Iran said it launched dozens of drones and ballistic missiles towards Israel on Saturday in a major attack following days of acute tension building up in the region and warnings from the US and elsewhere about a wider conflict erupting.
Air attack warning sirens began wailing over Jerusalem just before 2am local time on Sunday after the weapons were fired a few hours earlier from Iran with US and Jordanian military assisting Israel’s air defenses in intercepting the first incoming barrage.
With weapons believed to be still in the air en route to Israel, Iran’s mission to the United Nations posted on X: “Iran’s military action was in response to the Zionist regime’s aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus. The matter can be deemed concluded.”
However, it threatened more severe action in the face of further Israeli aggression and warned the US and Jordan specifically not to assist Israel.
Edit: here are links to the NYT and BBC live feeds.
Edit 2: updated summary and archive to reflect article changes.
Wasn’t Hamas created in response to Israeli aggression?
Not defending Hamas, but they don’t exist in a vacuum.
The religious extremism that became Hamas was funded and grew to power with Israeli funding.
As usual in the Middle East, the answer is “it’s complicated”. Anyone claiming that either Israel or Iran is 100% good or 100% bad is wrong.
And continued by Netanyahu himself: https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
The Israeli far-right gained power in part due to Hamas, PLO and Hezbollah attacks.
It’s an endless spiral of violence, reprisal and even more violence.
The goal of Hamas is not “to stop aggression” but to destroy Israel. So it was formed as response to Israel existence, to which many Muslims never agreed.
Israel is born out of aggression
Nonsense. It was born according to UN resolution (and League of Nations resolution as well). And since then the aggression was directed against Israel with multiple wars initiated by those who did not want to agree with the resolutions. If it were not for those wars many Arab/Muslim lives would be saved and there would not be a situation we are today. The situation with Palestine today is direct consequence of all that history because how Israel can trust an independent Palestine when Gaza ruling party has destruction of Israel as one of the main principle. The same principle that you seem to support by the way, thus supporting the cycle of violence with no prospects of peace.