AMMAN, Jordan — Israel launched a punishing air campaign on Iran early Friday, killing some of the upper echelons of Iran's military leadership along with destroying parts of its nuclear and military infrastructure in a compound operation involving warplanes and drones. The attacks constituted the most significant escalation between the longtime adversaries — raising fears of a protracted conflict that would likely embroil the U.S. in yet another war in the Middle East.

The strikes prompted swift retaliation with what Israel's military said was an attack involving more than 100 drones, even as Iran's leadership vowed there would be a "powerful response."

President Donald Trump lauded Israel's operation, describing it in an interview with ABC News as "excellent" and warning more attacks would be forthcoming.

"I think it's been excellent," Trump said. "We gave them a chance and they didn't take it. They got hit hard, very hard. They got hit about as hard as you're going to get hit. And there's more to come. A lot more."

Explosions began to rock Tehran shortly after 3 a.m., with blasts reported in the Iranian capital's central, northeastern and northwestern neighborhoods. It was one part of a barrage the Israeli military said had roughly 200 warplanes hitting more than 100 nuclear sites, ballistic missile factories and other military areas across the country, including in Natanz, home to Iran's main nuclear enrichment facility, along with Kermanshah and Tabriz.

Hours later, Israeli warplanes struck again, hitting a military airport in Tabriz, according to the semiofficial Mehr News Agency.

"This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a video statement released early Friday.

"This is a clear and present danger to Israel's very survival."

Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Israel's campaign was a "declaration of war," adding in a letter to the United Nations — and later published on his Telegram channel — that the Security U.N. Security Council should "immediately address this issue."

The strikes proved to be a devastating blow to Iran's top military leadership and a demonstration of Israel's intelligence infiltration, hitting senior members of Iran's chain of command in their homes. Iranian state and local media confirmed the death of Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, the Iranian armed forces' chief of staff; Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; Maj. Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, an IRGC commander that heads the army's central headquarters; and Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Aerospace Forces. Also killed were veteran nuclear scientists Fereydoon Abbasi, Abdolhamid Minoucher and Mohammad-Mehdi Tehranchi, according to the semiofficial Iranian outlet Press TV.

Iranian state media said the attacks on residential areas in Tehran killed a number of civilians, including children. The death toll remained unclear but one resident interviewed said her two of her relatives were killed.

Videos published on social media depicted fire and visible damage to several residential buildings in Tehran.

Ali, a resident living a few blocks away from one of the targeted sites who gave only his first name to avoid harassment, was praying when he heard huge explosions around him.

"The floor started shaking, so I stopped praying and ran outside," he said. He ran down the street and found smoke coming out of the second floor of a six-story building, with people shouting on the street.

Later, an official with Israel's Mossad said in an interview with Israeli daily newspaper Times of Israel that the spy agency smuggled vehicles carrying weapons systems and constructed a secret explosive drone base in Iran ahead of the operation. The official added that the swarm of kamikaze drones were used to destroy ballistic missile launchers to cripple Iran's ability to thwart the strikes.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, said in an interview on state TV that there were no casualties and that initial assessments showed that damage to Natanz was "superficial." He added that there was no external contamination.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the Israeli attacks extended Israel's "filthy and bloodstained hand to commit a crime in our beloved country."

"With this crime, the Zionist regime has prepared a bitter and painful fate for itself — and it will undoubtedly face it," he said, according to a statement released to local media.

Yet it remains unclear how Tehran can make good on that threat. In the past, it could rely on a network of militias and sympathetic governments in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq that were collectively known as the "Axis of Resistance." But the last 19 months have seen Israel systematically cripple the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, while the fall of Iranian ally Syrian President Bashar Assad has denied Tehran a passageway to Israel's borders; meanwhile, its Iraqi militia allies have kept a low profile in recent months. And previous ballistic missile and drone barrages by Iran have had little impact on Israel's defenses.

News of the Israeli attack and Iran's retaliation prompted a wave of airspace closures and flight cancellations across the region. Iran, Iraq, Jordan and Israel suspended all flights, while Emirates Airlines said it would cancel flights to Iran, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon.

As the Iranian drones winged their way to Israel, Jordan warned citizens to keep indoors and avoid open areas. Later, sirens sounded in the Amman, even as the sounds of high-powered jets could be heard streaking over the Jordanian capital throughout the afternoon.

In the initial hours after the strike, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to distance the U.S. from Israel's attacks, describing them as a "unilateral action" that Israel believed "was necessary for its self-defense."

But that messaging was likely undercut by Trump's statements putting pressure on Iran's leadership to continue negotiating.

"I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to 'just do it,' but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn't get it done... They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

"There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end. Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left."

U.S. embassies across the region issued restrictions on movements; in recent days, several embassies evacuated nonessential staff.

Israel's operation spurred a raft of condemnations from regional countries. Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry denounced the "heinous Israeli attacks against the brotherly Islamic Republic of Iran."

Oman, the main mediator between the U.S. and Iran in recent months, said the attacks were "unacceptable and ongoing aggressive behaviour that undermines the foundations of stability in the region," according to a statement by the country's foreign ministry.

In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for "maximum restraint" to avoid "descent into deeper conflict."

Trump insisted that there was still a chance for diplomacy.

"Two months ago I gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum to 'make a deal.' They should have done it! Today is day 61," he wrote in a post on Truth Social.

"I told them what to do, but they just couldn't get there. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!"

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