DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israel launched airstrikes early Saturday on what it described as military targets in Iran in retaliation for a ballistic missile assault October 1, officials said. There is no immediate information on damage in the Islamic Republic.

The attack, threatened for weeks by Israel, comes amid fears of a regional war erupting more than a year after an initial attack by the terrorist group Hamas on Israel.

In the time since, Israel has launched a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and an invasion of neighboring Lebanon, targeting terrorists long armed and aided by Tehran.

Israel’s military described the attack Saturday as “precise strikes on military targets in Iran,” without immediately elaborating.

“The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since Oct. 7 … including direct attacks from Iranian soil,” an Israeli military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said in a prerecorded video statement. “Like every other sovereign country in the world, the State of Israel has the right and the duty to respond.”

At Tehran, the Iranian capital, the sound of explosions could be heard, with state-run media there initially acknowledging the blasts and saying some of the sounds came from air defense systems around the city.

A Tehran resident said that at least seven explosions could be heard, which rattled the surrounding area. The resident spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

International flights began diverting around western Iran as news of the strikes broke, flight-tracking data showed. Beyond a brief reference, though, Iranian state television offered no other details and even began showing what it described as live footage of men loading trucks at a vegetable market at Tehran in an attempt to downplay the assault.

Meanwhile, Syrian state news agency SANA, citing an unnamed military official, reported “barrages of missiles from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan and Lebanese territories targeted some military sites in the southern and central regions” of Syria early Saturday. It said that Syria’s air defenses had shot some of the missiles down. There was no immediate information on casualties.

Iran has launched two ballistic missile attacks on Israel in recent months amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip that began with the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.