Friday Briefing

Iranian soldiers marched in front of the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi during the annual Army Day celebration on Tuesday.Credit…Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA, via Shutterstock

Israel strikes Iran

Israel struck Iran early this morning, according to two Israeli defense officials, in what appeared to be the country’s first military response to Iran’s attack last weekend.

Three Iranian officials confirmed that a strike had hit a military air base near the central Iranian city of Isfahan early on Friday, but did not say which country had attacked.

The explosions came less than a week after Iran fired more than 300 missiles and drones at Israel, its first direct attack on the country, in response to an Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria that killed seven Iranian officials on April 1.

For days, Israeli leaders have threatened to respond to Iran’s strikes, which turned the two countries’ yearslong shadow war into a direct confrontation. The attack came after the U.S. and European allies imposed new sanctions on Iranian military leaders and weapons makers, while imploring Israel not to risk a wider war by retaliating too strongly.

Read the latest updates here.