Biden on Israeli strikes against Iran: "I hope that this is the end"

US President Joe Biden on Saturday said he hopes Israel's latest strike on Iran could mark the end of direct confrontations between the powers.

Biden told reporters in Philadelphia that he had spoken to representatives of the secret services and learned that the attacks had apparently been limited to military targets.

"I was on with the intelligence community for the last half hour. It looks like they didn’t hit anything other than military targets. I hope that this is the end," Biden said.

He also confirmed that he had been informed about the attacks in advance, as previously reported by US media.

Early on Saturday, Israel launched retaliatory attacks on Iran, which had been expected for days.

The operation came in response to the Iranian attack on October 1, in which around 200 ballistic missiles were fired at Israel.