Live Updates: Israel’s Retaliatory Attack on Iran Appears Carefully Calibrated

Iran largely played down the strike, which it said had killed four soldiers, easing fears of an uncontrollable conflict between the two most powerful militaries in the Middle East. Tehran now faces a decision about whether to up the ante: If it retaliates, that could further fan the flames of crisis, but if not, it runs the risk of looking weak with its allies and at home.

The attack came after a large barrage of ballistic missiles that Iran fired at Israel early this month in response to the assassinations of several officials of Iran and its allies. On Saturday, Israel’s fighter jets focused on roughly 20 military installations, including air defense batteries, radar stations and missile production sites, according to Israeli officials.

Iran’s national air defense force said that Israel had attacked military bases in three provinces but that air defenses had been able to limit the damage. Three news agencies said that the city of Tehran itself had not been hit and that civilian airports were operating normally, though blasts could be heard throughout the capital.

For years, Israel and Iran have fought a clandestine war in which each side targets the other’s interests and allies, while rarely taking responsibility for their attacks. That turned into open confrontation as the war between Israel and Hamas, Iran’s ally in Gaza, pulled the two countries toward a direct clash.

After the Hamas-led attack in Israel a year ago unleashed Israel’s devastating war in Gaza, Iran’s other proxies in Middle East, including Hezbollah, began striking Israel in solidarity with their Palestinian ally. Israel, in turn, scaled up its attacks on Iranian interests around the region, with both sides responding in force as tensions flared at various moments.

Here’s what else to know:

• Iran’s reaction: Iran’s Foreign Ministry accused Israel of inflaming tensions across the region and said that Tehran was “entitled and obligated to defend itself against foreign acts of aggression.” State television and media outlets affiliated with the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps played down the attacks.

• Gaza and Lebanon: Israel’s latest military offensive in northern Gaza entered its third week as its air force and ground troops pressed on with the fight in Lebanon. Israeli airstrikes killed three people in Jabaliya, according to the official Palestinian news media, and Israel said its forces had struck sites in Lebanon and battled Hezbollah fighters in multiple locations in the last day.

• United States informed: The Pentagon said that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had spoken with Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, to receive updates on the strikes in Iran. Sean Savett, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said after the attack began that the United States had been informed of Israel’s plans.

• Warning from Israel: The Israeli military warned Iran against further escalation, saying in a statement that it would be “obligated to respond.” Daniel Hagari, a military spokesman, said in a news conference that there were no immediate changes to the government’s civil defense orders to the public, indicating that the authorities were not expecting an attack.

The Iranian and Israeli officials familiar with the attacks spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

Israel’s destruction of the air-defense systems has raised deep alarm in Iran, the three Iranian officials said, as critical energy and economic hubs are now vulnerable to future attacks if the cycle of retaliation between Iran and Israel continues.

“Israel is sending a clear message to us,” said Hamid Hosseini, an expert on Iran’s oil and gas industry and a member of the Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce. “This can have very serious economic consequences for Iran, and now that we understand the stakes we need to act wise and not continue the tensions.”

Iran’s military announced that four soldiers working with air defenses were killed in Israel’s attacks. The Iranian media said the casualty numbers would probably increase.

Two of the soldiers were identified as natives of the city of Mahshahr, the closest residential town near the Bandar Imam Khomeini petrochemical complex.

Two Israeli officials said that initial plans, developed immediately after Iran fired waves of ballistic missiles at Israel in early October, included strikes on targets linked to Iran’s energy industry and nuclear project.

But while Israel was planning, the United States urged it not to strike any of Iran’s energy and oil sites or nuclear facilities, fearing that attacks on such valuable sites could draw a heightened Iranian response, destabilize the global economy and set off an all-out regional war that could draw in the United States. In its strikes on Saturday, Israel eventually decided to attack the air defenses around several energy facilities but did not target the facilities themselves, the Israeli officials said.

Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, had repeatedly told the news media, and regional Arab counterparts in diplomatic meetings, that Iran’s energy infrastructure was a red line, and that if attacked Iran would respond forcefully. Mr. Araghchi sent a letter to the United Nations on Saturday urging the condemnation of Israel and calling its attack “unlawful and aggressive” and “against the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Iran.

The Iranian Armed Forces issued a statement on Saturday saying that Israel’s attacks had targeted radar air-defense systems in Khuzestan, Ilam and Tehran, causing minor damage. The statement said repairs were underway and that Iranian air defenses had succeeded in neutralizing most of the Israeli missile and drones.

The three Israeli officials said that command-and-control trailers, as well as the radar system, were among the targets struck on Saturday. According to Israel’s assessment, the systems were severely damaged and rendered inoperative. One of the officials said that satellite imagery post-strike would show that Israel hit only the air-defense battery of the Imam Khomeini petrochemical complex, avoiding the nearby industrial complex.

The Iranian military, in its statement, added that Israeli fighter jets had not entered Iran’s airspace and had fired missiles and drones from Iraq’s airspace. The military blamed the United States for allowing Iraqi airspace to be used, and Iran’s mission to the United Nations accused the United States of “complicity in this crime.”

American officials have said the United States played no role in Israel’s attacks against Iran.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council held an emergency meeting on Saturday, and military commanders briefed its members on the scale of damage and the targets, according to the three Iranian officials. The council discussed how Iran should respond but no decision has been made, they said.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has the authority to order strikes on Israel as the commander in chief. He is expected to make public comments about the attacks on Sunday.

In addition to striking the defenses around energy sites, Iranian and Israeli officials said, Israel’s attacks have effectively taken out four S-300 air-defense systems that Iran had purchased from Russia. Israel disabled one in April in an attack on a military base in Isfahan Province and three on Saturday, at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport and the Malad missile base on the capital’s outskirts.

“This looks like a potential preamble to a much more effective strike against Iran’s infrastructure and even nuclear sites,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran director of International Crisis Group. “Iranians don’t have the capacity to replace these systems in a timely manner, which renders the country much more vulnerable in future tit for tats.”

In addition to the air-defense systems, three major missile manufacturing bases — Falagh, Shaid Ghadiri and Abdol Fath — belonging to the Revolutionary Guards Corps were also attacked, according to the Iranian and Israeli officials. The Parchin and Parand military sites were also attacked with drones, the officials said.

Israeli officials said the attacks had set back Iran’s ability to build missiles, but Iranian officials disputed this, saying the damage was minor and the setbacks short term.

The energy facilities whose defenses were struck are critical to Iran’s ailing economy, which has struggled with U.S. sanctions, inflation and other problems for years. Khuzestan Province, in southern Iran, is home to most of the country’s oil and gas fields. The Bandar Imam Petrochemical Complex is Iran’s largest such compound, generating millions of tons of petroleum-based products annually for export. The Abadan refinery is Iran’s largest oil refinery near the Persian Gulf, with a capacity of 360,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

Israel’s targeting of air-defense systems around the energy sites was similar to its attack in April, when it struck the radar system of an S-300 air-defense system near Natanz, a city in central Iran that is critical to the country’s nuclear program. The April strike came in response to Iran’s launching several hundred missiles and drones at Israel, a barrage that was itself a response to an Israeli airstrike on Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus.

With Iranian proxies like Hezbollah dramatically weakened, more hawkish Israelis had argued that they were being handed an opportunity to move forcefully against their regional archenemy, Iran. Some proposed attacking the Iranian nuclear program, long a source of existential dread for Israel.

After Iran launched a wave of ballistic missiles on Israel on Oct. 1, the Biden administration urged Israel to moderate its response and avoid targeting either oil or nuclear sites, which U.S. officials feared would set off a wider war — one that would ultimately draw in the United States.

Yair Lapid, the centrist leader of Israel’s parliamentary opposition, criticized Mr. Netanyahu’s government for ultimately deciding on targets that aligned with Washington’s requests. Mr. Netanyahu’s office later denied that Israel had not struck Iranian oil and nuclear facilities because of U.S. pressure.

“The decision not to target strategic and economic targets in Iran was a mistake,” Mr. Lapid said. “We could and should have made Iran pay a much higher price.”

Mr. Ben-Gvir had also criticized Israel’s response to a direct Iranian attack in April — a strike on an antiaircraft battery — as too feeble.

Saturday’s attacks should be followed by further action aimed at “damaging Iran’s strategic assets,” he said. “That must be the next stage.”

Avigdor Lieberman, a hawkish ally-turned-critic of Mr. Netanyahu who leads the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, similarly slammed the Israeli government for not going far enough.

“Unfortunately, it seems that instead of exacting a real price, the Israeli government is satisfying itself with operations that are purely for show and public relations. They are buying quiet rather than seeking clear victory,” Mr. Lieberman said.

As of Saturday night, Mr. Netanyahu had yet to make any public remarks on the attack, although his office had issued statements denying several Israeli news media reports purporting to provide details of the strike.

A handful of politicians — including ones who rarely align with Mr. Netanyahu — did suggest that they agreed with the government’s strategy. Yair Golan, a left-wing politician and retired general, said the Israeli response had most likely damaged Iran’s military capabilities “without dragging us into an inevitable war of attrition.”

Shortly after President Biden held a call this morning with Vice President Harris and his national security team on Israel’s strikes in Iran, he told reporters, “I hope that this is the end,” adding that Israel “didn’t hit anything other than military targets.”

In a statement, the White House said that during the call the president “directed that every effort be taken to protect our forces and help defend Israel against any potential responses from Iran.”

“It seems that people are hopeful that soon the situation will be back to normal,” he told The New York Times when reached by telephone.

“The vibe is not normal, though, at the moment,” he said. “People are experiencing different emotions: Some are worried, some indifferent and some are even happy, because they believe that Israel attacks will humble the regime a bit.”

Soheil, like other Iranians reached by The Times on Saturday, asked not to be identified by his full name for fear of retribution.

Iranian officials and the state news media played down the Israeli attack, calling the damage “limited” and claiming that Iran’s air defense had intercepted the strikes.

Israel did not strike sensitive sites related to Iran’s nuclear program or oil production facilities in retaliation for the large barrage of ballistic missiles that Iran fired at Israel this month. And while the attack marked a new escalation between the two archrivals, it appeared to be calibrated to stop short of all-out war.

After the attack was completed, Iran did not immediately threaten to retaliate, but it did say that it had the right to do so.

On state television on Saturday, reporters around Tehran, the nation’s capital, cheerfully proclaimed that all was well. Live shots showed a vegetable market and morning rush-hour traffic.

But for some residents, it was a night of little sleep and high anxiety as the sounds of explosions kept them up.

Maryam Naraghi, an Iranian journalist, said she had heard “the sound of bombs and explosions” from her home in Tehran, the capital.

Houri, a 42-year-old mother of two in Tehran, said in a telephone interview that after a night of loud explosions and consoling her children, she was anxious about what lay ahead for Iranians, many of them having grown weary of conflict and years of economic hardship.

She said her husband had stayed glued to satellite television and social media all night for updates on the attacks because Iran’s state news media offered little information.

Yashar Soltani, a journalist, said he had woken up in Tehran to the sounds of an attack that seemed to be nearby.

“I saw very big lights in the sky,” he said.

The attack on military bases and other targets in Ilam, Khuzestan and Tehran Provinces lasted only a few hours and was over by about 5 a.m., Israeli officials said.

As the sun rose on Saturday, people in Iran tried to go on with their day as usual, hoping that a wider war could be avoided.

Shadi, a 41-year-old living in Tehran, said she had not heard any of the explosions overnight.

“We people of Iran are victims of all these political games,” she said. “We have experienced so much that we all have become somehow numb.”

Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.

If it does not, it risks looking weak to those same allies, as well as to more aggressive and powerful voices at home.

Iran is already in the middle of a regional war. Since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has moved swiftly to damage the militant group in Gaza and other Iranian proxies, including Hezbollah, the Houthis and its allies in Syria and Iraq.

These groups represent Iran’s “forward defense” against Israel, the heart of the nation’s deterrence. They have been badly weakened by the Israeli military’s tough response since Oct. 7, which weakens Iran, too, and makes it more vulnerable.

Iranian officials have made it clear that they do not want a direct war with Israel. They want to preserve their allies, the so-called ring of fire around Israel.

After Israel struck Iran, Tehran on Saturday publicly played down the effect of the attack and showed ordinary programming on television. It did not immediately vow a major retaliation, but simply restated its right to do so.

Adding to its reticence, Iran faces enormous economic problems, making it wary of an extended and costly war with Israel. It has been heavily penalized by the United States and Europe over its nuclear program, forcing it to move ever closer to Russia and China.

The Islamic regime is also dealing with serious domestic dissent over rising prices and its harsh rule, which play into any calculation for retaliation. The regime is both committed to the destruction of Israel, but also to preserving its power in a sophisticated country in which it is increasingly unpopular.

That is one reason, analysts believe, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, allowed the election of a more moderate president, Masoud Pezeshkian, after the harder-line Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash. Against the backdrop of domestic unrest, Mr. Pezeshkian has pushed for new talks on Iran’s nuclear program in return for a lifting of economic sanctions, outreach that most likely could take place only with the permission of the supreme leader.

The nuclear program is its own dilemma. The damage to allies over the past year, as well as its clear technical and military weakness compared with Israel, will put more pressure on Iran to advance its nuclear program and go for a bomb.

Iran is already within weeks of creating bomb-quality uranium, and there are strong voices in Iran arguing that the best deterrent against Israel and the United States is to have nuclear weapons, as Israel itself possesses. But Iran also knows that a series of American presidents — including Donald J. Trump, who is running neck and neck against Vice President Kamala Harris in the U.S. presidential race — have vowed to prevent Iran from attaining an operational nuclear weapon.

Complicating matters, a quiet battle has emerged over succession. Ayatollah Khamenei, 85, is believed to be seriously ill. With Mr. Raisi gone, there is internal disquiet over the possibility that Ayatollah Khamenei’s second son, Mojtaba, 55, might succeed him. The powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps will have an important say and is considered more willing to confront Israel.

Whatever Iran’s ultimate calculation, hoping to avoid a larger war does not mean it can.

Both Israel and Iran are eager to restore the so-called deterrence effect that they believe comes with retaliatory strikes. As they see it, it enhances their ability to intimidate each other and allows them to limit each other’s power, in what Jeremy Shapiro, a former American diplomat, has called their “geopolitical manhood.”

This past week, as might be expected, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that “in the event of an Israeli attack, the shape of our response will be proportionate and calculated.”

These back-and-forth attacks, however carefully calibrated, can easily spill over into wider violence if a hospital or a school is hit, even by accident, and causes significant civilian casualties.

As Daniel C. Kurtzer and Aaron David Miller wrote this week in Foreign Policy, “a spiraling tit for tat would likely prompt the Israelis to expand their target set, at a minimum, to include economic infrastructure.” From there, they added, “it’s certainly possible to imagine a regional escalation, including Iranian attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure.”

But Iran may also choose to heed American and British advice to call an end to this round of retaliations as negotiations for cease-fires in Gaza and Lebanon gather pace.

Ali Vaez, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group, said on X that Israel’s response was “considerably more robust” than the one in April.

Israel struck Iranian air defenses and missile manufacturing sites in three provinces, while also attacking targets in Iraq and Syria, according to Israel officials. But it avoided key infrastructure, energy and nuclear sites.

The key question, Mr. Vaez said, was simple: “Whether Tehran will absorb the hit and try to draw a line under this exchange or up the ante again with a counter-response.”

For Iran, the argument for climbing down the escalatory ladder is a strong one. But there are powerful voices like the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which regularly press for a more aggressive response.

The desire for Washington and Israel, too, is that the conflict with Iran “becomes once again a shadow war and not an overt war,” said David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “In today’s world that would be an achievement. You don’t end the enmity but bring it under control.”

Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East Program at Chatham House, said that the U.S. presidential election in November is also a factor. “If Iran wants to avoid a broader escalatory conflict in advance of the uncertain U.S. election, it must take the hit and play a longer strategic game focused on diplomatic outreach to the region and openings should they emerge from the West,” she said.

By playing down the effect of the strike and pressing for a cease-fire, she said, “Iran will try to turn the tables on Israel and translate its military weakness into diplomatic openings.”

“We urge for hospitals, health workers and patients to be protected,” Dr. Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

The Gaza health ministry described scenes of chaos at the hospital on Friday night. It said Israeli troops had searched the facility and fired shots inside the building, causing panic among hundreds of people sheltering inside. It also said two children in the intensive care unit had died after generators stopped operating.

The ministry said on Saturday the arrested health care workers included all of the hospital’s male medical workers.

The Israeli military did not respond to questions on Saturday about the arrests, and on Friday it said only that it was “operating in the area” of the hospital. Israel has said the offensive is targeting what it has described as a Hamas resurgence in northern Gaza.

Israel launched a new offensive in northern Gaza three weeks ago, in areas close to Israel’s southern border, saying that its aim was to quash what it described as a Hamas resurgence in the area. But the United Nations says the operation has trapped roughly 400,000 people in a ruined landscape devoid of adequate food and other essential goods.

The situation has drawn criticism from world leaders, including Biden administration officials, who warned Israel in a letter that a failure to ease suffering in the north could prompt a cutoff in military aid.

Dr. Ghebreyesus said on Friday that Israeli forces had arrested the health care workers and damaged four ambulances in what he described as a “siege and attacks on health care workers.”

He said that three health workers and another hospital employee had been injured and that roughly 600 people were sheltering in the hospital on Friday night.

Khalil al-Muqayed, 79, was among those who had sought shelter at the hospital after Israel’s northern offensive began, according to his grandson, Wasim Alkhaldi, 29.

On Friday, Mr. al-Muqayed told his grandson over the phone that Israeli forces had detained him at the hospital, according to Mr. Alkhaldi, who works for the Fatah party, the main rival faction to Hamas.

Mr. Alkhaldi has not been able to reach his grandfather since then, he said.

“He’s old and suffers from chronic heart problems,” said Mr. Alkhaldi, who lives in the West Bank. “We don’t have any contact with him or know his fate.”

A spokesman for Palestinian civil defense, an emergency response organization, said that two members of its staff were also arrested at the hospital on Friday.

Israeli forces have besieged and raided Kamal Adwan Hospital before and detained its director. This month, the Gaza health ministry said the hospital was one of three that the Israeli military had ordered to evacuate at the start of its northern offensive.

Having cleared the way, the jets flew toward Iran, more than 1,000 miles away from Israel, and struck its air defense systems, the officials said. According to two officials, a second wave of jets targeted Iran’s long-range missile production sites; the attack was specifically aimed at destroying a critical component in the production process.

The strikes avoided energy infrastructure like oil and gas production sites, the Israeli officials said. The Israeli government had told the Biden administration that it would avoid striking Iran’s nuclear enrichment and oil production sites, two officials said this month.

All of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of an ongoing military operation.

The extent of the damage is unclear. Iranian officials played down the impact of the strikes, saying in part that its air defenses had helped limit the damage. Iran said that Israel had attacked military bases in three provinces — Tehran and two near the Iraqi border, Ilam and Khuzestan.

Israel targeted roughly 20 sites over the course of the night, the officials said.

Around 6 a.m. local time, the Israeli military announced that the operation was complete.

Israel’s air force and ground troops also pressed on with the fight against militants across the Gaza Strip, with that military offensive entering its third week on Saturday, even as Israel turned some of its firepower toward Iran, too.

Israel’s military said on Saturday morning that its air force had struck more than 70 sites across southern Lebanon and in Dahiya, a densely populated area near Beirut, over the past day. Its troops also battled Hezbollah fighters in multiple locations, the military added.

It did not provide the locations of any of those airstrikes, but said that some had hit Hezbollah sites “under and inside civilian buildings in the heart of populated areas,” and accused the Iran-backed armed group of endangering Lebanese civilians.

Hezbollah said on Saturday that it had engaged Israeli forces in almost a dozen towns across the south, including in the area of Nabatieh, one of the largest cities in the region.

A day earlier, Israeli forces in Lebanon suffered their single deadliest day of the current conflict there, with five soldiers killed in a Hezbollah rocket attack, according to Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster. It said that 24 soldiers had been wounded in the attack.

In Gaza, an Israeli airstrike on Saturday killed three people in Jabaliya, the town at the center of Israel’s northern Gaza offensive, according to the official Palestinian news media.

Palestinian civil defense, an emergency response organization, said it had been unable to respond to “numerous calls and pleas” from buildings damaged in the strike because of Israeli bombardment.

Israel’s military said on Saturday that its forces were conducting “targeted raids” against Hamas fighters in central and southern Gaza, but it did not refer to its offensive in the north, which has drawn criticism from both Israel’s allies and detractors.

Although it was a significant moment, Iran did not immediately set a time frame for a retaliation. The Iranian foreign ministry said that while Iran was “obliged to defend itself,” it was aware of its “responsibilities for regional peace and security,” avoiding the kind of bombastic language that characterized Iran’s initial responses to previous Israeli attacks.

That eased fears that an uncontrollable conflict was about to break out, even if the prospect of such a clash has edged ever closer.

“The years of shadow war have fully entered open conflict — albeit a managed conflict, for now,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a Berlin-based research group. “Tehran can swallow these strikes against military facilities, without retaliating in a way that invites further Israeli action,” she added.

After weeks of pressure from the United States to reduce the scope of its attack, Israel avoided striking sensitive nuclear enrichment sites and oil production facilities in retaliation for the large barrage of ballistic missiles that Iran fired at Israel early this month.

On Saturday, Israel’s fighter jets focused instead on roughly 20 military installations, including air defense batteries, radar stations and missile production sites, according to Israeli officials.

The comparatively contained focus of those attacks allowed Iranian institutions to project a sense of normality on Saturday morning. The aviation authority reopened Iran’s airspace, and the state-run news agencies broadcast images and footage of life returning to normal — all signs, analysts said, that Iran’s leadership was trying to play down the significance of Israel’s attack and reduce domestic expectations of a major Iranian response.

“This is the beginning of a new phase, a dangerous one, with many more sensitivities,” said Yoel Guzansky, an Israeli expert on Iran at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv-based research group. “But the music that I hear from Iran is basically saying, ‘Oh, this is nothing.’”

As a result, he added, “It is possible for the two sides to close this round at least, and that we will not see an Iranian retaliation — or if we’ll see it, it will be small in scale.”

Still, analysts warned that even if the latest escalation ebbs, it has edged Iran and Israel further along a path toward an unmanageable conflict.

Israel is still locked in a war with Hezbollah, Iran’s ally and proxy in Lebanon, where Israeli forces are conducting extensive air and ground operations. And it is still fighting in the Gaza Strip against Hamas, another ally of Iran. Those conflicts have no end in sight, and either of them could set off further escalations between Israel and Iran, which has proved increasingly willing to attack Israel in defense of its partners.

For years, the two countries fought a clandestine war in which each side undermined the other’s interests and provided support for the other’s opponents, while rarely taking responsibility for their own attacks. That covert conflict turned into open confrontation after Hamas attacked Israel last October, unleashing Israel’s devastating counterattack in Gaza and setting off a regional clash between Israel, Iran and its proxies.

The war in Gaza prompted Iran’s other proxies in the Middle East, including Hezbollah, to strike Israel in solidarity with their Palestinian ally. In turn, Israel scaled up its attacks on Iranian interests around the region, leading to direct exchanges between the two countries, first in April and now in October.

Some analysts fear that Israel, though comparatively restrained on Saturday, was setting the stage for a bigger strike following the U.S. presidential election in early November. The vote will set in motion a transition of power during which Washington’s influence and focus on the Iran-Israel conflict will be diminished.

By damaging Iran’s air defenses and radar system, Israel has made it easier for its fighter jets to attack Iran in the future, a move that may either deter Tehran from responding forcefully, or embolden Israel to try further attacks, or both.

“There will be a sigh of relief across Iran and the region that the U.S. managed to restrain Netanyahu for now,” Ms. Geranmayeh said, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. “But the fear is that this is a temporary restraint leading up to the U.S. elections. The ‘lame duck’ phase ahead could be a moment where we see renewed Israeli attacks inside Iran — as a perceived golden window to further deplete Iranian capabilities.”

Mr. Netanyahu faces pressure from both inside and outside his government to deal Iran a more forceful blow, amid fears in Israel over Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear bomb and its support for Arab militias that oppose Israel’s existence.

Mr. Netanyahu was once seen as a risk-averse leader who was wary of initiating extended foreign wars. But his reluctance to agree to a truce in Gaza over the past year, coupled with his recent decision to invade Lebanon, has led critics to claim that he is now more prone to military adventurism abroad to deflect from domestic criticism at home.

Just hours after the attack on Saturday, some Israeli politicians were already pushing Mr. Netanyahu to mount a more powerful strike on Iran, arguing that the military had not gone far enough.

Yair Lapid, a centrist opposition leader in Israel, praised the air force for its attacks but said it had been a “mistake” to limit them only to military sites.

“We could and should have made Iran pay a much higher price,” Mr. Lapid wrote on social media. “Iran is at the head of the axis of evil and must bear a heavy cost for its aggression.”

Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right government minister, later expressed a similar sentiment, describing the strikes as “an opening blow” that should be followed by further strikes. The government has a “historic duty to remove the Iranian threat to destroy Israel,” Mr. Ben-Gvir said in a statement.

Still, other Israeli leaders praised the government for showing restraint and avoiding an unmanageable high-intensity conflict.

The strikes “impacted Iran’s defensive and offensive capabilities without dragging us into a prolonged conflict, which is not within Israel’s national and security interests,” wrote Yair Golan, a former deputy chief of the Israeli military who is now the leader of a left-wing political party.

Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting from Haifa, Israel, and Aaron Boxerman from Jerusalem.

The United Arab Emirates condemned the “military targeting” of Iran, and said it was concerned about the continued escalation in the region. The U.A.E. statement, issued by its foreign ministry, did not mention Israel.

Earlier, the government of Saudi Arabia also condemned the “military targeting” of Iran, saying the continued escalation threatened the stability of the region. The statement from the Saudi foreign ministry also did not mention Israel.

In a state television broadcast episode titled “An Ordinary Day in Tehran,” reporters stationed around Tehran, the capital, cheerfully proclaimed that all was well. Live shots showed a vegetable market and morning rush-hour traffic.

“Initial assessments suggest Israel’s operation was weak,” reported Tasnim, a semiofficial news agency affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards.

By midmorning, life in Tehran looked normal, according to people in the city. Children were in school, and adults had gone to work.

In the attack, Israel struck military bases in the provinces of Tehran, where the capital is located, Ilam and Khuzestan, according to Iran’s national air defense. Khuzestan is the center of Iran’s oil and gas fields and refineries.

Israel’s military said in a statement that it was “conducting precise strikes on military targets in Iran” in response to more than a year of attacks on Israel by Iran and its allied militias across the Middle East.

Iran supports Hamas, which led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Israel, which responded by launching a war in the Gaza Strip, says it is aiming to eradicate Hamas.

Iran’s national air defense said in a statement that the Israeli attacks had caused “limited damage” to the military bases and that further assessment was underway. It also said Iran’s air defense system had reduced the damages.

Two Iranian officials, one a member of the Revolutionary Guards, said that among the sites targeted in Tehran Province was the S-300 air defense of Imam Khomeini International Airport that provides defense cover for parts of the sprawling capital. The officials familiar with the attacks asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

In Tehran Province, at least three Revolutionary Guards missile bases were attacked, the officials said. In a second round of Israeli strikes, the officials said, Israeli drones targeted the secretive Parchin military base in the outskirts of Tehran and one drone hit the base while others were shot down, they added.

Pundits close to the government ridiculed Israel on social media to say that unlike Israelis, who fled to bunkers during Iran’s previous barrage of missile attacks, Iranians were on their roofs watching the “fire crackers.”

“We didn’t see anything, but they have seen a lot,” Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to the conservative speaker of Parliament, said in a post on X.

Analysts said that the attempts to persuade Iranians that the Israeli airstrikes were not a big deal could be an effort to allow the government an exit ramp if it decides to not respond and end the threat of wider war.

Iranian officials said before the attack that Iran’s response would depend on the severity and scope of Israel’s assault.

“The downplaying of the attacks by Israel, regardless of its scale or targets, indicates a deliberate effort to avoid escalating tensions and going to war,” said Omid Memarian, an Iran expert at DAWN, a Washington-based think tank that focuses on American foreign policy in the Middle East. “The Iranian regime knows it is at a significant disadvantage militarily.”

The White House expressed support for Israel’s operation, calling it targeted and proportionate, while expressing the belief that it should be the end of the direct military exchange between Israel and Iran. An official who briefed reporters said the United States would again come to Israel’s defense if Iran chooses to retaliate.

The administration official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity according to the ground rules of the call, said the Israeli attack was extensive but precise. The strikes aimed to effectively deter future Iranian attacks, the official said.

The Israeli agency responsible for coordinating aid to Gaza, known as COGAT, said Tuesday in a statement that nearly 480 aid trucks had entered the enclave in the week after Oct. 14, compared with 548 in the first two weeks of the month. While an increase, that was still short of the 350 aid trucks per day that the United States demanded be allowed to enter.

But getting aid into Gaza is only part of the battle, according to a U.N. official coordinating humanitarian assistance there for nearly a year. Those who pick up and distribute the desperately needed supplies then face bureaucracy, bombings, shootings, lawlessness and looting.

“COGAT is painting a picture of a massive volume of aid by articulating the number of trucks that reach the borders,” Georgios Petropoulos, who leads the Gaza office for OCHA, the United Nations agency for coordination of humanitarian affairs, said in an interview on Thursday. But while Israel tightly controls the aid that enters, humanitarian agencies must navigate a war-ravaged landscape, where criminality is rampant, without assistance and at huge risk, he contends.

COGAT has argued that its job is to get the aid to Gaza and that U.N. agencies are failing to distribute supplies inside the enclave. On Monday, COGAT wrote on social media that “600 trucks’ worth of aid” were “waiting to be picked up and distributed, the majority by U.N. aid agencies.” It said it had taken “many measures” to assist with collection.

COGAT has made this accusation repeatedly during the war. In June, in a post directed at the United Nations’ World Food Program, the Israeli agency displayed a photo of supplies that it said were waiting at an offloading area. “Stop making excuses and start playing your role as a humanitarian food organization and the head of the logistic cluster,” it said.

Mr. Petropoulos said that the Israeli authorities create a range of administrative obstacles and limits that prevent assistance pickups and distribution.

The Israeli authorities, for example, commonly deny aid efforts in the enclave. OCHA’s recent update on the humanitarian situation in Gaza reports that access for aid missions “remains severely restricted,” especially in the north and center. In the first three weeks of October, out of nearly 450 planned aid movements across Gaza that required coordination with the Israeli military, the military facilitated 36 percent and denied 45 percent, while the rest were impeded or canceled, OCHA said.

U.N. agencies are also facing their own infrastructure and supply constraints, in part because of military activity that has damaged warehouses, vehicles and roads, according to Mr. Petropoulos. “We never have enough cars or trucks. Our vehicles get destroyed,” he said. “We are being vilified for logistics capacity when we’re being bombed.”

In June, the World Food Program partly paused operations in Gaza after it said two of its warehouse complexes were hit by rockets. In August, it briefly suspended staff movements after it said that Israeli forces shot at its team in armored vehicles returning from a mission escorting a convoy of trucks with humanitarian cargo.

Humanitarian escorts like the ones that drew fire are essential because looting and lawlessness abound in Gaza, Mr. Petropoulos said. Notably, most of the aid reaches the southern crossing, forcing aid convoys to travel a notoriously perilous route known as “looters’ alley.”

Truck drivers who have to travel the treacherous route are often swarmed by organized criminal groups and robbed of their aid, Mr. Petropoulos said.

Some U.N. agencies in June suspended aid pickups, even amid a humanitarian pause in fighting, saying the looting in Gaza was endangering their staff. Trucks get raided not just for food and critical supplies but also by looters in search of contraband, like cigarettes.

Ultimately, about 30 percent of the aid that enters Gaza ends up looted en route, Mr. Petropoulos said. This not only means less humanitarian assistance reaches people in critical need, but it also further warps an extremely distorted local economy, where there are severe spikes in the prices for basic, necessary items.

Still, he said, “I don’t see an interest from Israel to stamp out looting or give us different routes.”