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      Vote to Resume U.S. Military Aid Is Met With Relief in Ukraine

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      Much-needed munitions like artillery shells could start arriving relatively quickly, but experts say it could take weeks before U.S. assistance has a direct impact on the war.The Ukrainian lieutenant was at a firing position on the eastern front, commanding an artillery unit relying on American-provided M777 howitzers and other big guns, as U.S. lawmakers gathered in Washington to decide if his cannons would be forced to go silent for lack of ammunition.But when the lieutenant returned to his base on Saturday night, he got the news that he and millions of Ukrainians had been praying to hear.“I had just entered the building after a shift change when the guys informed me that the aid package for Ukraine had finally been approved by Congress,” said the lieutenant, who is identified only by his first name, Oleksandr, in line with military protocol. “We hope this aid package will reach us as soon as possible.”The decision by American lawmakers to resume military assistance after months of costly delay was greeted with a collective sigh of relief and an outpouring of gratitude across a battered and bloodied Ukraine. It may have been late in coming, soldiers and civilians said, but American support meant more than bullets and bombs.It offered something equally important: hope.Immediately after the vote passed in Congress, Ukrainian citizens took to social media to offer thanks and express joy, posting American flag memes blending Ukrainian imagery with American symbols like the Statue of Liberty.“I have tears in my eyes,” Anton Gerashchenko, the founder of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, a research group, said in a message. “So much suffering, so much pain. So many lost friends and wonderful people in these horrible years of war. Now there is hope to save more lives of those who are still alive.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel’s Strike on Iran Highlights Its Ability to Evade Tehran’s Air Defenses

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      The retaliatory attack damaged a defense system near Natanz, a city in central Iran that is critical to the country’s nuclear weapons program.An Israeli airstrike on Iran on Friday damaged an air defense system, according to Western and Iranian officials, in an attack calculated to deliver a message that Israel could bypass Iran’s defensive systems undetected and paralyze them.The strike damaged a defensive battery near Natanz, a city in central Iran that is critical to the country’s nuclear weapons program, according to two Western officials and two Iranian officials. The attack — and the revelation on Saturday of its target — was in retaliation for Iran’s strike in Israel last week after Israel bombed its embassy compound in Damascus. But it used a fraction of the firepower Tehran deployed in launching hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel.The strike on Friday was the latest salvo in a series of tit-for-tat attacks between the two countries this month that have heightened fears of a broader regional conflict. But the relatively limited scope of Israel’s strike and the muted response from Iranian officials seem to have eased tensions.Iran and Israel have conducted a yearslong shadow war, but the conflict intensified on April 1, when Israeli warplanes killed seven Iranian officials, including three senior commanders, at an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria, which Israel asserts was used as a military site. Iran responded last week by firing a barrage of drones and cruise and ballistic missiles at Israel, almost all of which were shot down by Israel and its allies. But the strikes nevertheless rattled Israelis.That attack was Iran’s first-ever direct assault on Israeli soil, thrusting the countries’ clandestine warfare — long fought by land, air, sea and cyberspace — into open view. The Israeli government vowed to respond, even as world leaders and Western allies, including the United States, rushed to de-escalate the situation, urging Israel not to respond in a way that could lead to a regional war.A protest against Israel after Friday prayers in Tehran.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Strikes an Iranian Military Base, but Damage Appears Limited

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      The drone attack may have been launched from inside Iran, once again demonstrating Israel’s ability to carry out clandestine operations there.The Israeli military struck Iran early on Friday in retaliation for an aerial attack on Israel last weekend, according to two Israeli and three Iranian officials, but the strike appeared to be limited in scope and the reaction from both Israel and Iran was muted.Iranian officials said that the strike had hit a military air base near the city of Isfahan, in central Iran, and that it had been carried out by small drones. They said the drones might have been launched from inside Iran, whose radar systems had not detected unidentified aircraft entering Iranian airspace.If the drones were launched within the country, it would demonstrate once again Israel’s ability to mount clandestine operations in Iranian territory. Iranian officials said that a separate group of small drones was shot down in the region of Tabriz, roughly 500 miles north of Isfahan.Israeli warplanes also fired missiles during the retaliatory strike, a Western official and two Iranian officials said. It was not immediately clear whether Iran’s defenses intercepted the missiles or where they landed.The Israeli military declined to comment. A senior U.S. official said that Israel had notified the United States through multiple channels shortly before the attack. All the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.Addressing reporters at a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of 7 nations in Italy, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said the United States had “not been involved in any offensive operations” in Iran. But he declined to comment further and would not even confirm the Israeli strike, referring instead to “reported events.” More

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      U.S. Military to Withdraw Troops From Niger

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      The status of a $110 million air base in the desert remains unclear as the West African country deepens its ties with Russia.More than 1,000 American military personnel will leave Niger in the coming months, Biden administration officials said on Friday, upending U.S. counterterrorism and security policy in the tumultuous Sahel region of Africa.In the second of two meetings this week in Washington, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt M. Campbell told Niger’s prime minister, Ali Lamine Zeine, that the United States disagreed with the country’s turn toward Russia for security and Iran for a possible deal on its uranium reserves, and the failure of Niger’s military government to map out a path to return to democracy, according to a senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic talks.The decision was not a particular surprise. Niger said last month that it was revoking its military cooperation deal with the United States following a highly contentious set of meetings in Niger’s capital, Niamey, with a high-level American diplomatic and military delegation.That move was in keeping with a recent pattern by countries in the Sahel region, an arid area south of the Sahara, of breaking ties with Western countries. Increasingly, they are partnering with Russia instead.American diplomats have sought in the past several weeks to salvage a revamped military cooperation deal with Niger’s military government, U.S. officials said, but in the end they failed to strike a compromise.The talks collapsed amid a growing wave of ill feelings toward the U.S. presence in Niger. Thousands of protesters in the capital last Saturday called for the withdrawal of American armed forces personnel only days after Russia delivered its own set of military equipment and instructors to the country’s military.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Israel’s Conflicts Could Escalate

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      Since Iran’s large missile and drone attack on Israel last weekend, Israel’s allies have warned its leaders to avoid responding in a way that could provoke a regional war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel appeared to rebuff those warnings on Wednesday, saying the country would “do everything necessary to defend itself.”Here is a look at where Israel has been drawn into conflicts, some of which could escalate quickly:IranLast Saturday, Iran launched its first direct attack on Israel. The attack itself caused little damage, as almost all the missiles and drones were intercepted by Israeli air defenses, supported by the United States, France, Britain and Jordan. But it took a clandestine war between the two nations that has gone on for decades to a different level.Iranians on Monday expressing support for their government’s missile and drone attack on Israel over the weekend.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesTehran was responding to a strike on April 1 in which seven officers overseeing Iran’s operations in the Middle East died in an attack on the Iranian Embassy complex in Damascus, Syria. Iran said Israeli warplanes had conducted the strike and vowed to retaliate for what it considered an unusually brazen attack.Iranian officials have signaled in recent months that they want to avoid a war with Israel. Officials in Israel and the United States have said that Israel miscalculated with its embassy strike, thinking that Iran would not react strongly. That strike, they said, effectively broke the unwritten rules of engagement in the long confrontation between the two sides. Israel has signaled that it will respond, and Iranian leaders have warned that if it does so, Iran will react forcefully, with deadlier weapons than in the last strike.LebanonInstead of attacking Israel directly, Iran typically goes after it through groups in the region that it supports, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, its most powerful proxy. On Wednesday, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for a cross-border drone and missile attack in northern Israel that the Israeli military said had injured 14 soldiers, six of them severely.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Weighs Response to Iran’s Attack as Allies Push for Restraint

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      Israel’s war cabinet on Monday met to weigh possible responses to Iran’s missile and drone attack over the weekend, as the United States, Britain and other allies strongly urged Israel to show restraint and sought to de-escalate tensions between the two regional powers.Some far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government called for a swift and forceful retaliation in response to Iran.An Israeli official briefed on the cabinet discussions, speaking anonymously in order to talk about security matters, said several options were being considered, ranging from diplomacy to an imminent strike, but gave no further details. There was no immediate public statement by the ministers, or by the Israeli prime minister.“We are weighing our steps,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military chief of staff, told Israeli soldiers on Monday in televised remarks during a visit to an Israeli air base. “The launching of so many missiles, cruise missiles and drones toward Israeli territory will be responded to.”Mr. Netanyahu faces a delicate calculation — how to respond to Iran in order not to look weak, while trying to avoid alienating the Biden administration and other allies already impatient with Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza.While the United States, Britain and France strongly condemned Iran’s assault and stepped in to help thwart it on Saturday, their calls for restraint highlighted the pressure Israel was facing to avoid a more direct confrontation with Iran.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Iran’s Barrage of Israel Injures Young Girl in Arab Bedouin Village

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      The hospital waiting room was quiet on Sunday: There was no crowd of relatives, no flood of patients. Israel’s air defenses had just fended off a large-scale Iranian attack, with only one serious casualty recorded.But there was no sense that a crisis had been averted outside the pediatric intensive care unit at Soroka Medical Center in southern Israel’s city of Beersheba. Instead, tension filled the air until the doors to the ward swung open and a gasping mother stumbled out, her face contorted. Then raw emotion quickly took its place as she crumbled into a chair, crying.While Israel suffered little in the way of significant damage overnight, this one family was dealt a devastating blow. Amina al-Hasoni, 7, was clinging to life — the sole serious casualty of the Iranian barrage. And were it not for systemic inequities in Israel, her relatives said, maybe she too could have been spared.There are roughly 300,000 Arab Bedouins in the Negev desert. About a quarter of them live in villages that are not recognized by Israeli officials. Without state recognition, those communities have long suffered from a lack of planning and basic services like running water, sewers and electricity. And few have access to bomb shelters, despite repeated requests to the state.The Hasoni family lives in one such community, sharing a hilltop in the Negev village of al-Fur’ah with a plot of disconnected houses. When rocket warning sirens went off on Saturday night, Amina’s uncle Ismail said he felt stuck — there was nowhere to go.Booms overhead signaled air defenses intercepting missiles before there was a big explosion. Then he heard a woman screaming — his sister — and “I started running,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Strikes Upend Israel’s Belief About Iran’s Willingness to Fight It Directly

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      Israel had grown used to targeting Iranian officials without head-on retaliation from Iran, an assumption overturned by Iran’s attacks on Saturday.Iran’s unprecedented strikes on Israel this weekend have shaken Israel’s assumptions about its foe, undermining its long-held calculation that Iran would be best deterred by greater Israeli aggression.For years, Israeli officials have argued, both in public and in private, that the harder Iran is hit, the warier it will be about fighting back. Iran’s barrage of more than 300 drones and missiles on Saturday — the first direct attack by Iran on Israel — has overturned that logic.The attack was a response to Israel’s strike earlier this month in Syria that killed seven Iranian military officials there. Analysts said it showed that leaders in Tehran are no longer content with battling Israel through their various proxies, like Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen, but instead are prepared to take on Israel directly.“I think we miscalculated,” said Sima Shine, a former head of research for the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency. “The accumulated experience of Israel is that Iran doesn’t have good means to retaliate,” Ms. Shine added. “There was a strong feeling that they don’t want to be involved in the war.”Instead, Iran has created “a completely new paradigm,” Ms. Shine said.Iran’s response ultimately caused little damage in Israel, in large part because Iran had telegraphed its intentions well in advance, giving Israel and its allies several days to prepare a strong defense. Iran also released a statement, even before the attack was over, that it had no further plans to strike Israel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More