Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel was “a major and shameful failure,” the White House announced today.

“I saw information that the Iranians had planned to fail, that this major and embarrassing failure was intentional,” said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.

“I also saw Iran saying that it was sounding the alarm to help Israel prepare its defenses and limit any possible damage,” he added. “All of this is categorically false,” he said.

“This attack failed because Israel, the United States and a coalition of other partners committed to Israel’s security made it fail,” he said.

“So let’s be clear: given the scale of this attack, Iran’s intent was clearly to cause significant damage and casualties,” he added.

Iran fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel overnight Saturday into Sunday in retaliation for the deadly attack on its consulate in Damascus on April 1, attributed to Israel.

Almost all of these rockets and drones were intercepted by Israeli air defenses with the help of the United States and other allied countries.

– Tehran did not warn Washington of the attack or its targets –

Kirby said Iran did not warn the United States last week about its timetable for launching an attack against Israel or potential targets.

The White House national security council spokesman told reporters that the United States did exchange messages with Iran, but that there were never any messages regarding Iran’s timing or goals for its attack over the weekend. Kirby said he would not go into the subject of the messages. He said reports suggesting Iran had informed the United States of its plans were “categorically false” and “nonsense”.

“Iran never gave us a message telling us the timing or the targets,” Kirby said. “This whole narrative out there that Iran sent us a message about what it was going to do is ridiculous.”

Turkish, Jordanian and Iraqi officials said on Sunday that Iran gave several days’ notice of the drone and missile strike against Israel, but US officials said Tehran did not notify Washington and that it aimed to cause significant damage.

Iranian sources told Reuters last week that Tehran had warned Washington that it would respond to Israel’s attack on its embassy in Syria in a way that would avoid major escalation and that it would not act hastily.

A US official said late last Thursday that the United States expects an attack from Iran against Israel, but one that would not be large enough to drag Washington into war.