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The Middle East appeared to be on the brink of huge escalation on Tuesday night as Israel pledged “powerful strikes” across the Middle East in revenge for an Iranian missile barrage aimed at Tel Aviv.
Iran launched more than 100 missiles after Israeli strikes killed much of the leadership of its proxy group in Lebanon, Hezbollah. What started as an Israeli detonation of thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies mostly owned by the group turned into days of bombing across Lebanon's south and its capital, Beirut. The attacks have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced a million, according to Lebanon's government.
After the Tuesday salvo, which Tehran said was directly ordered by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, it threatened that if Israel responded to the attack, Iran would retaliate again. That was followed by Iran’s proxies in Iraq saying they would assault US bases in the country.
Israel has launched what could be a significant ground operation into southern Lebanon against Hezbollah, with sources confirming to The National that tanks had advanced over the border.
It now appears that after Iran’s barrage, in which some rockets breached Israel’s defences, Israel’s armed forces are at high readiness to retaliate.
The same Israeli defence source who accurately predicted Iran would attack on Tuesday night also told reporters that the Israeli air force was going to “continue conducting powerful strikes all over the Middle East”.
Israel has proven its ability to mount long-range, precision strikes after two successful attacks on Yemen and what was probably one on Iran following the previous missile attack on April 13.
The question now is what it might aim for in Iran, with the possibility that it may well strike the country’s nuclear centres.
It remains unclear what Iran could do in further response but on Tuesday night its UN mission in New York defended the country's ballistic missile attack on Israel as “legal, rational and legitimate”, and warned against any further response.
“Iran’s legal, rational and legitimate response to the terrorist acts of the Zionist regime – which involved targeting Iranian nationals and interests, and infringing upon the national sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran – has been duly carried out,” the mission wrote in a post on X.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the strikes were in response to the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other militant leaders.
Hamas said that it “congratulates the heroic missile launches carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran, on large areas of our occupied territories”.
There were also reported incidents in Israeli cities of Palestinians celebrating the attacks by letting off fireworks.
Furthermore Iran-backed Shiite militias have vowed to attack US interests if Iran is attacked again..
The Iraqi Resistance Co-ordination Committee, a co-ordinating body comprised of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, has warned that if US or Israel attack Iran, they will go after US interests in Iraq and the region.
“If the Americans intervene in any hostile action against the Islamic Republic, or the Zionist enemy uses Iraqi airspace to attack its lands, all US bases and interests in Iraq and the region will be a target for us,” it said.
The region remains at an extremely heightened sense of turmoil with little clarity over how the situation will develop in the coming hours and days.
