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Israel-Iran live updates: Israeli missile has struck Iran, US officials say - BBC News Israel-Iran live updates: Israeli missile has struck Iran, US officials say - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
James Landale A nuclear and chemical weapons expert has told the BBC the selection of Isfahan, Iran's second city, as a potential target was "very significant".
Diplomatic correspondent, reporting from Jerusalem Hamish De Bretton Gordon, a former commander of UK and Nato nuclear forces, notes the city has many military bases around it - with one of them apparently being the target overnight.
By not publicly acknowledging responsibility for the "[The reported attack] was fairly near to where we believe Iran is building nuclear weapons, so I expect it was a nod to them," he tells BBC News.
strike - as is commonplace - Israel’s war cabinet may hope to make it more De Bretton Gordon goes on to make the case the purpose of the strikes was a "very much a demonstration of capability and perhaps intent".
difficult for hard-line members of the governing coalition to criticise the Iran fires 300 plus miles at Israel, they virtually all get shot down. Israel fires one, perhaps two missiles, at an Iranian target - which appears to have got through and caused damage."
limited nature of the attack, thus avoiding a political row over Passover. He adds that Israel "vastly overmatches" Iran in conventional military power, so Tehran would prefer to use proxies for attacks and avoid going "toe to toe with Israel, where it knows it would get a real hammering".
But On the Iranians downplaying the significance of the attack, De Bretton Gordon says they don't want to acknowledge that any Israeli missiles have got through their "very antiquated" air defence systems and hit targets.
that did not restrain some.
Israel’s far right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir,
said a few days ago he wanted Israel to “go berserk” in response to Iran’s
attack.
This morning the minister - upon whose faction Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu depends - seemed less than impressed.
On X, the social
media platform formerly known as Twitter, he posted one word, best translated
as: "Lame.”
Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, hit back
hard at this, posting:
A security cabinet minister has never caused such heavy damage to the country’s security, image and international standing. With an unforgivable, one word tweet Ben Gvir managed to ridicule and embarrass Israel all the way from Tehran to Washington. Any other prime minister would have thrown him out of the cabinet this morning."
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