• Israel launched direct strikes against Iran early Saturday, in a high-stakes retaliation to Tehran’s ballistic missile barrage earlier this month. Israel said it hit military targets, which did not include energy infrastructure, according to an Israeli military source.
• Four members of Iran’s military were killed in the attack, according to state-run media, and Tehran said afterward that it is “entitled” to defend itself. But Iran appeared to downplay the strikes overall, reporting limited damage at military sites.
• A senior US administration official said President Joe Biden encouraged Israel to design its attack against Iran in a way that would deter further escalation. World leaders have been urging the two sides to avoid a wider regional war.
• Meanwhile, Gaza’s health ministry says Israeli forces detained male staff members during a raid at Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north of the enclave, where the UN human rights chief says Israel is “subjecting an entire population to bombing, siege and risk of starvation.”
Israel strikes Iran in high-stakes retaliation. CNN NEWS
Analysis: The ball is in Iran’s court after US pressure pays off.
From CNN’s Nic Robertso
What happens next in the escalating but sporadic missile slugfest between Israel and Iran may depend a lot on who wins the US election 10 days from now.
As the dust settles in Iran, early indications are US diplomacy has, for now, headed off fears of tit-for-tat retaliation. A regional source speaking on condition of anonymity, who quickly and accurately predicted Iran wouldn’t respond to Israel’s last strike on the country in April, tells CNN Iran will “contain” this strike, too.
Israelis are divided over the mission, which could make follow-up strikes safer but didn’t hit Iran’s nuclear or oil sites. Where they agree is that the dialing down of the target list is a result of US pressure.
Since Iran’s ballistic missile barrage striking Israeli military targets almost a month ago, US President Joe Biden had called for a “proportional” response. If Biden’s intervention has paid off, it is perhaps the clearest indicator in over a year of war that the White House maintains some influence over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This comes following a mostly futile — or at best very limited — success in convincing Netanyahu to ease the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, where over 42,000 have been killed as the Israeli military wages war against Hamas.
It is no secret Netanyahu prefers former President Donald Trump, an Iran hawk, over Vice President Kamala Harris in the coming election.
How the Israeli prime minister plans to prosecute and eventually land his deadly conflicts with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran could depend on what he hears from the White House. What we may have witnessed last night is a place-holding strike by Netanyahu.
The ball for now, though, is firmly in Iran’s court.