The Indian armed forces launched "Operation Sindoor," hitting nine sites in Pakistan, as well as Jammu and Kashmir, the government said in a statement on Wednesday.
"A little while ago, the Indian armed forces launched ‘OPERATION SINDOOR’, hitting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed," the Indian government said in a statement.
Indian channel News 18 reported that 12 terrorists were killed and 55 people were injured as a result of the strikes.
Pakistani representatives told the UN Security Council informed that it reserves the right to respond appropriately to India's actions, leaving many fearful of a broadening conflict in the east.
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.
According to The Hindu, Islamabad said that it condemned Mumbai's "cowardly actions" and accused Indian forces of targeting civilians.
“In the wake of 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 Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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 our 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 three Indian Air Force aircraft and a drone.
“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 ground and air, have inflicted. But I can confirm you at least two aircraft of Indian Air Force that have been downed."
Indian media or government sources did not confirm his claims.
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.
The Hindu reported that India had informed its global partners, including the US, UK, Russia, UAE, and Saudi Arabia, of its military actions.
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.
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."
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.