This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Janet Jalil and in the early hours of Sunday the 14th of April,

these are our main stories.

Iran has launched waves of drones and missiles towards Israel.

The Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuiahu said Israeli armed forces were ready to respond,

while President Biden discussed the escalating crisis with his security team.

We hear what this means for a long-time enemies, Israel and Iran,

and the wider Middle East region.

Also in this podcast, police in Australia try to establish the motive for a knife attack

at a shopping mall in which six people were killed, but they say they don't think

it was terrorism. And a call for more

action to be taken to address the glaring gender gap in science. We talked to a

female scientist whose male boss won an accolade for her work.

Iran has launched a direct attack against Israel, raising fears of an escalation of violence in the Middle East.

On Saturday evening, Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Force said it had launched dozens of drones

and missiles against specific targets in Israel.

As we record this podcast, they're still to reach their targets as they travel over Jordan and Syria on their way to Israel,

where air defences have been prepared to shoot them down.

President Biden has cut short a weekend trip to return to the White House for urgent discussions

on the escalating crisis. This comes after days of warnings from the US and its

allies that Iran was about to attack Israel in response to a deadly

airstrike on its consulate in Syria at the start of April, which Tehran had blamed on the Israelis.

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