Three waves of pre-dawn strikes on military targets in Iran carried out by the Israel Defense Forces on Saturday completed Israel's response to Iran, in a hostile exchange between the two regional powers that has had the world on edge for weeks,

The attack, threatened for weeks by Israel, comes as the Middle East sits on the precipice of a regional war more than a year after an initial attack by the militant group Hamas on Israel.

In assaults against the Houthis in Yemen at the end of September, Israeli forces flew more than a thousand miles to attack power plants and shipping infrastructure, using reconnaissance aircraft and dozens of fighter jets that had to be refueled in midflight. Tehran, about 1,000 miles from Israel, is in a similar range.