This is CNN breaking news.

Welcome to the lead. I'm Jake Tapper and we are following two major breaking stories.

I am right now inside the spinroom at CBS Studios in New York,

hours away from tonight's first and only

2024 vice presidential debate.

But the world's attention might be elsewhere.

At roughly 1230 p.m. Eastern time, Iran launched a major attack on Israel,

firing nearly 200 ballistic missiles, according to U.S. officials.

CNN's Jim Shuto and his crew were live on air in Israel at the time as air raid

siren sounded and missiles began to rain down overhead.

Oh Jesus. Oh God. guys, we got to get off the roof. These are coming down right next to us here.

Please do, Jim, please do.

They're coming down. One just about about we got to go inside

Jim Schudo and his team are thankfully safe. We are waiting for reports as to the damage done by the Iranian missiles

the Israel Defense Forces reports that most of

Iran's missiles were intercepted by Israel's air defenses, but the IDF also says a

few did make impact in Central and Southern Israel. They are assessing the situation. We will let you know if they hit anything

or any one of note. Iran's attack one day before the Jewish holiday of Russia Shana, the Jewish New Year, follows Israel's

launch of a ground operation in southern Lebanon targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah, that's a group

that the U.S. considers to be a terrorist group, and a strike Friday of course which killed his

bull as longtime leader Hassan Nasrala. This intense escalation raises the

stakes perhaps for tonight's vice presidential debate here in New York the

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