Iran fires air defences at suspected strike from Israel

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Iran’s air defences shot at incoming targets in the early hours of Friday amid reports of explosions, the first indications that Israel has taken retaliatory action for last week’s drone and missile attack by Tehran.

Following the reported explosions in the cities of Isfahan, in central Iran, and Tabriz in the north west, Iranian state media played down the damage from the suspected attacks and Iran lifted flight restrictions imposed overnight.

Separately, Syrian state media reported that Israeli missiles had targeted air defence positions in its southern region, adding that the strike had inflicted material losses.

Israel has made no official comment. However Israeli politicians indicated that the country had struck Iran. The US’s ABC News reported that a senior US official had told it that Israel had launched missiles in a retaliatory strike against Iran early on Friday morning.

CBS News also reported that two US officials had confirmed to it that an Israeli missile had hit Iran.

Isfahan houses both an Iranian military air base and an important site in Iran’s nuclear programme, which Tehran insists is purely peaceful but which the west fears could put the Islamic Republic on the threshold of weapons capacity.

Tasnim news agency, which is close to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, reported that the air base and nuclear facility near Isfahan were safe and rejected reports of any attack from outside the country.

A senior military official in Isfahan told state media that air defences had fired at unidentified objects and there was no damage.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, said on Friday it could “confirm that there is no damage to Iran’s nuclear sites”.

It added in a post on the social media platform X that it “continues to call for extreme restraint from everybody and reiterates that nuclear facilities should never be a target in military conflicts”.

But Tally Gotliv, a lawmaker from the ruling Likud party, wrote on the platform that Israelis should have their “head . . . held high with pride” over its strength, adding: “May we regain our power of deterrence”.

In a more cryptic post, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right minister for national security, who had called for a “crushing attack” against Iran, wrote on X: “Weak!”

Oil futures jumped following the reports. Futures for Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, rose as much as 4.2 per cent to $90.75 per barrel while West Texas Intermediate, the US marker, gained as much as 4.3 per cent to $86.28 per barrel.

Gold, a haven during times of geopolitical uncertainty, rose as much as 1.6 per cent to $2417.89 per troy ounce.

The White House and Pentagon declined to comment.

Tension is high in the Middle East over possible Israeli retaliation after Iran fired more than 300 armed drones and missiles at the Jewish state last weekend, the first time Tehran has targeted the country directly from its own soil.

Iran said the strike was a response to an attack on its embassy in Damascus that killed senior military commanders, which Tehran blamed on Israel.

Israeli officials have indicated they would respond, despite western pleas for restraint and fears of the impact it could have on the conflict in Gaza, and the risk that any retaliation could push the Middle East to all-out war.

The Pentagon earlier said that defence secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant on Thursday to discuss “regional threats and Iran’s destabilising actions in the Middle East”.