Iran has fired missiles at Israel, the country’s military said in a statement Tuesday. Sirens could be heard across the country as people took shelter. The attack comes after a White House official said that Iran was preparing an imminent ballistic missile attack against Israel. 

The United States was “actively supporting” Israel’s “defensive preparations,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. “A direct military attack from Iran against Israel will carry severe consequences for Iran.” 

Pentagon officials say they are tracking the reports of missiles in the air, and have not fundamentally changed their view of the situation. No attacks targeting US troops have been reported, according to three defence officials familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues. 

US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris met with their national security team to discuss Iran’s plan to launch missiles at Israel, the White House announced Tuesday. The officials “reviewed the status of US preparations to help Israel defend against these attacks and protect US personnel in the region,” the White House said. 

The attack follows Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah, a key Tehran ally, and as Israeli ground forces crossed into Lebanon. 

The attack by Iran is “likely to be extensive in scope,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman, said Tuesday after the United States warned that such an attack was imminent. 

Hagari urged Israelis to stay near shelters and to follow instructions from Israel’s Home Front Command, which issues directives to civilians amid threats. 

Seven people were injured in a shooting attack in Jaffa, Israel, a spokesperson for Israel’s emergency medical services told local media Tuesday. 

Magen David Adom, the Israeli medical organisation, said its paramedics and EMTs were providing medical treatment in response to reports of a shooting at 7pm local time. Two people were critically injured, a spokesperson for the organisation said. 

A police spokesperson told local media that the two attackers were killed. 

• US says it supports Israel as ground raids in Lebanon begin, 46 Kiwis affected
• Lebanon in crisis: Thousands flee as Israeli strikes escalate

This picture shows projectiles being intercepted above Tel Aviv a day after the Israeli army launched ground operations into southern Lebanon. Photo / AFP 

At a hotel in West Jerusalem, guests hunkered down in a stairway, mostly joking and passing around water bottles amid waves of sirens signalling the threat of a missile strike. For others the fear was palpable: one older man drank straight from a bottle of whisky. Guests tried to calm a young woman who was crying. 

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s office said in a statement Tuesday evening local time that he spoke “a few minutes ago” with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin about “Iran’s intentions to attack Israel”. They also discussed US-Israeli co-operation for defending Israel from an attack, the statement said. 

Israeli forces have been conducting raids in southern Lebanon for months, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman, said Tuesday. He added that Israel’s incursion into southern Lebanon would represent a continuation and broadening of those attacks. 

More than 70 cross-border operations in Lebanese territory were carried out over the past year, according to an Israeli military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity under briefing ground rules. Israeli forces spent hundreds of days and 200 nights, an average of three nights in an operation if it was overnight, taking out more than 1000 enemy sites, the official said. 

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, the UN force that administers the Blue Line on the Israel-Lebanon border, said in a statement Tuesday that it was notified by Israel on Monday of the IDF’s intentions to “undertake limited ground incursions into Lebanon”. The UN force said that “any crossing into Lebanon is in violation of Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity”. A spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the revelation of earlier raids. 

The Israeli operation is focused on dismantling Hezbollah’s infrastructure in villages in southern Lebanon, Hagari said. “We are focusing in the area of those villages, an area next to our border,” where Hagari said Hezbollah has built infrastructure to prepare for what he described as a planned attack similar to the one carried out in Israel by Hamas on October 7. 

“We’re not going to Beirut. We’re not going to the cities in southern Lebanon,” Hagari said, implicitly addressing concerns from international leaders that Israel’s incursion would be expansive. Hagari on Tuesday denied that Israel’s actions amount to an “incursion”. 

Smoke seeps out from building rubble at the site of an overnight Israeli airstrike on the Laylaki neighbourhood in Beirut's southern suburbs on October 1. Photo / AFP 

Israel has struck Beirut and its suburbs, but Hagari said the operations by ground troops would not go that far north. 

A US National Security Council spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday that the United States understands Israel was “conducting limited operations” but that “mission creep can be a risk and we will keep discussing that with the Israelis”. 

The ground invasion began overnight Monday, in a number of border villages that the Israel Defense Forces said “pose an immediate and real threat to Israeli settlements on the northern border”. 

Ground forces are being supported by air force and artillery strikes, on what the IDF said were Hezbollah military targets in the area. 

Hezbollah began attacking Israel nearly a year ago in support of the militant group Hamas in Gaza, as Israel retaliated against the October 7 attack by Hamas-led militants on Israeli communities bordering the Gaza Strip. Israel and Hezbollah have frequently exchanged fire across the Israeli-Lebanon border. 

The invasion that began late Monday follows weeks of escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, with explosions targeting electronic devices used by the militant group, the killing of its longtime leader and stepped-up Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon, including in the capital, Beirut. 

More than 1200 people have been killed in Lebanon since mid-September, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced from their homes. 

People check the rubble of buildings which were levelled on September 27 by Israeli strikes in the Haret Hreik neighbourhood of Beirut's southern suburb. Photo / AFP 

Israeli attacks in Lebanon have sent parts of the country spiralling into a humanitarian disaster, and about a million people are displaced. 

A Lebanese military official told The Washington Post that, despite Israeli reports, Israeli forces have not yet crossed into Lebanese territory but said “this is a critical moment,” speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter and citing reports of Israel’s intention to launch ground operations. 

At least three people were killed and nine injured when Israeli warplanes and drones struck densely populated parts of Damascus, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said Tuesday. Syria’s Foreign Ministry condemned the alleged attack, according to SANA, stating that Israel is threatening regional and international peace and security. 

Video circulating on social media showed an airstrike hitting a residential area in the Mezzeh district of Syria’s capital. Other footage showed a car engulfed in flames on a street below an apartment block. 

Among those killed was Syrian Arab News Agency television anchor Safaa Ahmad, the network said. 

Washington Post