Iran fired waves of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday evening in an assault that was mostly thwarted, according to the Israeli authorities, but one that made the prospect of a direct all-out war between two of the more powerful militaries in the Middle East more likely.

The offensive left the region on edge awaiting a potential Israeli response.

“Iran made a big mistake tonight — and it will pay for it,” Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said in a statement late on Tuesday. “The regime in Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and to retaliate against our enemies.”

Iran fired about 180 missiles during its assault, the Israeli military said, a significant barrage that forced millions to take cover in bomb shelters. But by midnight, restrictions on gatherings in parts of Israel, including around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, had been lifted, signaling that another wave was not immediately anticipated.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said in a statement that the country had attacked Israel in retaliation for recent assassinations. In July, Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed by a bomb while he was in Tehran, the Iranian capital. Then, on Friday, Israeli warplanes killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, with an airstrike near Beirut.

Mohammad Bagheri, Iran’s top military officer, said on state television that the missiles had targeted three military bases and the headquarters of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service.

Israel’s air defense system intercepted many of the Iranian missiles, the Israeli military said. There were no reports of casualties in Israel. One Palestinian man was killed by falling shrapnel in the occupied West Bank. And the Israeli military released video of a school building in Gedera, a town in central Israel, that was hit.