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israel over the weekend. nothing in scale of that.& the readout from intelligence sources and widely to be follow-up from iran a nick, if that is that is in fact the case. it was three drones and no real threat to iran. what's the message then that the israelis ascending to iran is this a message of deterrence? >> that's the message that they want to send that's the been the basis of their defence over the past number of decades two countries like iran, who they perceive as an existential threat. and this is what we heard around saying in the reverse last week, last week that they were changing the the equation that they were the ones now putting down a deterrence to israel. and the deterrence factor here would be if this, if this is the message that israel sending, and this is what it appears to be by choosing s for khan, which has a nuclear facility that converts your yellow cake uranium, the sort of rob or second stage product of of, of
response. of course situation may change. that could all change, but that's the early read and it does seem to comport with a picture that's being painted by iranian media who we did at the iranian foreign minister on cnn last evening, promising an iranian response to any israeli attack on brands are so i suppose we'll see in the coming hours and days, nick, are israeli officials commenting at all on what their intention was with this strike so far, no, we know that they were under a lot of pressure from the white house to keep a narrow scale hello, and a narrow focus not to escalate tensions in the region if we are what we understand has happened is an accurate reflection of what has happened then it does appear that they have compared to the type of strike that israel could have
parents. he gohlke standing by live in beirut, but we'll go first too soon as it robertson in jerusalem. nick, you have new reporting on iran's response to this israeli strike. what have you well iran's response from what we've seen in their major and what the state media and the local media or reporting. >> is it appears to play down the strike. we've heard that from the radium media that they put switched on their air defense systems in the night because of a perceived threat but they actually saw no aircraft coming into their airspace. and there were only these three drones that were spotted in the facility of a military base near is for khan, but explosions there were they say the air defense systems firing in the air. so really sort of try playing down and, and certainly some of the local media and iran is characterizing these drones is very small as quadcopters as it's relatively significant. i've spoken with a regional intelligence source who will be
>> nick, thank you. let's get a fuller in beirut. so paula hancocks to you, if there is in fact no iranian response to this attack by israel, it would send a stark contrast to what the iranian leaders have been saying for days now it's, right yes. >> john i mean, you can see the iranian state media downplaying what has happened and yet over recent days, you have heard some very fiery rhetoric from iranian leaders. in fact, just hours before this attack took place, we heard from the iranian foreign minister speaking to cnn. saying that if israel carries out an attack on its assets, then the result would be an immediate and at a maximum level thing, it would be a decisive response. we heard from president raisi as well saying that if there was another response from israel to what they did over the weekend, there's more than 300 drones and missiles launched at israel. then there would be an even greater, excuse me, and more resolute i don't response
>> let's go now to the middle east today, a global call for restraint after israel appears to follow through on its vowed to retaliate against iran for night. explosions were reported about 200 miles south of tehran. you're a major iranian military airbase around claiming it's shot down three drones their satellite images exclusively obtained by cnn show no extensive damage at that site and the us says it was not involved in the attack as secretary of state, tony blinken says, the focus is on de-escalation to avoid a broader war in that region, seen as nic robertson is in jerusalem for us, nick, what, if anything israel saying about this attack well, it's interesting because israeli officials aren't saying anything about it at all. >> and it really does seem to indicate that we're into a period now of ambiguity and not escalation shan and is a sort of strategic off-ramp that both israel and iran appear to be taking. the reason i say that is a few hours after the
red lines at the two countries understood twin each other. those are blurred so if we're not closer to regional escalation, certainly the cost of it became a lot clearer over the past week absolutely. >> nic robertson, force in jerusalem. thanks so much for that reporting. and i want to bring in that sandra in national security analysts, former deputy director of national intelligence, beth, we're glad you're here with us. listening to nick's reporting there. i think so many people around the world are wondering, what does this mean now, where are how higher the tensions and what's the risk of escalation? what's your assessment i think if we pull back a little bit and say, where are we right now in terms of this 30,000 foot level in the past few weeks beaks we've seen this context changed completely all these red lines that nick just brought up. >> they've been broken. the norms of behavior between israel and iran have now
pennsylvania. and this is cnn there is great concern for what could happen next in the middle east after the latest salvo between israel and iran was officials say israel carried out a military strike iran overnight, explosions were reported near a major iranian military airbase. >> now ron claims it shot down three drones, satellite images obtained exclusively by cnn show no oh extensive damage at the site. a us official says that washington was given a heads-up, but did not participate in the attacks the white house says the focus is now on de-escalation to avoid a broader war in the region cnn's nic robertson joins us now from tel aviv. so nick, where do things stand after this? >> a retaliatory strike board? >> i said really seems to win a situation of ambiguity, strategic ambiguity versus escalation. why do i say that? i think partly the language that we've heard from iranian officials, lot exculpatory
they even launched inside of iran itself and israel can put its own messaging out about the strength of its strike here, that both sides have sees an opportunity annuity to turn the volume down. and then we're going to deal frankly with more pressing internal problems themselves, jim. >> yeah. >> nick, i mean, one thing that has happened over this past week is that both sides of sort of cross this? i read what used to be sort of a red line that there would not be strikes inside israeli territory by the iranians and vice versa. and that seems to know more yeah, that whole sort of confrontation to this point for the most part, has been about proxies iranian proxies in syria, lebanon, hezbollah key there and iraq being used to hit israel and its allies with some degree of deniability, they could turn it on, turn it off, but leave the iranian homeland, so to speak. not something that could be a target. also, israel using covert operations inside of
conflict may have been averted at this point, but it all comes down to tehran now, jim, it depends if iran believes that this was a low level enough attack that it doesn't feel it has to respond. jim all right. >> paula hancocks in beirut for us. thank you, paul appreciate it. let's go now to cnn, chief international correspondent nick paton walsh. use live in london with more nick, if you can pick up where apologists left off there, you know, it sounds like there's a lot of hope inside the diplomatic community internationally that perhaps this for tat will not continue. but i guess there are no guarantees that that will happen yeah, absolutely. >> no guarantees, but i'm one of them. >> the benefits of ron has of being an autocracy, being able to control the information released inside its own country. is it going essentially tell everybody what it wants to about what just happened? this may be israel showing in a limited way that it can penetrate iranian air
moments ago, jackie, i mean, the speaker is going to have to rely on democrats. >> seems to get this done bit of an unholy alliance but what do you think? >> do we think we're going to see this get done this weekend? >> thank you make a prediction our but you know what i've learned, particularly this particular house of representatives, you don't make predictions because something can always go sideways, but your nick and i were talking to the green room just about how unusual that rules committee vote. i know it's nitty-gritty. yeah. but usually that is the speaker's committee, that what they do with what speaker says they do and the fact that you had to have democrats bail him out on this is just truly remarkable and that's exactly what conservatives don't want. and listen this motion to vacate this procedural measure that can jettison him the minute the kevin mccarthy agreed to that one vote did the one vote trigger for that, right? completely disempowered the speaker. and you can see how we got here. >> yeah, i mean, that's going