Iran said an Israeli strike targeted military sites in the Islamic republic on Saturday, killing two soldiers, nearly a month after Israel vowed to retaliate a barrage of missiles that raised fears of a full-scale Middle East war.

The Israeli military said its retaliatory airstrikes hit Iran’s missile manufacturing facilities, missile installations and other systems in several regions. It warned Iran that it would “pay a heavy price” if it reacted.

Iran confirmed that an Israeli strike had targeted military sites in Tehran province surrounding the capital and other parts of the country, saying it caused “limited damage”. The armed forces later said two soldiers were killed in the strikes.

Israel had vowed to retaliate against Iran for its barrage of 200 missiles on October 1, the second ever direct attack by Iran on its archenemy. Most of these missiles were intercepted but one person was killed.

The Israeli retaliation drew condemnation from Hamas and Saudi Arabia, which warned of further escalation.

Israel is already engaged in fighting on two fronts, an all-out war against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon since last month, and in Gaza, where Israel has been fighting Palestinian Hamas militants for more than a year and the UN warned the “darkest moment” of that conflict was developing.

“Based on intelligence, IAF (Air Force) aircraft struck missile manufacturing facilities used to manufacture the missiles Iran fired at the State of Israel over the past year,” Israel’s military said in a statement.

Iran has carried out two direct missile strikes on Israel since April, but for more than a year Hezbollah, armed and funded by Tehran, has been firing across Israel’s border.

“At the same time, the IDF (military) struck surface-to-air missile arrays and additional Iranian air capabilities,” the Israeli military said, adding that “the retaliatory strike has been completed and the mission accomplished.”

Israeli aircraft “returned safely,” a military spokesman added.

Two dead in Israel

Along with Hezbollah and Hamas, armed groups in Yemen, Iraq and Syria, also aligned with Iran, have carried out attacks as a result of the Gaza war.

Around the same time Israel struck Iran, the Syrian state news agency SANA said an Israeli airstrike targeted military positions in central and southern Syria.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose network of pro-Iranian factions, claimed responsibility before dawn on Saturday for a drone attack on a “military target” in northern Israel.

After the attacks on Iran ceased, the Israeli military said two drones had been intercepted crossing Israel from Lebanon.

On Friday, two people died of shrapnel wounds after a Hezbollah rocket launched into northern Israel, Israeli officials said.

US National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said Israel’s response to Iran was “an exercise in self-defense” that focused solely on military targets.

He called on Iran to “cease its attacks on Israel so that this cycle of fighting can end without further escalation”, and said the US was trying to “speed up diplomacy”.

The Israeli military accused “Iran and its proxies” in the region of “relentlessly attacking Israel since October 7,” when Hamas’ attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.

That attack left 1,206 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP report citing official Israeli figures.

Dozens of prisoners seized that day are still being held by militants in Gaza.

Israel’s retaliatory bombing and ground war in Gaza has killed 42,847 people, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry, figures the United Nations considers reliable.

The flight resumes

In late September, Israel turned its focus to Lebanon, escalating its bombardment of targets it said were linked to Hezbollah, then sending in ground troops. Israel said the goal is to make the north of the country safe for tens of thousands of Israelis to return.

At least 1,580 people have been killed in Lebanon since September 23, according to AFP figures from the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

Pre-dawn Iran suspended all flights but the civil aviation authority later announced that flights would “return to normal” from 09:00 (0530 GMT).

In its first ever direct attack on Israeli territory, Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles in April. It said the barrage was in retaliation for an attack on Iran’s consular annex in Damascus that killed members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Explosions later in April rocked Iran’s Isfahan province in what US officials, quoted by US media, said was Israeli retaliation.

Iran’s air defense force confirmed on Saturday that an Israeli attack had targeted several military bases.

“This fake regime (Israel) attacked parts of military centers in Tehran, Khuzestan and Ilam provinces,” it said in a statement, adding that the attack “caused limited damage” while it was intercepted.

Iranian state television had reported explosions around the capital due to the “activation of the air defense system” against an Israeli attack.

An AFP reporter in Tehran also heard explosions.

Possible “atrocious crimes”

Iran said its October 1 missile attack on Israel was in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike that killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and a Revolutionary Guard general in Lebanon, as well as the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

On Friday, Gaza’s health ministry accused Israeli forces of storming the last functioning hospital in the territory’s north in a raid that reportedly left two children dead.

The Israeli military said its forces were operating around the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp but were “unaware of live fire and strikes in the area surrounding the hospital”.

The Israeli military says it is trying to destroy the operational capability Hamas is trying to rebuild in the north.

Also in northern Gaza on Friday, Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli drone strikes killed 12 people waiting for help near the Al-Shati refugee camp. There was no immediate comment from the military.

Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Israel’s policies in northern Gaza “risk emptying the area of ​​all Palestinians”.

“We are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes, including potentially expanding to crimes against humanity.”

He said that “Unbelievably, the situation is getting worse every day.”