By Sophia Saifi, Rhea Mogul and Jessie Yeung

Islamabad, Pakistan / New Delhi, India (CNN) — India launched military strikes on Pakistan on Wednesday and Pakistan claimed it shot down five Indian Air Force jets, in an escalation that has pushed the two nations to the brink of a wider conflict.

The escalation puts India and Pakistan in dangerous territory, with Islamabad vowing to retaliate against India’s strikes and the international community calling for restraint.

New Delhi said the strikes are in response to the massacre of 26 people – mostly Indian tourists – who died in April when gunmen stormed a scenic mountain spot in the India-administered part of Kashmir, a disputed border region. India has blamed Pakistan for the attack, which Islamabad denies.

Here’s what we know so far.

What happened with India’s strikes?

India launched “Operation Sindoor” in the early hours of Wednesday morning local time (Tuesday night ET) in both Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Indian officials said nine sites were targeted, but claimed no Pakistani civilian, economic or military sites were struck. They said the 25-minute operation targeted “terrorist infrastructure” belonging to two militant groups – Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed.

The name ‘Sindoor’ appears to be a reference to the red vermilion, or powder, many Hindu women wear on their foreheads after marriage. The April tourist massacre – which singled out men as victims – left several Indian women widowed.

But Pakistan is painting a different picture of the strikes – saying civilians were killed and mosques were hit. CNN has yet to verify those claims.

A Pakistani military spokesperson said six locations were hit with 24 strikes. Some of those strikes hit the densely populated province of Punjab, Pakistan’s military said, and were the deepest India has struck inside Pakistan since 1971, when the two countries fought one of their four wars.

Indian shelling also hit an intake structure on the Noseri Dam on the Neelum river in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, a Pakistani security source told CNN on Wednesday.

The Neelum is part of the sprawling Indus river system, a vital resource supporting hundreds of millions of livelihoods across Pakistan and northern India.

How did Pakistan respond?

Pakistani security sources claimed they had shot down five Indian Air Force jets and one drone during India’s attack.

They did not say exactly where, or how, the jets were downed – but said three Rafale jets were among those planes. India’s Rafale fighter jets are prized military assets that it bought from France only a few years ago.

The “dog fight” between the Pakistani and Indian fighter jets was one of the “largest and longest in recent aviation history,” a senior Pakistani security source told CNN.

A total of 125 fighter jets battled for over an hour, with neither side leaving its own airspace, according to the source who detailed that the missile exchanges were happening at distances sometimes greater than 160 kilometers (100 miles).

Neither side was prepared to send their pilots over the border because of a much smaller dogfight in 2019. An Indian air force pilot was shot down on Pakistani territory and paraded on TV before being returned to India. A humiliation he said neither side wanted this time.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif claimed on Wednesday evening that Pakistan’s air force had blown the Indian jets to “smithereens.”

India has not confirmed any planes were lost. CNN has not been able to verify the claim.

An eyewitness and local government official said an unidentified aircraft crashed in the village of Wuyan in Indian-administered Kashmir. Photos published by the AFP news agency showed aircraft wreckage lying in a field next to a red-brick building.

It was not immediately clear from the photos who the aircraft belonged to.

Sharif said on Wednesday the country “has every right” to respond, calling India’s actions an “act of war.”

Sharif called on Pakistan’s Armed Forces to “avenge the loss of innocent Pakistani lives,” after an emergency National Security Commitee (NSC) meeting on Wednesday.

How many casualties are there?

The death toll in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir has risen to 31, with 57 injured, Pakistani military spokesman Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said on Wednesday night local time.

Chaudhry said those killed include teenagers and children – the youngest of whom was three years old.

Twelve civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir were also killed by shelling by Pakistani troops from across the border, a senior Indian defense source told CNN, who added that 57 people had been injured.

What else is happening on the ground?

On Wednesday, the two sides also exchanged shelling and gunfire across the Line of Control (LOC), the de facto border that divides Kashmir.

Authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir have ordered citizens to evacuate from areas deemed dangerous, saying accommodation, food and medicine will be provided.

The strikes have disrupted flights, with Pakistan closing parts of its airspace. Multiple major international airlines are avoiding flying over Pakistan, while several Indian airlines have reported disrupted flights and closed airports in the country’s north.

Some context: There have been regular exchanges of gunfire along the Line of Control in the weeks following the Pahalgam massacre.

What prompted all of this? What is Kashmir?

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been a flashpoint in India-Pakistan relations since both countries gained their independence from Britain in 1947.

The two nations to emerge from the bloody partition of British India – Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan – both claim Kashmir in full and, months after becoming independent, fought their first of three wars over the territory.

The divided region is now one of the most militarized places in the world.

India has long accused Pakistan of harboring militant groups there that conduct attacks across the border, something Islamabad has long denied.

The massacre in the tourist hotspot of Pahalgam in April sparked widespread anger in India, putting heavy pressure on the Hindu-nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India immediately blamed Islamabad, sparking tit-for-tat retaliatory measures in which both countries downgraded ties, canceled visas for each other’s citizens, and saw India pull out of a key water-sharing treaty.

What could come next?

The three previous wars over Kashmir have each been bloody; the last one in 1999 killed more than a thousand Pakistani troops, by the most conservative estimates.

In the decades since, militant groups have fought Indian security forces, with violence killing tens of thousands. The two countries have clashed multiple times, most recently in 2019 when India conducted airstrikes in Pakistan after it blamed Islamabad for a suicide car bomb attack in the region.

But those recent clashes did not explode into all-out war. Both sides are aware of the risks; since 1999, the two countries have worked to strengthen their militaries, including arming themselves with nuclear weapons.

How is the world reacting?

The strikes have raised global alarm and pleas for the two nations to prevent further escalation.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres voiced “deep concern” over India’s strikes, warning that the world “cannot afford a military confrontation” between the two nations.

The United States – which had urged restraint from both countries last week – said it was “closely monitoring developments,” according to a State Department spokesperson.

“We are aware of the reports, however we have no assessment to offer at this time,” the spokesperson said Tuesday. “This remains an evolving situation, and we are closely monitoring developments.”

The United Arab Emirates, China and Japan have also called for both sides to de-escalate.

Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has called on both sides to de-escalate tensions.

“Hatred and violence are our common enemies, not each other,” she posted to X. “I strongly urge leaders in India and Pakistan to take steps to de-escalate tensions, protect civilians – especially children – and unite against the forces of division.”

A senior Indian government official told CNN that New Delhi had briefed its international counterparts on the steps it had taken – including the US, UAE, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

CNN’s Hira Humayun and Nic Robertson contributed to this story.

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