Israel launched direct strikes against Iran early Saturday

Israel hit back at Iran in a long-expected riposte to the airstrikes earlier this month. CGTN’s Jonathan Regev reports from Tel Aviv. #Iran #israel

Transcript

00:00According to Israeli sources, the attack was successful.

00:04Israel claims it hit more than 20 sites within Iran,

00:09mostly relating to places where surface-to-surface missiles are manufactured.

00:15These are the kind of missiles which were fired towards Israel

00:18in that latest Iranian attack earlier this month,

00:22and this was the main site that was attacked.

00:26Not only that, Israel says that it was able to basically, practically,

00:30shut down the Iranian aerial defense system,

00:34and that is perhaps why the IDF spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Aghari,

00:40said that in the future, if Israeli jets have to operate again in Iran,

00:46they will enjoy a greater freedom in Iranian skies.

00:50This perhaps could hint to the fact that Israel is warning Iran

00:54that if Iran retaliates and Israel will operate again,

00:57only this time Iran will have far less defensive means within its airspace.

01:04This according to what has been said in Israel so far.

01:08At this time, we are roughly 15 hours after the attack,

01:11and for the moment, there's no change whatsoever in the instructions,

01:16the directives given to Israeli citizens by the home front command.

01:20This could indicate that at least on the short term,

01:23Israel does not see any Iranian retaliation about to come.

01:28Of course, it may happen, and the IDF spokesperson also said

01:32that if there's any change, then the home front command will immediately

01:36announce that to the citizens.

01:39At least as of now, there's no such change, meaning that for the short term,

01:43Israel does not expect a major reaction from Iran on the long term.

01:48That, of course, is a different story, and that is now the main issue.

01:52How will Iran react?

01:54Well, the fact that the Iranians are very much satisfied,

01:57at least publicly, by the results of this attack,

02:00at least publicly saying that they were able to thwart most of the attack,

02:04that could perhaps show that they're not interested in escalating this even further.

02:10That is, of course, one thought in Israel, but no one really knows what Iran may do,

02:14and Israel is, of course, ready for anything that might come.