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Iran Attacks Israel – The New York Times

April 14, 2024


Iran’s missile attack on Israel has ended, for now, and virtually none of the missiles reached their targets.

Iran last night launched more than 300 drones and missiles in retaliation for an apparent Israeli strike on an Iranian embassy two weeks ago. Iran’s attacks caused minor damage at one military base, and shrapnel seriously injured a 7-year-old girl from an Arab Bedouin community in southern Israel. But Israel intercepted most of the drones and missiles. The U.S. and Jordan also shot some down.

The big question this morning is whether the conflict between the two countries will now return to its previous situation — a long-running shadow war — or enter a more dangerous new stage.

Last night did represent something new: Experts believe it was the first time Iran attacked Israel from Iranian territory. But Iran telegraphed the attack days in advance, and it did not cause extensive casualties — which increases the likelihood that both countries will be willing to de-escalate.

Today’s newsletter tells you what else we know. You can follow the developments all day on The Times’s website and app.

  • Air-raid sirens sounded across Israel around 2 a.m. Loud booms rang out in Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Explosions illuminated the night sky as Israel, the U.S. and Jordan intercepted the missiles. (See video of the attack.)

  • The weapons that Iran used were more sophisticated than those that Hamas (which Iran finances) and other groups have recently fired at Israel. Last night’s weapons “can travel much farther, and some of them can travel much faster,” our colleague Jin Yu Young explained.

  • Some Iranians gathered in Tehran to celebrate the attack. Others stockpiled fuel.

  • Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, wrote on social media: “We intercepted. We blocked. Together we will win.” Hamas expressed support for the attack.

  • The attacks prompted emergency diplomacy. President Biden expressed “ironclad” support for Israel and planned a meeting with the Group of 7 leaders today. The United Nations Security Council is also expected to convene. Israel’s war cabinet is set to meet today.

  • Israel’s defense minister said that the confrontation with Iran was “not over.” A top Iranian official wrote on social media: “The matter can be deemed concluded. However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe.”

  • Some analysts said that the attack was mostly performative. Michael Singh, a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the U.S. National Security Council, told The Wall Street Journal, that it was “a slow-moving, thoroughly telegraphed, and ultimately unsuccessful retaliation.”

  • Other experts called the attack more significant. Ahron Bregman, an expert at King’s College in London, called it an “historic event.” It brought Iran’s long shadow war against Israel into the open. The two rivals have no direct channels of communication, which can lead to dangerous military miscalculations.

  • One reason to believe Israel may respond: “Any normalization of direct strikes by Iran is intolerable to the Israeli public and leadership,” The Economist magazine wrote. Dana Stroul, the former top Middle East policy official at the Pentagon, said, “Given how significant this attack was, it is difficult to see how Israel cannot respond.”

  • Understand the shadow war: We recommend this article by Alissa Rubin and Lazaro Gamio. Iran largely fights through its proxies, like Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran provides arms, training, and financial aid to more than 20 groups in the Middle East. Israel conducts much of its fighting through espionage and assassinations.

  • The Vessel, a 150-foot-tall sculpture in Manhattan, will reopen this year with new safety measures. It was closed in 2021 after a series of suicides.

  • Pittsburgh reopened a bridge that it closed as a precaution after barges broke loose on the Ohio River.

  • O.J. Simpson owed millions to the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson at the time of his death.

A senior NPR editor accused his outlet of having a liberal bias. Is he right?

The claim: NPR’s coverage of multiple issues — Covid, Hunter Biden’s laptop, the war in Gaza — shows that “people at every level of NPR have comfortably coalesced around the progressive worldview,” Uri Berliner, the NPR editor, writes for The Free Press. “An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR.”

The defense: Edith Chapin, an NPR news executive, rejected Berliner’s claims. “We’re proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories,” she wrote. Here’s a longer NPR story.

Liberals should refuse tax breaks that help themselves but worsen the wealth gap, Matthew Desmond argues.

Open letters demanding a cease-fire in Gaza and the return of hostages are performative and distract from meaningful action, Roxane Gay writes.

Extinction: Should we change species to save them? Some scientists think so.

Hello from the Masters: At the golf tournament, where cellphones are forbidden, fans make calls the old-fashioned way — using a landline.

Nostalgia: Chain, a restaurant in Los Angeles, reminds diners of burgers and pizza from another era.

Vows: A high school reunion reignited a 50-year crush.

Lives Lived: Faith Ringgold was an artist whose quilts depicting the African American experience gave rise to a second distinguished career as a writer and illustrator of children’s books. She died at 93.

I’ll be part of a new Q. and A. franchise, The Interview, starting this month. Before then I’m sharing some of my favorite past conversations. This one is with the legendary musician and producer Brian Eno, whom I found inspiring.

Almost all recorded music now is ambient music, in that it’s used as background while we do other stuff. But it doesn’t feel like musicians are responding to that reality in any interesting ways. Is there more that musicians could be doing?

There’s certainly more to be done. What I’ve become interested in is listening clubs, where people get together and listen to a record. There are signs that people are resisting the atomization of everything. It’s suited capitalism to have us all as separate as possible because then we have to buy things individually. People are getting fed up with that and wanting to do things together.

I’m curious about what you think of the idea of “disruption.”

It depends how it’s used. For people like Steve Bannon, destruction is their main tool. They think, OK, if we can create chaos, we know how to benefit. This is why I talk about the climate movement, because that’s anti-chaos. That’s a knitting-together of people.

Insofar as you have a public image, it’s as an extremely cerebral figure. But it’s clear that emotions drive a lot of what you do. So what’s an emotion driving you now?

I recently found this gospel song on YouTube. Donald Vails is playing piano on it. Billy Preston is playing organ. They’re in a room with a mixed bunch of people. What’s fantastic is seeing these people singing to one another. We’ve been so atomized over the last 50, 100 years and told that the real human is the one who can stand alone. The real human, to me, seems like the one who can support his neighbors and work with them.

Read more of the interview here.

Times best sellers: “Table for Two,” a collection of short stories and a novella by Amor Towles, is new this week on the hardcover fiction list.

Use an excellent ice cream scoop.

Improve the smell in your house with an oil diffuser.

Unlock a two-factor authentication when you can’t get in.

  • Tax Day is tomorrow.

  • Trump’s hush-money trial in Manhattan begins tomorrow.

  • The Olympic flame lighting ceremony is on Tuesday in Greece. The flame will journey to Paris for the Summer Olympics.

  • The Senate is scheduled to hold a hearing on Wednesday with a Boeing engineer about the company’s manufacturing practices.

  • India’s general elections begin on Friday, and run until June.

In this week’s Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter, Krysten Chambrot offers recipes that utilizes your freezer food. She suggests using frozen ground turkey in a spicy skillet dish, or shrimp for a one-pot coconut rice dish.



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