevent further escalation Nobody wants to see more bloodshed from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Well, UN Secretary-General Antonio Gues. issued a statement saying I strongly condemn the serious escalation represented by the large-scale attack launched against Israel by the Islamic Republic of Iran this afternoon. I call for the immediate cessation of these hostilities. I am deeply alarmed by the very real danger of a devastating escalation in. throughout the region.

We urge all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid any action that could lead to major military confrontations on multiple fronts in the Middle East. Well, back to my colleague Lee Tet, who now joins us live from Jerusalem and talks to us a little more. uh what we know about what happened overnight and the reaction since then yeah, many in the region are now watching closely exactly what kind of retaliation Iran has carried out. There was so much discussion in the lead-up to the Iranian attack that it was telegraphed by the United States with Joe Biden days ago saying an attack was imminent and then saying it would happen sooner rather than later and then there were the anonymous military sources in the US. talking about the type of attack that actually unfolded in the early hours of the morning 300 projectiles, including drones and missiles, including ballistic missiles.

Iran has presented this as a limited and carefully calibrated attack that caused limited damage, but here in Israel and among its allies they are now analyzing this attack and although the United States and the United Kingdom are urging restraint Israel says it is now analyzing its options . Well, let's look in more detail. We can join our security correspondent Frank Gardner. Frank just give us a little more detail about what kind of weaponry Iran deployed in this first retaliatory attack against Israeli territory. So, according to the Israeli military, the IDF Iran launched 170 drones that were all intercepted and around 120 missiles, mostly ballistic missiles.

Now Iran has invested heavily despite all the years of sanctions, it has managed to build a significant ballistic missile force, but Israel. Israel's intelligence will know exactly where they were launched from, so I would expect that Israel's response when it arrives will almost certainly start by attacking the bases from which the missiles were launched. That is, Israel did not intercept all of these on its own. some of them were intercepted over Jordanian airspace some, I think, over Syria and Iraq because some of the um, some of the missiles and drones took Securus routes, there are 1500 kilometers between the two countries, between Iran and Israel, the way that I would classify this, I would, um I guess at least describe is that I think we're on the middle rung of a ladder, um, so you know, there's been this simmering conflict between Iran and Israel since the Islamic revolution in 1979, but the big events that have really heated up this and getting things to the state they are in now is the October 7 attack by Hamas-backed Iran against Israel and then, uh, the Gaza war, of course, but specifically Israel's attack, as you mentioned, on April 1, although Israel did not claim responsibility for this, everyone knows that it was Israel that attacked the Iranian consulate Ian in Damascus killing senior commanders, which was considered by Iran as an important escalation because it was an attack on Iranian territory, although it was in Damascus, it was diplomatic. territory and has spent the last 13 days with its security system mulling over what its calibrated response would be.

The problem is that we are now in a complicated situation and I fear that Israel's response will escalate matters further, frankly with the number of projectiles used by Iran marking a significant escalation, but it is also fair to say that much of this was symbolic. . Here in Jerusalem we knew that the drones had been launched, but it took them two hours to reach the Israeli skies if they hit them at all so Iran would have known that perhaps they had planned that the damage and impact on the ground would be limited is part of how they would see this response as carefully calibrated.

I think that's the crucial word, exactly calibrated. There is more that Iran could have. I have, it did not target, it seems that it was mainly targeting military targets, that of the victims of a seven-year-old girl in the south of Israel, it was certainly targeting these, I think the Nim Air. Base in neev on

israel

site, yes there is more you could do and of course Iran don't forget that the irgc, the

iranian

revolutionary guard, has something called ks force which is their external operations wing. it's kind of like how they do Black Ops um and Iran in the past has attacked Israeli targets outside the region um so this is not over Iran has said that's it, you know, the bill is for now and that's not the way in which Israel sees it.

Israel will retaliate and then Iran has threatened a response to those retaliation, so as I say, we are on this middle rung of a ladder and beyond this tit fortat that we are seeing develop now and that could develop even further, is The broader question: Isn't Iran's frank deterrent wanting to send a clear signal? Israel wants to send a clear signal that they are able and willing to inflict significant cost so that the other side should not try to attack them again. Unfortunately, there's a lot of Pride involved here. um on both sides Israel, with some justification, is very proud of its air defenses, its IDF um and of course let's not forget that in the context of all this we have the ongoing Gaza conflict with over 33,000 people killed, in its majority civilians who had Galvanized much of the region into a huge feeling of disapproval of Israel, but many of the countries in the region, as you of course know, are not friends of Iran, so there are the monarchies and all the Monarchies of the Gulf States are quite cautious about Iran.

I mean, Saudi Arabia only ended its own simmering conflict with Iran's proxies in March of last year, so Jordan, for example, has

help

ed shoot down some of these missiles. Jordan is trapped in a very difficult area. Iraq, although you can see Iraq. some consider him a sort of Iranian proxy these days, however Iraq will be deeply unhappy with this escalation, none of this of course is good for business, none of it is good for economies, none of it is good for foreign investment , so the entire region will remain standing. His encouragement now only hopes that Israel's response, when it comes to Iran, will be calibrated to the extent that it does not take this further, what do we mean by that?

Well, all six Arab Gulf states have American bases and At the moment, the US is not involved in anything other than shooting down the drones and the US has said that we are not going to participate in any Israeli response, but if Iran decided attacking those American bases that would bring to the US, he claims, there would be the risk to things like desalination plants, oil and petrochemical processing, you know you would be looking at a huge big war in the Middle East, which is exactly the escalation that everyone feared since on October 7. Frank, as always, thank you for providing your wisdom and insights.

On both the political and security fronts, I am sure that we will speak with you again today.