Israel vows to acknowledge to Iranian drone attack

To our viewers you're seeing some of this video right now these are some of the projectiles some of them drones unclear specifically what we're seeing and where this is but we know that the Iron Dome and the intercepts have been at play including assets from the United States they have been responding and intercepting some of those projectiles.

Let's bring in ABC's Chief Global Affairs correspondent Martha Ritz who is joining us now on the phone Martha uh you've been sending some some emails some reports from your sources what do we know about these missiles and drones that Iran is sending to Israel now with the Us official I have been speaking to this evening said they expect 400 to 500.

Drones and missiles to be heading towards Israel that is clearly happening right now as you know many a wave of drones were launched several hours ago the missiles have been launched more recently uh just about 150 missiles so far but then that swarm of drones and the Iran Ians have timed this so they all go towards their target.

At once they are indeed trying to overwhelm the air defenses another really important Point here with is that the US is clearly involved in trying to intercept the Us official told me they're trying to intercept everything they can they're doing that from the Red Sea they're doing that from the Mediterranean and throughout the Middle.

East where they do have air defenses others are trying to help as well this comes after the Iranians warned the us not to help to stay out of it basically according to this Us official Iranians said to the US if you don't involve yourselves in this we will stay away from you and yet tonight we are seeing that the US is shooting down missiles.

Drones whatever they can do to keep them away from Israel and to try to keep Israelis safe they've also according to this Us official these drones and missiles are headed towards three military facilities uh they said they do not think they are purposely uh aiming at civilian areas but these are not completely accurate drones or missiles.

And there could certainly be as Brit pointed out some sort of damage from these not only from the missiles or drones themselves that they may not be able to intercept uh but from falling debris as well with and Martha we know that Israel one of the most sophisticated air defense systems in the world we talk about the Iron Dome and.

Then the support from the US now is it your sense in talking to your sources that the magnitude of this attack from Iran is a surprise in any way or is this consistent with what they were expecting I I think it is a surprise I think it is larger than they expected much worse than they expected and they are so focused on trying to get these missiles.

And drones down but even if they get 85% of them down it's bound to hit something they're bound to for some of those missiles are drones to get through to their target if right now what we're seeing and and Brit there right in the middle of it seeing these swarms of drones these swarms of missiles uh that really could overwhelm the system a.

Standby uh for us for a moment if you could I want to go back to Britt clanet because Brit I understand you're hearing Sirens right now in Jerusalem um if you're able to hear us can you tell us what you're seeing what you're hearing at the moment at the moment with we not it that doesn't mean that it's not happening in other parts of.

Jerusalem but this does seem to be a period of eerie quiet especially after uh we heard that those several uh interceptions and as I say the Wailing of uh of the air raid sirens but as far as I can see uh it doesn't seem like there are any interceptions at the moment or any imminent okay Brit thank you uh Martha I'd like.

To bring you back in here because you were talking about uh the calculation from the US and of course for weeks the the the move has been to try to prevent an escalation across the region what does this do uh to our position right now and how does the US respond militarily I I I think the US will do everything possible not to respond.

Militarily they want to put themselves in a defensive position to defend Israel not to go after Iran but what they are most worried about now is how Israel responds to this what Israel does and proportional how do they look at a proportional after what they have just seen if indeed there is loss of life I would imagine that Israel's response.

Will be larger than if there is not and that's one of those things that the president and his National Security team are talking about tonight they have obviously been in touch with Israel all week uh and and the Israelis about how they would respond trying to Tamp this down but with 400 500 possible drones and missiles expected this evening it's.

Pretty hard to tell Israel what to do and Martha we know that President Biden and prime minister Netanyahu have a frosty relationship they they had a conversation recently but is there any suggestion that you know when the us or or President Biden uh makes these pleas uh to Netanyahu and his government that they would ask actually listen to them.

Um or or continue to go forward with their own plans well you know over the several months President Biden of course has been talking to prime minister Netanyahu asking them to please let more humanitarian Aid into Gaza to please take more care with civilian casualties and prime minister Netanyahu has basically said this is our fight uh stay.

Out of it essentially uh the White House keeps going back to them they're getting stronger and stronger on that and yet it this situation tonight is so unpredictable we don't know how this will end we don't know what we'll get through if anything we're obviously hoping nothing gets through to Israel uh and all of these are shot down but it is.

Just as you say w with it's a very fraught relationship and Israel is right in the middle of a huge escalation right now all right Martha rits for us our chief Global Affairs correspondent thank you so much we truly appreciate it I want to bring in our uh senior White House correspondent Selena Wang who's been tracking all of this Selena we know.

That President Biden was supposed to be continuing his his weekend in Delaware but he went back to the White House early today to meet with his National Security team they were in The Situation Room what are you hearing from the administration right now exactly what he cut his weekend trip short and I'm told by officials that he has been holed up.

In the situation room for hours and they're just wrapping that meeting up with his top National Security advisers the president though he's making very clear tonight that America's support of isra defense is Ironclad despite that very frosty relationship between Netanyahu and President Biden as you were just talking about with Martha he.

Is making that distinction very clear now look the White House is on high alert they've been on high alert for days and officials tell me that anxieties here are running very high because the US is very worried about how Israel could respond to this and how this could widen this war this is exactly what the president has been.

Avoiding thus far he's been very careful to calibrate and to message to all the part partners and allies to Israel not to escalate and to contain this yeah President Biden was asked this week what's your message to Iran if they're considering an attack on Israel his message was pretty blunt he said don't um that said Selena the White House has.

Been press repeatedly about what the response would be from the US uh we heard Martha talking about this that the the US for the most part in a supporting role here but do you have any more information about what our involvement could be I know that we sent new additional resources to the region we're talking ships and Manpower what can you.

Tell us about that exactly what I mean the US was trying to prepare for this situation though they wanted to avoid this so they were already surging military assets to the region because a big vulnerability here is US forces so they want to protect those US forces in the region and for days now the US has been telegraphing to Iran as you say do.

Not do this do not Target US forces the US has made clear that they didn't know about this Damascus strike beforehand they weren't involved in it their message to Iran is don't get us pulled into this don't get us involved so that is very much the message the president has been delivering it's unclear what this relationship like with Netanyahu is.

Going to be going forward and trying to understand what the Israeli response is going to be remember not too long ago President Biden issued his strongest criticism of Netanyahu yet and said if you don't do more if you don't do enough to protect civilians in Gaza then we could change our policy towards Israel that could mean withholding us Aid if.

Israel doesn't do enough and officials tell me that what the president has laid out in terms of getting more humanitarian Aid in opening those border crossings officials tell me that is really the president's Baseline and if even that doesn't get accomplished well then we've got a problem here Selena Wang for us at the White House thank you.

So much let's bring in Colonel Steve ganard our ABC News contributor and Steve I just want to talk about the unprecedented nature of this attack Iran going after Israel directly within its borders have we ever seen anything like this well we've never seen uh an attack directly by Iran on Israel that's unprecedented but the numbers here are.

What's so amazing R 4 to 500 incoming drones and missiles that's unprecedented for any air defense system now we know that the Israelis have the most sophisticated and capable uh integrated air and missile defense capability but 4 to 500 means that it probably is almost inevitable that some are going to get through it's interesting to look at the.

Kinds of videos that that we see Brit bringing from from Jerusalem um we're talking about the Iron Dome and everybody's familiar with the Iron Dome and what that does against some of the short range missiles coming out of Gaza but the Israelis have a layered defense so it's Iron Dome at the lower altitudes then there's another system called David.

Sling which is the medium altitudes and then for very high ballistic missile intercepts there's the A2 missile and so a lot of what we seem to be seeing here is not uh is more the David sling it's less Iron Dome so David sling a bit of a newer system but it does reach up higher and it does seem to be intercepting these incoming uh Iranian taxs at a.

Higher altitude so Steve let me ask you more about that because you know beyond the the drones and we're talking about potentially hundreds from Iran tonight uh we also know that they have an elaborate ballistic missile system um talk to us about the difference and the type of damage that these missiles could do this is very different than like the.

Rockets that we typically typically seen see being shot from like Gaza or from Hezbollah into Israel right there's still conflicting reports with about whether the Iranians actually have launched ballistic missiles but that's what that A2 system is it's a very high altitude uh ballistic M missile Interceptor so it's not easy to.

Intercept ballistic missiles but the A2 has proven quite capable so that's the real concern here because if Iran starts launching these long range ballistic missiles that is going to provoke Israel in a way to make sure that its response is going to be overwhelming so what we see tonight with 4 to 500 missiles and and drones coming inbound uh I think.

That the what's that the Iranians have bought themselves a a retaliatory strike that will uh be uh uh much more from the from the Israelis than they provided tonight and what could an Israeli retaliatory strike look like well Israel has a lot more capability to project power than Iran does so they have a very capable Air Force they have F-35 stealth.

Fighters uh very capable f-15s they have Cruise uh missiles that could be launched from submarines and from ships uh so the air power the the capability of the Israeli Air Force is far beyond anything that the Iranians have and the the Israeli Air Force can own the airspace over Iran so between that and the ships at Sea uh the Israelis have a.

Lot of options in how they retaliate Steve another thing that has surprised a lot of people in watching this play out tonight Jerusalem not typically a place where you would see you know Rockets or projectiles shot to uh obviously a mixed population you have Jews you have Muslims and and these holy sites um and you talked about the potential for.

Something going wrong even if they weren't targeting a place like Jerusalem if one of these projectiles or you know a rocket dropped and and injured civilians how significant would something like that be yeah well apparently the Iranians went claim that they're only going after military sites there is a significant uh.

Missile base that is very close to Jerusalem so that may be what uh what Brit is seeing and hearing if they do go after military bases then obviously the Israelis have put quite a bit of their air defenses around those military bases but it's one of these things where the more that comes in uh it's more of a problem to solve and it makes it much.

More difficult for the uh the Iron Dome and the David slang in the arrow to figure out what's incoming and a danger and what's not with this idea that if you you hit them where the where does the debris go does it hurt people on the ground and Steve let's talk about the US here we know that we're shooting down some of these projectiles but what's the.

Likelihood this draws us deeper into a regional conflict now this is a real concern Whit because we know that the Iranians earlier in the week were very clear that if the US helped Israel uh defend against the attack that Iran was said was coming that US forces in the region would become fair game so we now we have forces in Iraq we have forces in.

Jordan we have forces uh in the Red Sea so all of a sudden after weeks of the Iranian uh surrogates not coming after US forces in the region we now know that uh these forces are now fair game and open to attack by Iran so there's a real danger here that if Iran miscalculates and uh goes after US forces and it's clear that Iran was the uh was the.

Instigator uh then that could very easily draw the us into a wider Middle East War that's truly been a major concern for for months since that October 7th attack Steve ganard for us thank you so much let's bring in ABC's senior Pentagon reporter Louie Martinez uh Louie I know that you've got a lot of sources on this and you've been.

Confirming much of this information throughout the evening uh what more are you learning tonight and and have we heard any update on whether any of these projectiles from Iran have actually landed uh and done any damage in Israel it's unclear exactly if the from us sources officially yet whether something has actually landed inside.

Israel what we are hearing from us officials is that United States forces in the region are shooting down whatever uh drones or missiles may be headed towards Israel if they're capable uh you spoke earlier about exactly uh about additional assets being sent into the region uh we are aware that two US Navy destroyers are in the region but I think.

That's more for long distance um intercepts um but we do know that the United States does have in both Iraq and Jordan uh some air def systems and it appears that at least some of those air defense systems were boosted in advance of this IR Iraq Iranian retaliation and so therefore one can assume that those um missile systems have been used now to.

Bring some down at least some of these Iranian drones and missiles that have been headed towards Israel and Louis we know that the US added additional um assets into the region can you talk more about that and are we talking about potentially you know like boots on the ground not necessarily on the ground but on on battleships and whatnot throughout.

The region uh that's right with not inside Israel proper we are talking outside of Israel that's where US forces are located we know uh that there are 2500 US forces inside Iraq that there's about 900 that are inside of Syria but there is also a sizable component inside of Jordan and so those locations do have.

Air defense systems already so it's very likely that uh these air defense systems were boosted in advance of this retaliatory strike in fact we were told that the US was sending more Personnel to the ground there in the region as well as air assets that means aviation aircraft um and also um Naval and that's those two destroyers that we're talking.

About that are located in the eastern Med Mediterranean and what they do is they have the capability of shooting down both longdistance incoming missiles and shorter range missiles but I think as we're talking about us forces shooting down these drones and missiles on their way to uh Israel I think we can assume it's those shorter uh distance.

Systems that the United States employs when it tries to shoot down anything that's incoming towards their bases and Louie can I pick up on something that that Steve mentioned there I know we got to confirmed that there were drones and missiles um but we were talking about the the ballistic missile system that Iran has do we have any confirmation.

That they've launched any of those yet towards Israel no confirmation yet from officials that I've been speaking to with but again uh this is a developing situation and one of the things that we've been told as as per Martha R is reporting is that overall the US is anticipating somewhere between 4 and 500.

Drones and missiles being launched at Israel that means this is going to take some time so potentially some of those longer range if faster moving ballistic missiles uh could be used but no I don't have anything yet uh from any officials I'm talking to right now if anything we're talking about the cruise missiles that have been launched um and we should.

Point out that even though it is a missile cruise missiles do take some time to get to their targets as well well they are not as fast moving as ballistic missiles which take uh much faster shorter time to get to her location because they go up higher in the air and then they strike at their targets Louis Martinez for us thank you.

So much uh standby we'll come back to you if we get new information there I do want to go back to Martha Raditz if we could because Martha is we're just watching all of this play out all we can really do is go back through history and see kind sort of how um the US and Israel and Iran have responded to conflicts in the past and we know that.

Not long ago a few years ago it was the United States that took out a key Iranian commander and that came with an Iranian response how does that compare to what we're seeing now it it sure did prompt a response with and it prompted a response from Iran to go after US troops in Iraq uh hundred at least a hundred were injured injured with uh traumatic.

Brain injury some of it very very minor uh but still they launched missiles and Rockets towards a US base this was after the Drone strike on kasm solomani in January of 2020 the Iranian Major General uh who was head of the kuds force a revered figure in Iran I was there just days after he was taken out by a us drone in Iraq in a targeted.

Drone strike on solomani the US said there an attack was imminent something he was planning it's never really been revealed exactly what he was planning but some sort of attack according to us officials who I have spoken to now the response from Iran on that and that attack in uh in Iraq I think was probably tamped down because in those.

Days and I happen to be there in tran when this happened that the that the Iranians accidentally shot down a commercial airliner if you if you remember and it was shortly after uh missiles were launched but then they accidentally shot down that commercial aircraft and I think they tamped down any further action after that but they.

Have issued fwas against all of the people including uh General Mark Millie uh including Donald Trump anyone who was involved with that drone strike on solamoni they say they are after those people so that does remain and that's the kind response uh that Iran will likely have if Israel if if Israel Strikes Back which they will uh no.

Matter what happens tonight you will see a retaliation according to the US officials I have been talking to you will absolutely see some sort of retaliation but then what does Iran do and you go back and forth and back and forth and that's why this is so serious uh tonight what is happening what the response will be what the counter.

Response will be and again just to remind our viewers who may just be turning in Iran had been vowing uh for days to retaliate for Israel's deadly strike on the Iranian Consulate in Syria that was on April 1st 12 days ago that killed 13 people including several top Iranian military leaders and Martha if I could come back to you because a lot of.

The intelligence and correct me if I'm wrong but the intelligence that we've been hearing from both Israeli and US sources in recent weeks was that Iran didn't want a wider Regional conf and that Iran preferred to operate you know sort of standing behind their proxies in in in in Lebanon and in other places like Yemen um so did something change.

Tonight is this a signal that something's changed you know what the answer to that is I think we don't know exactly and we certainly didn't know it was going to be this big particularly with the US wanting them not to escalate please please don't escalate uh we understand there'll be some sort of response uh.

Surely they knew also that Israel would do everything possible to try to shoot down those drones and missiles so they certainly knew that 500 missiles and drones weren't going to hit Target and according to the US official I talked to they are targeting military facilities so maybe that's how they see this as not a huge escalation but by any definition.

This is an escalation and you know what I I'm thinking tonight that how the people of Iran are feeling about this and about what is happening after the death of solomani I was in crowds of more than 100,000 people in the streets who were it was death to America it was death to Israel You're going to hear a lot of that on the street soon too yeah.

And the people of Iran also know that Israel is likely to respond too and they will be bracing for that Martha Raditz thank you so much joining us now on the phone is sea shine a former official at Israel's Ministry of strategic Affairs SEMA thank you than you so much for joining us right now I wonder if you could give us any insight on what's.

Happening uh forgive me uh we don't we don't have SEMA right now but let's let's go back to Selena Wang at the White House our senior White House correspondent um Selen just wondering what more you might be hearing from the administration we know President Biden was in the situation room with his top National Security advisers and as the.

Night has gone on we've been hearing more and more about the US intercepting and Tak taking down some of these projectiles do you have any more information about what we're doing behind the scenes well what I am learning that that meeting is wrapping up in the Situation Room the president was there with his National Security.

Team for several hours they're trying to assess this situation and calibrate the US response but really the focus of the president here is deterrence and defense and protecting those US forces in the region already sending more military assets to the Middle East to try and protect them as you say the US has already been trying to help Israel to to.

Intercept that barrage of missiles and drones coming through the US wants to intercept as much as they can but really for President Biden and what's putting this entire White House on edge with anxieties running so high is as Martha Ritz was saying is how Israel is going to respond the president throughout this conflict since October 7th since the.

Middle East tensions have flared he has been laser focused on conf keeping this conflict contained trying to avoid that escalation and now we're at a point that the president did not want to be in he did not want Iran to respond and of course also frustrated that Israel did not give the US a heads up about that Damascus strike in the first place so.

Very difficult situation for the president to be in and taking his eyes off the ball he had on earlier which was to help negotiate that ceasefire between Hamas and Israel Selena forgive me we're just I was just getting some new information here uh as we're following this just a reminder to our viewers what you're.

Seeing right now this video this is Iran launching an attack directly on Israel some of this video coming in of various projectiles some of them could be drones or missiles were told potentially by the hundreds fired from Iran directly into Israel and the US has played a role in taking down some of those projectiles as of right now we don't have any.

Confirmation that any of those have landed within Israel caused any damage or casualties we're still standing by for information on that so so far the efforts to intercept have been successful again President Biden today was brought back to the White House he was supposed to spend the weekend in Delaware but came back early so that he.

Could meet with his National Security team in the situation room we saw some of those pictures from earlier today we're going to stay on top of all of this our coverage continues on ABC News live and abcnews.com we'll have a full wrap up tomorrow on Good Morning America I'm with Johnson in New York have a good night.

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