Explosions were heard around Tehran on Friday evening, as Iran was bracing for an Israeli retaliation for a series of strikes that the Islamic Republic carried out against it earlier this month.
The news was first reported by Iranian state media, which said the explosions were near Imam Khomeini international airport. The Israeli military made the rare move of confirming that it was carrying out airstrikes against Iran, The New York Times reported.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, said in a video that Israel’s “offensive and defensive capabilities are fully mobilized.”
Israel had vowed to retaliate after Iran fired about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel earlier this month, the culmination of a year-long conflict that began on October 7, 2023, when the Hamas militant group carried out a deadly terrorist attack on Israeli soil.
Iran carried out its strikes against Israel on Oct. 1, after the killing of Hamas Political Bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, and the killing of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Abbas Nilforushan in Beirut in September.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the Islamic Republic had made a “big mistake” launching its strikes on Oct. 1, and Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said Israel’s payback would be “precise, painful, and surprising.”
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