this is an abc this is an abc news special report. >> whit: good evening. i'm whit johnson. and we're coming on the air of breaking news, iran launching an

attack on israel. a dramatic escalation of violence in the region. u.s. forces have shot down some of those iranian drones. you can see some of the iranian project tiles reached israel. air raid sirens heard. israel's defense is intercepting. iran vowed to retaliate for the strike on the consulate in syria killing 13 team, including several top leaders. israel has been on high alert for days now. president biden returning to the white house, meeting with his national security team in the situation room. let's get right to brit, who is in israel. brit, i understand you are in jerusalem. at sometimes you even had to take shelter. describe what you are seeing right now. >> reporter: yeah. so about an hour ago, we were seeing trailing of orange, these

orange flashes in the sky. and then the thud of israel's air defense in action. it almost sounded like thunder. there was at least a dozen project tiles in all directions behind me. drones, possible rockets appearing to head west. now, they were intercepted by air defense probably every few minutes over a period of 15 minutes. there were also air raid sirens wailing or jerusalem. it is a tense atmosphere here tonight. we don't know how many more might be coming or whether the air defense systems might be overwhelmed. there are just too many unknowns. there is also danger of falling debris when those projectiles are intercepted. it does feel like an ominous escalation here tonight. >> we have heard the drones and/or missiles on their way to israel. brit, just to clarify, at this moment, do we have any word that any of these projectiles landed or hit infrastructure or

buildings? >> reporter: there are reports, whit, but nothing confirmed yet. here in jerusalem, we haven't ourselves seen anything being actually landed or launched and actually successfully fallen on any targets or any civilian infrastructure here. so at the moment, around from what we can see, it does seem like most of those projectiles have been intercepted. >> whit: whit and, brit, one of the things we have been hearing repeatedly from israeli officials is that they are not only prepared to defend but ready to attack. what are those officials saying now after this attack has begun? >> reporter: well, netanyahu, the prime minister of israel, he came out and made it very clear that not only are air d ready, t that any country that hurts israel, israel will hurt it. and we've been hearing again and again from israeli officials

that any attack from iran launched directly from iran, which is what we've seen tonight. and that will be a first in history wit that they will respond with an attack on iran today. we've seen schools closed and gatherings banned until monday night. the main airport has been shut. israeli air defense has also been shut. so israel very much hunkered down at the same time. they're making it very clear that they can handle this and that they will respond. >> all right, britt clennett for us, please stand by and please stay safe. i know you and your team do have a shelter to get to if needed. again, to our viewers, you're seeing some of this video right now. these are some of the projectiles, some of them drones. unclear specifically what we're seeing and where this is, but we know that the iron dome and the intercepts have been at play, including assets from the united states. they have been responding and intercepting some of those projectiles. let's bring in abc's chief global affairs correspondent martha raddatz, who is joining us now on the phone. martha, you've

been sending some some emails, some reports from your sources. what do we know about these missiles and drones that iran is sending to israel now with the us official, i have been speaking to this evening, said they expect 400 to 500 drones and missiles to be heading towards israel. >> that is clearly happening right now as you know, many a wave of drones were launched several hours ago. the missiles have been launched more recently . just about 150 missiles so far. but then that swarm of drones and the iranians have timed this. so they all go towards their target at once. they are indeed trying to overwhelm the air defenses. another really important point here with is that the us is clearly involved in trying to intercept, the us official told me. they're trying to intercept everything they can. they're doing that from the red sea. they're doing that from the

mediterranean and throughout the middle east, where they do have air defenses. others are trying to help as well. this comes after the iranians warned the us not to help to stay out of it. basically, according to this us official, iranian said to the us, if you don't involve yourselves in this, we will stay away from you and yet tonight we are seeing that the us is shooting down missiles, drones, whatever they can do to keep them away from israel and to try to keep israelis safe. they've also, according to this us official, these drones and missiles are headed toward three military facilities. they said they do not think they are purposefully aiming at civilian areas, but these are not completely accurate drones or missiles, and there could certainly be as brett pointed out, some sort of damage from these, not only from the missiles or drones themselves that they may not be able to

intercept, but from falling debris as well. >> with and, martha, we know that israel has one of the most sophisticated air defense systems in the world. we talk about the iron dome and then the support from the us. now, is it your sense in talking to your sources that the magnitude of this attack from iran is a surprise in any way, or is this consistent with what they were expecting? >> well, i think it is a surprise. i think it is larger than they expected, much worse than they expected. and they are so focused on trying to get these missiles and drones down. but even if they get 85% of them down, it's bound to hit something. they're bound for some of those missiles or drones to get through to their target. if right now what we're seeing and brit, they're right in the middle of it, seeing these swarms of drones, these swarms of missiles that really could overwhelm the system. >> martha, standby for us for a

moment. if you could, i want to go back to britt clennett because, britt, i understand you're hearing sirens right now in jerusalem, if you're able to hear us, can you tell us what you're seeing? what you're hearing at the moment? >> at the moment, we're not that doesn't mean that it's not happening in other parts of jerusalem. but this does seem to be a period of eerie quiet, especially after we heard that those several interceptions and as i say, the wailing of the air raid sirens. but as far as i can see, it doesn't seem like there are any interceptions at the moment or any imminent danger. >> okay, brit. thank you. martha i'd like to bring you back in here because you were talking about the calculation from the u.s. and of course, for weeks, the move has been to try to prevent an escalation across the region. what does this do to our position right now? and how does the u.s. respond militarily? >> i think the u.s. will do

everything possible not to respond militarily. >> they want to put themselves in a defensive position to defend israel, not to go after iran, but what they are most worried about now is how israel responds to this. what israel does and proportional how do they look at a proportional after what they have just seen, if indeed there is loss of life? i would imagine that israel's response will be larger than if there is not. and that's one of those things that the president and his national security team are talking about tonight. they have obviously been in touch with israel all week, and the israelis about how they would respond trying to tamp this down . but with 400, 500 possible drones and missiles expected this evening, it's pretty hard to tell israel what to do. >> and, martha, we know that president biden and prime minister netanyahu have a frosty relationship. they they had a conversation recently, but is there any suggestion that, you know, when the u.s. or president

biden makes these pleas to netanyahu and his government that they would actually listen to them or continue to go forward with their own plans? >> well, you know, over the several months, president biden, of course, has been talking to prime minister netanyahu, asking them to please let more humanitarian aid into gaza, to please take more care with civilian casualties and prime minister netanyahu has basically said, this is our fight. uh- stay out of it. essentially, the white house keeps going back to them. they're getting stronger and stronger on that. and yet it this situation tonight is so unpredictable. we don't know how this will end. we don't know what will get through. if anything, we're obviously hoping nothing gets through to israel. and all of these are shot down. but it is just as you say, wet, wet. it's a very fraught relationship. and israel is right in the middle of a huge escalation right now. >> all right. martha raddatz, for us, our chief global affairs

correspondent, thank you so much. we truly appreciate it. i want to bring in our senior white house correspondent, salena wang, who's been tracking all of this. salena, we know that president biden was supposed to be continuing his his weekend in delaware, but he went back to the white house early today to meet with his national security team. they were in the situation room. what are you hearing from the administration right now? >> exactly what? he cut his weekend trip short, and i'm told by officials that he has been holed up in the situation room for hours, and they're just wrapping that meeting up with his top national security advisers. the president, though, he's making very clear tonight that america's support of israel's defense is ironclad despite that very frosty relationship between netanyahu and president biden. as you were just talking about with martha, he is making that distinction very clear. now, look, the white house is on high alert. they've been on high alert for days. and officials tell me that anxieties here are running very high because the u.s. is very worried about how israel could respond to this and how this could widen this war. this is exactly what the president has been avoiding

thus far. he's been very careful to calibrate and to message to all of the partners and allies to israel, not to escalate and to contain this. >> now, president biden was asked this week, what's your message to iran if they're considering an attack on israel? his message was pretty blunt. he said, don't it? that, said, selena, the white house has been pressed repeatedly about what the response would be from the u.s. we heard martha talking about this, that the u.s, for the most part in a supporting role here. but do you have any more information about what our involvement could be? i know that we sent new additional resources to the region. we're talking ships and manpower. what can you tell us about that exactly? >> i mean, the u.s. was trying to prepare for this situation, though they wanted to avoid this. so they were already surging military assets to the region because a big vulnerability here is u.s. forces. so they want to protect those u.s. forces in the region. and for days now, the u.s. has been telegraphing to iran, as you say, do not do this. do not

target u.s. forces. the u.s. has made clear that they didn't know about this damascus strike beforehand. they weren't involved in it. they are a message to iran is, don't get us pulled into this. don't get us involved. so that is very much the message the president has been delivering. it's unclear what this relationship like with netanyahu is going to be going forward and trying to understand what the israeli response is going to be. remember, not too long ago, president biden issued his strongest criticism of netanyahu yet and said, if you don't do more, if you don't do enough to protect civilians in gaza, then we could change our policy towards israel. that could mean withholding u.s. aid. if israel doesn't do enough. and officials tell me that what the president has laid out in terms of getting more humanitarian aid in opening those border crossings, officials tell me that is really the president's baseline. and if even that doesn't get accomplished, well, then we've got a problem here. >> selena wang for us at the white house. thank you so much. let's bring in colonel steve ganyard, our abc news contributor. and, steve, i just want to talk about the

unprecedented nature of this attack. iran going after israel directly within its borders. have we ever seen anything like this? >> well, we've never seen an attack directly by iran on israel. that's unprecedented. but the numbers here are what's so amazing for to 500 incoming drones and missiles. that's unprecedented for any air defense system. now, we know that the israelis have the most sophisticated and capable integrated air and missile defense capability. but 4 to 500 means that it probably is almost inevitable that some are going to get through. it's interesting to look at the kinds of videos that that we see brit bringing from from jerusalem. we're talking about the iron dome and everybody's familiar with the iron dome and what that does against some of the short range missiles coming out of gaza. but the israelis have a layered defense. so it's iron dome at the lower altitudes. then there's another system called david's sling, which is the medium altitude. and then for very high ballistic missile intercepts, there's the arrow

two missile. and so a lot of what we seem to be seeing here is not is more of the david's sling. it's less iron dome. so david sling a bit of a newer system, but it does reach up higher and it does seem to be intercepting these incoming iranian attacks at a higher altitude. >> so, steve, let me ask you more about that, because, you know, beyond the drones and we're talking about potentially hundreds from iran tonight, we also know that they have an elaborate ballistic missile system. talk to us about the difference and the type of damage that these missiles could do. this is very different than like the rockets that we typically typically see, see being shot from like gaza or from hezbollah into israel. >> right. there's still conflicting reports with about whether the iranians actually have launched ballistic missiles, but that's what that arrow two system is. it's a very high altitude ballistic missile interceptor. so it's not easy to intercept ballistic missiles. but the arrow two has proven quite capable. so that's the real concern here, because if

iran starts launching these long range ballistic missiles, that is going to provoke israel in a way to make sure that its response is going to be overwhelming. so what we see tonight with 4 to 500 missiles and drones coming inbound, i think that the what's that? the iranians have bought themselves a retaliatory strike that will be much more from the from the israelis than they provided tonight. >> and what could an israeli retaliatory strike look like? >> well, israel has a lot more capability to project power than iran does. so they have a very capable air force. they have f-35 stealth fighters, very capable f-15s. they have cruise missiles that can be launched from submarines and from ships. so the air power, the capability of the israeli air force is far beyond anything that the iranians have. and the israeli air force can own the airspace over iran. so between that and the ships at sea, the israelis have a lot of options in how

they retaliate. >> steve, another thing that has surprised a lot of people in watching this play out tonight, jerusalem not typically a place where you would see, you know, rockets or projectiles shot to obviously a mixed population. you have jews, you have muslims. and these holy sites, and you talked about the potential for something going wrong, even if they weren't targeting a place like jerusalem. if one of these projectiles or, you know, a rocket dropped in and injured civilians, how significant would something like that be? >> yeah. well, apparently the iranians would claim that they're only going after military sites. there is a significant missile base that is very close to jerusalem. so that may be what what brit is seeing and hearing. if they do go after military bases, then obviously the israelis have put quite a bit of their air defenses around those military bases. but it's one of these things where the more that comes in, it's more of a problem to solve, and it makes it much more difficult for the iron dome and the david's sling and the arrow to figure out

what's incoming and a danger and what's not with this idea that if you hit them, where do the where does the debris go? does it hurt people on the ground? >> and steve, let's talk about the us here. we know that we're shooting down some of these projectiles. but what's the likelihood this draws us deeper into a regional conflict? >> now this is the real concern because we know that the iranians earlier in the week were very clear that if the u.s. helped israel defend against the attack, that iran was said was coming, that u.s. forces in the region would become fair game. so we now we have forces in iraq, we have forces in jordan, we have forces in the red sea. so all of a sudden, after weeks of the iranian surrogates not coming after u.s. forces in the region, we now know that these forces are now fair game and open to attack by iran. so there's a real danger here that if iran miscalculates and goes after u.s. forces, and it's clear that iran was the was the

instigator, then, that could very easily draw the u.s. into a wider middle east war. >> that's truly been a major concern for months since that october seventh attack. steve ganyard for us. thank you so much. let's bring in abc's senior pentagon reporter, louis martinez. louis i know that you've got a lot of sources on this, and you've been confirming much of this information throughout the evening. what more are you learning tonight? and have we heard any update on whether any of these projectiles from iran have actually landed and done any damage in israel? >> wait, it's unclear exactly if the from us sources if officially yet whether something has actually landed inside israel. what we are hearing from u.s. officials is that united states forces in the region are shooting down whatever drones or missiles may be headed towards israel, if they're capable. uh- you spoke earlier about exactly uh- about additional assets being sent into the region. we are aware that two u.s. navy destroyers were in the region, but i think that's more for long distance, intercepts. but we do

know that the united states does have in both iraq and jordan, some air defense systems. and it appears that at least some of those air defense systems were boosted in advance of this iraqi iranian retaliation. and so therefore, one can assume that those, missile systems have been used now to bring some down at least some of these iranian drones and missiles that have been headed towards israel. and louis, we know that the u.s. added additional, assets into the region. >> can you talk more about that? and are we talking about potentially, you know, like boots on the ground, not necessarily on the ground, but on on battleships and whatnot throughout the region? >> yeah, that's right. we're not inside israel proper. we are talking outside of israel. that's where u.s. forces are located. we know that there are 2500 u.s. forces inside iraq, that there's about 900 that are inside of syria. but there is also a sizable component inside of jordan. and so those locations do have air defense systems already. so it's very

likely that these air defense systems were boosted in advance of this retaliatory strike. in fact, we were told that the u.s. was sending more personnel to the ground there into the region as well as air assets. so that means aviation aircraft and also naval. and that's those two destroyers that we're talking about that are located in the eastern med mediterranean. and what they do is they have the capability of shooting down both long distance incoming missiles and shorter range missiles. but i think as we're talking about u.s. forces shooting down these drones and missiles on their way to, israel, i think we can assume it's those shorter, distance systems that the united states employs when it tries to shoot down anything that's incoming towards their bases. >> and, louis, can i pick up on something that that steve mentioned there? i know we got the confirmed that there were drones and missiles, but we were talking about the ballistic missile system that iran has. do we have any confirmation that they've launched any of those yet towards israel? >> no confirmation yet from officials that i've been speaking to. but again, this is

a developing situation. and one of the things that we've been told as as per martha raddatz reporting, is that overall, the u.s. is anticipating somewhere between 4 and 500 drones and missiles being launched at israel. that means this is going to take some time. so potentially some of those longer range, faster moving ballistic missiles could be used. but no, i don't have anything yet from any officials i'm talking to right now. if anything, we're talking about the cruise missiles that have been launched , and we should point out that even though it is a missile, cruise missiles do take some time to get to their targets as well. they are not as fast moving as ballistic missiles, which take, a much faster, shorter time to get through a location because they go up higher in the air and then they strike at their targets. >> yeah. louis martinez for us. thank you so much. stand by. we'll come back to you if we get new information there. i do want to go back to martha raddatz if we could, because martha, as we're just watching all of this play out, all we can really do is go back through history and see, sort of how the u.s. and

israel and iran have responded to conflicts in the past. and we know that not long ago, a few years ago, it was the united states that took out a key iranian commander, and that came with an iranian response. how does that compare to what we're seeing now? >> it sure did prompt a response with and it prompted a response from iran to go after u.s. troops in iraq, hundred, at least 100 were injured, injured with a traumatic brain injury, some of it very, very minor, but still they launched missiles and rockets towards a u.s. base. this was after the drone strike on qassem soleimani in january of 2020. the iranian major general, who was head of the quds force, a revered figure in iran. i was there just days after he was taken out by a u.s. drone in iraq and a targeted drone strike on soleimani, the

u.s. said there an attack was imminent, something he was planning. it's never really been revealed exactly what he was planning, but some sort of attack, according to u.s. officials who i have spoken to now, the response from iran on that and that attack in uh- in iraq, i think was probably tamped down because in those days, and i happened to be there in tehran when this happened, that the iranians accidentally shot down a commercial airliner. if you if you remember, and it was shortly after the, missiles were launched, but then they accidentally shot down that commercial aircraft, and i think they tamped down any further action after that. but they have issued fatwas against all of the people, including general mark milley, including donald trump. anyone who was involved with that drone strike on soleimani, they say they are after those

people. so that does remain. and that's the kind of response that iran will likely have if israel if israel strikes back, which they will, no matter what happens tonight, you will see a retaliation, according to the u.s. officials, i have been talking to, you will absolutely see some sort of retaliation. but then what is the wrong do? and you go back and forth and back and forth. and that's why this is so serious, tonight. what is happening? what the response will be, what the counter response will be. >> and again, just to remind our viewers who may just be tuning in, iran had been vowing, for days to retaliate for israel's deadly strike on the iranian consulate in syria. that was on april 1st, 12 days ago, that killed 13 people, including several top iranian military leaders. and, martha, if i could come back to you because a lot of the intelligence and correct me if i'm wrong, but the intelligence that we've been hearing from both israeli and

u.s. sources in recent weeks was that iran didn't want a wider regional conflict and that iran preferred to operate, you know, sort of standing behind their proxies in in lebanon and other places like yemen. so did something change tonight? is this a signal that something's changed? >> you know, the answer to that is i think we don't know exactly. >> and we certainly didn't know it was going to be this big, particularly with the us wanting them not to escalate. please, please don't escalate. we understand there will be some sort of response, surely they knew also that israel would do everything possible to try to shoot down those drones and missiles. so they certainly knew that 500 missiles and drones weren't going to hit target. and according to the us official i talked to, they are targeting military facilities. so maybe that's how t they see this as not a huge escalation, but by any definition, this is

an escalation. and, you know, whit, i am thinking tonight how the people of iran are feeling about this and about what is happening. after the death of soleimani, i was in crowds of more than 100,000 people in the streets who were -- it was death to america. it was death to israel. you will hear a lot of that on the streets soon, too. >> whit: yeah. the people of iran know israel will respond, too. they will be bracing for that. martha, thank you so much. joining me is a former official at israel's ministry of strategic affairs. thank you for joining us right now. i wonder if you can give us any insight on what's happening. forgive me. we don't have sima right now. let's go back to celina wang at the white house. just wondering what more you might be hearing from the administration. we know president biden was in the situation room with his top national security advisers. and as the night has gone on, we have been hearing more and more

about the u.s. intercepting and taking down some of these projectiles. do you have any more information about what we're doing behind the scenes? >> reporter: whit, i'm learning that meeting is wrapping up. the president was there with his national security team were several hours. they are trying to calibrate the u.s. response. really the focus of the president here is deterrence and defense and protecting those u.s. forces in the region, already sending more military assets to the middle east to try to protect them. as you say, the u.s. has been trying to help israel to intercept that barrage of missiles and drones coming through. the u.s. wants to intercept as much as they can. but really, for president biden and what's putting this entire white house on edge with anxieties running so high is, as martha raddatz was saying, is how israel will respond. the president threw out this conflict since october 7th, since the tensions have been flaired, he has been laser focused on keeping this conflict

contained, trying to avoid that escalation. now we're at a point that the president did not want to be in. he did not want iran to respond. and, of course, also frustrated that israel did not give the u.s. a head's up about that damascus strike in the first place. a difficult situation for the president to be in and taking his eyes off the ball he had earlier, which was to negotiate that cease-fire between hamas and israel. >> whit: forgive me. i was just getting new information here as we're following this. a reminder to our viewers of what you're seeing right now. this is iran launching an attack directly on israel. various projectiles. some of them could be drones or missiles. we're told potentially by the hundreds fired from iran directly into israel. and the u.s. has played a role in taking down some of those projectiles. as of right now, we don't have any confirmation that any of those landed within israel,

caused damage or casualties. we're standing by for information on that. so far the efforts to intercept have been successful. again, president biden today was brought back to the white house. he was supposed to spend the weekend in delaware, but came back early to meet with his national security team. we are going to stay on top of all of this. our coverage continues on abc news live and abcnews.com. i'm whit johnson in new york. have a good night. this has been a special report from abc news. stanley cup. >> the highest award in the world's fastest game. >> it is like is