The Biden administration is weighing “appropriate next steps” after Iran’s missile attack against Israel on Tuesday, according to White House national-security adviser Jake Sullivan.
“Obviously this is a significant escalation by Iran, a significant event, and it is equally significant that we were able to step up with Israel and create a situation in which no one was killed in this attack in Israel, so far as we know at this time,” Sullivan said during a press briefing on Tuesday afternoon.
“We are now going to look at what the appropriate next steps are to secure first and foremost American interests, and then to promote stability to the maximum extent possible as we go forward,” he added.
Iran launched a barrage of roughly 180 ballistic missiles toward the Jewish State earlier on Tuesday in an attack that lasted less than an hour and caused very few reported injuries.
Sullivan said the attack seemed to be “defeated and ineffective.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said explosions seen above Israel were either successful interceptions or missiles that evaded Israel’s air-defense system and hit open land.
The White House anticipated the attack in response to Israel’s targeted airstrike on Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on Friday. The U.S. warned earlier Tuesday that a direct assault on Israel would “carry severe consequences for Iran.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the assassinations of Nasrallah and other terrorist leaders were the reason for the missile attack on Israel.
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israel plans to respond to the attack, saying, “We have plans, and we will act in the time and place that we choose.”
Shortly before the missile attack began, at least six people were killed in an apparent mass shooting in the Jaffa neighborhood of Tel Aviv, according to the Times of Israel. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the shooting, which left another nine people injured.