Tel Aviv, Oct 24, (dpa/GNA) – The Israeli military said on Saturday, that it is conducting “precise strikes” on Iranian military targets.
It said it had launched the strikes because Iran’s government and its proxies, “have been relentlessly attacking Israel”, since the Palestinian Islamist Hamas group invaded Israel on October 7 last year. The attackers killed some 1,200 people in Israel, took some 250 hostages, and started the current war between Israel and Hamas.
These attacks have been on seven fronts, including directly from Iran, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a post on Telegram.
According to the Iranian news agency Fars, military bases in the south and south-west of Tehran were the targets of the attacks. There has been no official confirmation of this yet.
Iranian media reported explosions in western Tehran, with state television reporting the activation of air defences.
However, the two airports in the capital in Tehran were still operating after the attack, according to Iranian officials, with the state radio reporting no restrictions on travel.
No victims have been reported in Tehran, according to the state news agency Irna, citing rescue service circles.
However, the internet in the capital was severely restricted. Additional details or a comment from the government in Tehran were not immediately available.
Israel has not only been fighting Hamas in Gaza, but also on its northern front with the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, which attacked Israel the day after the Hamas attack, it said in solidarity with Hamas.
“Like every other sovereign nation in the world, the State of Israel has the right and the duty to respond,” the IDF wrote on Telegram.
Israel’s strikes on Iranian targets Saturday, are seen as retaliation for Iran’s October 1 attack on Israel, in which it launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles against the Jewish state.
The attack by Iran came, after a series of targeted killings by Israel of influential leaders within Iran’s network of allies.
Iran backs a network of militias and political groups, that includes Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen, all of which have launched attacks against Israel.
In recent days, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had repeatedly stressed that they would respond decisively to any Israeli aggression.
GNA