By remaining silent on Saturday, April 20, on the details of the attack carried out the previous day by Israel in Iran, the two countries appeared determined to put an end to an escalation that saw them engage in the beginnings of open warfare for the first time. But a threshold has now been crossed in their confrontation: Direct attacks against each other's territories have been normalized, and the possibility of striking nuclear targets has been signaled.
Iranian authorities have consistently played down the significance of these strikes since Friday morning, indicating they had no intention to respond. Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian scoffed at the simple drone attack, "downed micro-birds [that] have not caused any damage or casualties." The commander of the army's ground forces, Kioumars Heidari, during Friday prayers in Tehran praised the effectiveness of Iranian intelligence.
On Saturday morning, almost all of Iran's daily newspapers failed to mention the previous day's strikes. The front page of Al Quds, a newspaper close to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, featured the reaction of Israel's minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a provocateur of the religious far right and the only Israeli official to comment on the attack, which he deplored as "lame!"
In the absence of any further comment from Israel, the official Iranian version of the events suggests a drone attack was carried out from within Iranian territory by Israeli intelligence against an air base in Isfahan. The city in central Iran is home to several key nuclear facilities and a ballistic missile base, which, Israel demonstrated through this attack, are within its reach.
Drones were also reported in the northern city of Tabriz. However, according to ABC News and The New York Times, citing Iranian and American sources, it seems Israeli aircraft struck with missiles, without necessarily having penetrated Iranian airspace. Citing these press reports, the former head of Israeli military intelligence Amos Yadlin estimated that "three missiles managed to do more damage to Iran than Iran did to Israel, with 300 projectiles."
Satellite images reveal that a radar at the Isfahan air base was damaged or destroyed. It was part of an S-300 defense system supplied to Iran by Russia. Israeli aircraft also struck a Syrian air defense site early on Friday, according to the Syrian state news agency SANA.
Finally, in Iraq, residents of Baghdad and the provinces of Babylon and Wasit reported hearing the sound of explosions at dawn on Friday. Local media quoted a security source as saying that "no targeting was recorded inside Iraqi territory, but military radars recorded the passage of foreign objects over Iraqi airspace," without giving further details.
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