Israel strikes at Iran targets in retaliation for earlier attack

Two Defense officials tell NBC News that U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, tonight.

Vice President Kamala Harris has been briefed on Iran, according to a White House official.

She’s currently in Houston, where she will speak shortly at a campaign event.

John Brennan, former CIA director and senior national security and intelligence analyst, says Iranian options for retaliation are limited after some of their resources have been depleted as a result of Iran’s recent military strikes.

“I think the Iranians recognize that their ability to do damage inside of Israel proper is really quite limited,” Brennan told NBC News’ Gadi Schwartz.

With the election less than two weeks away, Israel’s retaliation could have an impact on politics at home. Brennan said if the conflict continues to escalate, it would be difficult to see how there could be some kind of ceasefire in Gaza or Lebanon.

“Continued escalation here could be used as a way to show that U.S. influence division to be able to stop this is not as great as it once was,” Brennan said.

President Joe Biden has been briefed on the strikes in Iran and is closely following the developments, two senior administration officials said.

The president is at his home in Wilmington, Delaware.

A senior Biden administration official has said that so far Israel’s strikes appear to be limited to military targets and do not include nuclear or energy hubs.

During his trip this week to the region, Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to limit the targets, stressing that doing so could help end the cycle without escalating into a wider war.

A second official had said before the strike, the U.S. knew Israel had to retaliate but was urging Israel not to hit the more sensitive targets in hopes of breaking the retaliatory cycle.

Three United States defense officials tell NBC News that the U.S. was given a heads-up before Israel launched strikes tonight on Iran.

The U.S. was not involved in the strikes, the officials said.

An Israeli official told NBC News that Israel is not striking Iranian nuclear facilities or oil fields and is focusing on military targets.

“We’re targeting things that might have threatened us in the past or could do in the future,” the official said.

A spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council said it is aware of Israel’s strikes against Iran.

“We understand that Israel is conducting targeted strikes against military targets in Iran as an exercise of self-defense and in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack against Israel on October 1st,” spokesperson Sean Savett said in a statement.

Savett referred inquiries about the strikes to the Israeli government.

Two senior Arab officials told NBC News that an initial strike on Tehran appears to have targeted a barracks or office and a weapons depot.

The Israel Defense Forces said it is striking military targets in Iran in response to attacks from “the regime in Iran.”

The Israel Defense Forces said tonight that it is conducting “precise strikes on military targets in Iran.”

The strikes, it said, were in response to months of attacks from Iran against Israel. World leaders have been awaiting Israel’s response to a barrage of missiles that were fired from Iran at Israel on Oct. 1.

“The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since October 7th — on seven fronts — including direct attacks from Iranian soil,” the IDF said in a statement. “Like every other sovereign country in the world, the State of Israel has the right and the duty to respond.”

Iranian state media are reporting explosions inside the country’s capital of Tehran.

The Iranian State Television Service, or IRIB, reported sounds of explosions in the city.

LONDON — Jordan, one of the United States’ closest allies in the Middle East, confronted Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday with a stark and unwelcome assessment: Israel is ethnically cleansing Palestinians from Gaza.

Blinken was in London after holding meetings in Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, during which he pressed the need for a cease-fire and the return of hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza.

“We do see ethnic cleansing taking place” in Gaza, Blinken’s Jordanian counterpart, Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, said, speaking to the American delegation in front of journalists. “It has got to stop.”

Read the full story here.

The Beirut-based pan-Arab network Al-Mayadeen TV said two of its journalists were killed and Hezbollah-owned broadcaster Al-Manar said one of its camera operators was also killed in an Israeli strike that hit a compound housing journalists.

An NBC News crew was in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis where they filmed a crowd of desperate civilians trying to get bags of bread.

The situation is worse in northern Gaza, where Israeli forces have been besieging the Jabalia refugee camp and hunger has been rampant.