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Israel’s pre-dawn attack on Iran was one of the biggest and most complex air assaults the country has ever conducted.

Dozens of aircraft, including Western-made fifth-generation F-35 stealth jets as well as F-16 and F-15 warplanes, flew more than 1,000 miles to strike multiple targets inside Iran, including the regime’s prized, Russian-provided S-300 air defence systems.

An Israeli source said four of the S-300 systems were hit along with radars and other air defence capabilities, reducing the risk to Israeli aircraft should they be deployed on any future mission against the Iranian regime.

Middle East latest: Israel hit former nuclear test site, images reveal

The raid – codenamed “Operation Days of Repentance” – also targeted sites where Iran was manufacturing missiles used to threaten Israel.

“It was a significant attack… We were able to achieve all the goals,” the source said.

The Israeli government had vowed to retaliate after Iran launched more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on 1 October in response to Israeli attacks against Iranian interests.

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Israeli air defences, supported by the US military, intercepted between 85-90% of the projectiles, according to the Israeli source.

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How strikes on Iran unfolded

However, a number of the 1,000-ton warheads did impact on Israeli targets.

“It is a threat that we cannot accept,” the source said.

Long anticipated, Israel’s weekend retaliation came in three waves, with the first strike hitting at about 2am on 26 October and the last Israeli jet safety returning to Israel by 6am.

No aircraft were lost or damaged in the mission.

 The confirmed locations hit in Iran on Saturday morning. Pic: ISW
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The confirmed locations that were hit. Pic: ISW


Pic: ISW
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Pic: ISW

In what was described as a “complex” operation, Israeli fighter jets, supported by air-to-air refuelling aircraft and reconnaissance planes, left their bases before midnight on 25 October.

They had to fly more than 1,000 miles to be within range of their targets – a journey that would have required the warplanes to refuel en route and fly over hostile airspace.

The aircraft were armed with so-called “stand-off munitions” – missiles that can be launched from a distance, meaning they did not need to enter Iranian air space to achieve their goal.

‘Picked off with impunity’

Israel has not publicly acknowledged the route for its operation.

However, it is thought the Israeli Air Force, including 201 Squadron, which operates F-16s, flew over Syria and then into Iraq, firing their weapons from Iraqi airspace, before returning home.

The Iraqi government on Monday made a formal complaint to the United Nations, accusing Israel of a “blatant violation” by using its airspace to attack Iran.

Open-source reporting indicates that Israel then hit targets in around 20 locations across Iran, including close to Tehran and in the west of the country.

The choice of targets is key.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said its aircraft went after missile manufacturing sites as well as Iranian air defence capabilities – including the S-300 systems, manufactured by Russia.

Analysts said Israel’s ability to strike these air defence systems, with the help of Western technology such as the F-35 jet, would be causing alarm in Tehran because it undermines Russian claims that they provide an effective defensive shield against airstrikes.

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Tehran factory damaged by Israeli strike

“It shows that even top-end Russian air defence systems can be picked off almost with impunity, which must worry those countries whose capitals are protected by these systems,” said Air Marshal Edward Stringer, a former senior Royal Air Force officer and fighter pilot.

Read more:
Iran’s president warns against further attacks

Israel goes with the Goldilocks option – analysis

Russia provided the S-300 system to Iran. It has also recently supplied the upgraded S-400 system. These are the most capable air defence systems that the Iranian military operates.

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Iran has downplayed the impact of the weekend strikes, but the Israeli military has said the mission was a success.

Degrading Iranian air defences will reduce the threat to Israeli jets on any future attack, while targeting Iranian missile manufacturing capabilities is intended to reduce the ability for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to strike back against Israel.

Potential future targets in Iran

“We were not just attacking to do something symbolic,” the source said.

“It was very much practical.”

As for how Israel expects Iran to respond, it is not yet clear whether even Tehran has decided what to do.

“We are monitoring the situation and waiting to see how it develops,” the Israeli source said.

“We achieved what we wanted to achieve. We did our retaliation. Now the ball is in the Iranian court. We are ready for any case.”

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.

Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.

After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.

Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.

The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.

Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.

“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.

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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.

“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”

Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”

The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.

This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.

Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.

Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.

A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.

Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.

He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”

“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.

Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.

State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.

Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.

The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike
Image:
The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike

Map of Lebanon and Israel

The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.

At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.

The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).

A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.

The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.

Pic: AP
Image:
Pic: AP

Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.

Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.

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‘Dozens’ of Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike

US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.

Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.

According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.

It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia’s ‘unstoppable’ missile – as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia's 'unstoppable' missile - as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.

In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.

“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”

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Putin’s warning to the West

Russia war latest: Long-awaited US air defences arrive in Ukraine

He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”

Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.

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General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.

Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”

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What are storm shadow missiles?
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Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.

NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.

Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.

EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’

Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.

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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?

Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.

At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.

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