tLong-term tensions between India and Pakistan are boiling. According to Pakistani officials, India fired a series of missiles into Pakistan-controlled territory at midnight on Wednesday, May 7, killing at least 31 people and injuring dozens of people.

Although Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called it an "act of war", it was India's most extensive missile strike against Pakistan India and warned of a "suitable reply".

Pakistan's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting announced that the strike "will not be left unanswered". “The temporary pleasure of India will be replaced by lasting sorrow.”

"The revenge has begun. We will not take a long time to resolve the score," Pakistan's Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told AFP.

In a briefing on Wednesday, Indian Wing Commander Vyomika Singh said India's armed forces were "fully prepared" to respond to any response from Pakistan.

"Operation Sindoor" and Pahalgam Attacks

According to reports from Pakistani officials, the attacks in India were at least six locations in Pakistan's Asia-managed Kashmir and Punjab province in eastern Pakistan, with a total of 24 strikes. Kashmir.

India accused Pakistan of being involved in the Pahargam attack, which killed 25 Indian nationals and a Nepali national and injured dozens of people. The Pakistani government denied its participation and called for a neutral investigation.

Since then, there have been escalations in both sides, including gunfire exchanges between Indian and Pakistani forces along the border, deportation of diplomats and nationals on both sides, shutting down airspace to each other's airlines and trade suspensions. India also said it would stop the flow of water from India to Pakistan - a move that would be seen as an act of war, Pakistani officials have previously warned.

Read more: How India threatens to weaponize water in conflict with Pakistan

The May 7 air strike was called "Operation sindoor" by Indian officials, and was marked in Hindi in Indian powder (used by Hindu women as dots on their foreheads) and apparently refers to the widow left behind after the Pahargam attack.

Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar posted on X "The world must have zero tolerance for terrorism" and the image of the term "Operation sindoor".

"India has reliable potential customers, technical opinions, survivor testimony and other evidence that Pakistani terrorists were clearly involved in the (April 22) attack," the Indian Embassy in Washington said in a statement on Tuesday.

Indian Foreign Minister Vikram Misri said at a press conference in New Delhi that intelligence indicated that “further attacks on India are about to occur. Therefore, coercive measures can both prevent and preempt.”

Minutes before confirming the missile strike, Indian troops posted videos of Indian troops tanks and ammunition on X, titled “Prepare for strikes, trained to win”. Soon after, the Army issued the "Judicial. Jay Shinde!"

The Indian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that its missile strike targeted at least nine locations and was "planned to attack India." "Our actions have been centralized, measured and non-propaganda in nature. There are no military facilities targeting Pakistan. India has shown considerable limitations in selecting goals and implementing methods," the statement added.

Pakistan's response

The locations of the Pakistan-controlled Kashmir attacks include its capital, Muzaffarabad, as well as Kotli and Bagh, and the Punjab provinces include Ahmedpur Sharqia (near Bahwalpur), Muridke and Shakargarh. Pakistani officials told broadcaster Geo that India targets civilian sites, including mosques, and marked India's claims of "false" against terrorist infrastructure. Pakistani officials say a three-year-old girl is a civilian killed by a strike. According to Pakistan's armed forces, India's strike also attacked the infrastructure of a hydroelectric dam in Pakistan-managed Kashmir, which Pakistan's armed forces said the shelling "is clearly a violation of international law."

After the attack, Pakistan closed schools in Kashmir and Punjab provinces. Several flights have been cancelled or transferred from Pakistan's airspace, including flights from Korea, Air France, Lufthansa, Air India and Qatar Airways.

Pakistani officials said Pakistan's air force shot down five Indian aircraft in retaliation, two of which attacked buildings, including Indian-controlled Kashmir villages. India's News Information Agency said it was wrong to claim that Pakistan destroyed the headquarters of the Indian brigade.

Indian officials also said on Wednesday that at least seven civilians were killed by Pakistani forces throughout the control line and dozens were injured. Pakistan said five of its civilians died Wednesday along the artillery hit rate along the artillery. The Indian Army said its troops “responsively in a calibrated manner”.

"Indian leaders have once again used the taboos of terrorism to advance their false narratives of victims, endangering regional peace and security. India's reckless actions bring the two nuclear-weapon states close to major conflicts."

UN, the United States, China and others urge down demotion

The United Nations calls on nuclear-weapon neighbors to exercise the biggest military restrictions. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a note issued by his spokesperson: "The world cannot afford the military confrontation between India and Pakistan."

Both the United States and China call for downgrades.

"China found India's military action regrettable this morning. We are concerned about the ongoing situation," a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "India and Pakistan will also be each other's neighbors. They are both neighbors of China. China opposes all forms of terrorism. We urge both sides to take action to maintain calmness with greater peace and stability interests, limit and avoid actions that may further complicate the situation."

China has previously argued with Pakistan and India in other parts of Kashmir. It reached an agreement with Pakistan in 1963 to establish a border between the two countries. However, India rejected the validity of the agreement and continued to object to China's part of eastern Kashmir. Today, China is Pakistan's largest investor, with the Chinese Economic Corridor investing $62 billion since 2015.

Meanwhile, the United States has long been a mediator between India and Pakistan, including fears in 1999 that the 10-week battle could escalate into a nuclear conflict, and in 2019, when then-state secretary Mike Pompeo convinced every side that “the other side is not prepared for a nuclear war,” his memoir.

India has strengthened relations with the United States by buying billions of US military equipment in recent years, while Islamabad has had tensions with Washington, especially like popular former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has since been imprisoned on corruption charges, claiming political enthusiasm, accusing the United States of orchestrating his Ousterter. As a result, Pakistan is increasingly turning to China to buy weapons.

Although Beijing has been working to improve its ties with New Delhi in recent months, the United States has established relations with India over the years to deal with China's influence in the region. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met several times during Trump's first and second presidency, and the two discussed deepening defensive ties during Modi's visit to Washington in February.

According to India's May 7 strike against Pakistan, U.S. National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with India and Pakistan's national security advisers, urging the two countries to "keep communication open and avoid escalation."

Trump called the strike "shame" and told the White House reporter: "I think people know that something will happen based on a little bit of the past. They've been fighting for a long time, they've been fighting for decades, and in fact, if you really think of centuries." (India and Pakistan have objected to the Kashmir region since their division from British India in 1947.)

Later in the Oval Office, he added: "I would like to see them stop and hope they can stop now. If I can do any help, I'll be there."

The U.S. Embassy in Pakistan has advised U.S. citizens to “not travel” consultations about areas near the India-Pakistan border if they can safely leave active conflict or asylum is in place.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat of the House Armed Services Committee, a ranking member of India's bipartisan congressional caucus and Indian-American co-chair, California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, said on CNN that the United States needs to be a "reduced honest agent."

The UAE, which previously mediated tensions between India and Pakistan in 2021, is one of the countries that several other countries have also urged to be quiet, both sides called on both sides to “exercise constraints, demote tensions and avoid further escalation, thereby threatening regional and international peace.” Qatar also advocated relegation, urging the two countries to "exercise their greatest restraint" and "resolve the crisis through diplomatic means."