India attacked Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir on Wednesday and Pakistan said it had shot down five Indian fighter jets in the worst fighting in more than two decades between the nuclear-armed enemies.
India launched "Operation Sindoor," striking nine sites in Pakistan as well as Jammu and Kashmir, which they claimed were "terrorist infrastructure," and some of them linked to an attack by Islamist terrorists on Hindu tourists that killed 26 people in Indian Kashmir last month.
Islamabad said six Pakistani locations were targeted, and that none of them were terrorist camps. At least 26 civilians were killed and 46 injured, a Pakistan military spokesperson said.
Indian channel News 18 reported that 12 terrorists were killed and 55 people were injured as a result of the strikes.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly postponed a trip to Croatia, the Netherlands, and Norway after the strike took place, sources told Reuters.
Pakistani representatives told the UN Security Council that it reserves the right to respond appropriately to India's actions, leaving many fearful of a broadening conflict in the east. A United Nations team visited the site of the Indian strike in Pakistan's Muzaffarabad, Reuters witnesses reported. Pakistan's army chief said that the country will respond to India at a time, place, and means of "our own choice."
Pakistani sources said that five of the nine supposed sites were hit: three in Kashmir and two in the Punjab province.
A Pakistani military spokesman told reporters that at least two mosques were hit during the attack, and that three people were dead after the initial assault.
“India’s actions have been focused and precise. They were measured, responsible, and designed to be non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistani civilian, economic, or military targets have been hit. Only known terror camps were targeted,” a press release from India's US embassy read.
Reuters witnesses reported seeing Pakistani troops at three places in Kashmir on Tuesday evening after the operation was launched.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that his country was responding to the "warlike" actions from India.
Seven people were killed and 35 were injured in Pakistani shelling on the Indian side of Kashmir, a police official told Reuters.
According to The Hindu, Islamabad said that it condemned Mumbai's "cowardly actions" and accused Indian forces of targeting civilians.
“In the wake of the Pahalgam attack, the Indian leadership has once again used the bogey of terrorism to advance its sham narrative of victimhood, jeopardizing regional peace and security. India’s reckless action has brought the two nuclear-armed states closer to a major conflict," read a press release from Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Pakistan claims it shot down two Indian aircraft
A spokesman for Pakistan's military told broadcaster ARY that India had attacked Pakistan with missiles in three places.
Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told Geo that all sites targeted by India were civilian and not militant camps.
He said India fired missiles from its own airspace, and India's claim of targeting "camps of terrorists is false."
"All of our air force jets are airborne. This is a shameful and cowardly attack that was carried out from within India's airspace," a military spokesperson told Pakistani broadcaster GEO.
"Let me say it unequivocally, Pakistan will respond to this [attack] at a time and place of its choosing," warned the DG ISPR.
Pakistani military spokespeople told CNN that their forces had shot down five Indian Air Force fighter jets, including three Rafale planes, one Russian-made Su-30, and one MiG-29.
“There are two confirmed aircraft of the Indian Air Force have already been shot down,” Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, spokesperson for the Pakistani military, told CNN.
“There are other reports of multiple damages that the Pakistani forces, both on the ground and in the air, have inflicted. But I can confirm to you at least two aircraft of the Indian Air Force that have been downed."
Indian media or government sources did not confirm his claims until Wednesday morning, when local Indian media reported that three fighter jets crashed in India's Jammu and Kashmir territory.
A Pakistani Military source later told Reuters that the planes were shot down in India's airspace.
Loud explosions heard, regional blackouts reported
Multiple loud explosions were heard in several places in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir on Wednesday. Police told Reuters that excessive amounts of shelling could be heard on the ceasefire line.
Indian media reported that three people were killed as a result of the shelling.
After the explosions, power was blacked out in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, witnesses said. It was not immediately clear what the explosions were.
Hospitals in the Punjab province were put on high alert after an emergency state was declared there.
After India's strikes, the Indian army said in a post on X on Wednesday: "Justice is served."
The development comes amid heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours in the aftermath of an attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir last month.
India blamed Pakistan for the violence in which 26 men were killed and vowed to respond. Pakistan denied that it had anything to do with the killings and said that it had intelligence that India was planning to attack.
Indian Foreign Minister Dr. Jaishankar said that "the world must show zero tolerance for terrorism." in a post on X/Twitter.
The Hindu reported that India had informed its global partners, including the US, UK, Russia, UAE, and Saudi Arabia, of its military actions.
Several airlines said that they had cancelled or diverted flights to India and Pakistan. Flight radars showed that planes were completely avoiding the Pakistani airspace.
Leaders call for cessation of hostilities
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that he had spoken with his counterparts on both sides of the conflict and urged them to come to a peaceful agreement.
The State Department added that it is “closely monitoring developments" of the situation.
US President Donald Trump said that he hoped that the fighting would wrap up quickly.
"It's a shame, we just heard about it," Trump told reporters at the White House. "I guess people knew something was going to happen based on a little bit of the past. They've been fighting for a long time."
The US president added: "I just hope it ends very quickly."
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the fighting in a post on X/Twitter.
"It is essential - especially at this critical hour - that India and Pakistan avoid a military confrontation that could easily spin out of control," he wrote.
"Make no mistake: A military solution is no solution."
The United Arab Emirates asked Mumbai and Islamabad to "exercise restraint" and "avoid further escalation that could threaten regional and international peace," CNN reported.
“His Highness reaffirmed that diplomacy and dialogue remain the most effective means of peacefully resolving crises, and achieving the shared aspirations of nations for peace, stability, and prosperity,” a statement from Deputy Prime Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan read.
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.