Iran attacks Israel, risking a full-blown regional war 

FOR MONTHS there has been speculation about the war in Gaza escalating into a regional conflagration. Now Israelis are enduring a terrifying night as they wonder if the moment of truth has come. Late on April 13th Iran launched scores of attack drones at Israel, and then missiles too. The barrage is part of its retaliation for an Israeli air strike that killed seven people including a top Iranian general, at the country’s embassy compound in Damascus on April 1st.  Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said that “the malicious Zionist regime will be punished”.

Earlier in the day Iranian forces boarded a ship in the Strait of Hormuz that they said had links with Israel. Missile strikes and the drone wave are, however, a far bigger escalation. After decades of hostility and talk of war it is the first time that Iran has attacked Israel directly from its own territory. While Israel can almost certainly deal with the immediate threat the huge question is how it might retaliate, and the odds of that dragging the region and America into all-out war.