The Israeli army said it launched "precise" attacks on targets in Iran in retaliation for Iranian attacks on Israel earlier this month.
"In response to months of continuous attacks from the regime in Iran against the state of Israel, right now, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) is conducting precise strikes on military targets in Iran," an IDF spokesman said in a video statement.
"The regime in Iran and its proxies in the region have been relentlessly attacking Israel since October 7 on several fronts, including direct attacks from Iranian soil,” it added.
The announcement comes after several explosions were reported to have rocked the Iranian capital, Tehran, and nearby city of Karaj, local media reported in the early hours of October 26.
State television and the Fars news agency, which is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), as well as CNN, also reported the explosions.
SEE ALSO: Israel Is Trying To 'Weaken' Hezbollah As a Political And Economic ForceIran has been on edge for several weeks, with many government officials and observers around the globe saying they expect Israel to strike its archrival in retaliation for an Iranian missile attack earlier this month -- which Tehran said was in itself retaliation for an earlier attack by Israel.
The IDF spokesman added that, "like every other sovereign country in the world, the state of Israel has the right and the duty to respond."
The Israeli strikes reportedly did not target energy or nuclear facilities.
Some media outlets reported a second wave of Israeli attacks on the Iranian city of Shiraz, but Iranian state television said there were no strikes anywhere else and Israel did not comment.
White House National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said Washington was advised of the strikes ahead of time, calling them "an exercise of self-defense and in response to Iran's ballistic-missile attack against Israel on October 1."
Around the same time, an Israeli air strike targeted some military sites in Syria's central and southern parts, according to the Syrian state SANA news agency.
Concerns have been growing that Iran and the United States would be drawn into a regional war amid Israel's intensifying assault in Lebanon on Hezbollah -- a militant group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon.
The air strikes that have hit Beirut and southern Lebanon have been accompanied by a ground operation.
Hezbollah, designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, while the European Union blacklists its armed wing but not its political party -- has supported another Iran-backed group, Hamas, which has been the target of a withering assault by Israel over the past year.
Hamas, which has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, triggered the current war when its fighters crossed into Israel on October 7, 2023, and killed some 1,200 people. They also took around 251 hostages back to the Gaza Strip.