Israel's Netanyahu vows to retaliate for Iranian missile attack
Tel Aviv — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed retaliation for Iran's missile attack against Israel, saying Tehran would "pay for it."
"The regime of Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves," Netanyahu said in a statement delivered shortly after the attack, which came on the eve Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. "They will understand. We will stand by the rule we established: Whoever attacks, we will attack them."
Iran launched at least 180 ballistic missiles toward Israel Tuesday evening, prompting alerts for people to take shelter across the country. The missiles were seen entering Israeli airspace from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said many of the missiles were intercepted by Israel's air defense systems, though some landed in southern and central Israel.
The U.S. helped Israel defend against Iran's attack. In a statement late Tuesday night, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, "U.S. forces in the Middle East intercepted multiple missiles launched by Iran toward Israel," calling it an "outrageous act of aggression by Iran."
About 45 minutes after the attack began, and after multiple waves of interceptions, people were given the all-clear to leave their shelters.
Rescue services in Israel said two people were wounded by shrapnel, though their wounds were not serious. Palestinian authorities in the West Bank said one Palestinian man was killed by a missile that landed in Jericho, though it wasn't clear where the missile came from, The Associated Press reported.
An Israeli military spokesman declined to comment Wednesday when asked about reports by Israeli media that some of Iran's missiles had struck air bases, causing minor damage to administrative buildings but not critical infrastructure such as runways.
Why Iran says it attacked Israel
Iran's mission to the United Nations, in a statement issued shortly after the attack on Israel, called it a "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."
Israel has carried out numerous airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Beirut in recent days, killing the leader of its proxy group, Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and causing a million people in Lebanon to be displaced from their homes, according to Lebanon's prime minister. Earlier on Tuesday, Israel said it had also launched a limited ground incursion into southern Lebanon.
The powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps later called the missile barrage a specific retaliation for Israel's assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the long-time political leader of Hamas who was killed in a strike in Tehran after he attended the inauguration of the new Iranian president in late July, and the killing of IRGC commander Abbas Nilforoshan in Beirut in late September.
Had Mohamed, a senior reporter for Iran's Khorasan newspaper who's considered a staunch supporter of the government, told CBS News producer Seyed Bathaei on Wednesday that Iran's rulers had "restrained themselves for 60 days" from retaliating for the assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran. He said that purported restraint was largely to leave room for European countries and Iran's regional partners, including Qatar, Oman and Egypt, to continue working toward a cease-fire in Gaza, "but not only a cease-fire did not happen, but Israel also killed Hassan Nasrallah and Brigadier General Abbas Nilfuroshan."
"Iran realized that not responding to Israel's aggression had not helped reducing tensions or concluding a cease-fire, and that it could also lead Israel into mistaking Iran as too weak to respond, that is why Iran decided to retaliate," Mohamed told CBS News.
Most Iranians were unwilling to speak with CBS News about their views on Iran's missile attack on Israel, or what's likely to happen next.
Iran's IRGC delivered a message Wednesday, via the country's state-run media, calling for anyone in the country who sees messages posted online in support of Israel to report them to its cyber intelligence unit.
What happens next?
The IRGC added a warning to Israel, saying if it "reacts to Iran's operations, it will face crushing attacks."
The joint chief of Iran's armed forces, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, said Tuesday that any further retaliatory actions against Iran would be met with attacks on Israeli infrastructure.
"If [Israel]... wants to continue these crimes or wants to do anything against our sovereignty and territorial integrity, tonight's operation will be repeated several times stronger and all their infrastructure will be targeted," Bagheri said, according to CBS News partner network BBC News.
It was unclear Wednesday how Israel would respond to the Iranian missile attack. It said only that it would act at a time and place of its choosing.
Concern was rising fast, however, that whatever it does next could fuel a spread of the already deadly fighting between Israel and Iran's proxy groups in Gaza and Lebanon into a wider war in the region, where some 40,000 U.S. troops are deployed.
"I condemn the broadening of the Middle East conflict with escalation after escalation," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday after Iran's missile attack. "This must stop. We absolutely need a ceasefire."
Speaking with reporters briefly on Wednesday before boarding Air Force One, President Biden was asked if he would support Israeli strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities in response to the missile attack — though Israeli officials have not publicly floated that as a possibility.
"The answer is no," replied Mr. Biden, adding that he and America's allies would be "discussing with the Israelis what they're going to do."
He said the U.S., along with the other G7 democracies, "agree that they have a right to respond — but they should respond with proportion."