National and world leaders have reacted to U.S. Navy ships lauching 59 tomahawk missiles from the Mediterranean Sea into a Syrian air base in retaliation for this week's chemical weapons attack against civilians.

And now the the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has stated that the U.S. wants an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the missile attack.

The tomahawk missiles can travel between 800 to 1,500 miles and travel low enough to the ground to avoid radar detection. They were first used in 1991 during Desert Storm.

The airstrike is bringing in divided reaction from leaders in the U.S. and around the world. 

Members of Congress are divided on their reaction so the airstrikes but not down the isle like normally. Here at home both U.S. senators from Florida Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio say they support President Donald Trump's decision to launch the attack.

And Tampa Democratic Representative Kathy Castor says it was an important and targeted response to the use of chemical weapons.

Others though, say the president acted without proper approval from Congress, such as Orlando Democrat Rep. Val Demings, who thinks the president should have gotten Congressional support.

U.S. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul tweeted this:

It is worth pointing out this tweet from 2013 when Trump tweeted that former President Barack Obama needed Congressional approval to bomb Syria.

The president also has the support from Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

But from around the globe, world leaders chimed in on the attack.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Twitter:

Israel also says it fully supports Trump's decision on social media.

Britain and Saudi Arabia have also both backed the military move.

However, Iran strongly condemned it, while Russia called it an aggression and is threatening to shut down all military cooperation with the U.S.

Russia's Foreign Ministry later said it is suspending a memorandum with Washington — signed after Russia began an air campaign in support of Syria's President Bashar Assad in September 2015 — under which the two countries exchange information about sorties over Syria.

Assad's office called the U.S. missile strike "reckless" and "irresponsible." The Syrian military said at least seven people were killed and nine wounded. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition monitor said the seven included a general and three soldiers.

The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin believes the U.S. strike is an "aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law." 

A U.S.-led coalition has been bombing Islamic State targets in Syria since 2014, while Russia's air force has been striking both extremist groups and Syrian rebels in order to aid Assad's forces.

On Friday, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the U.S. insisted that an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on the U.S. missile attack on Syria be held in the open so that "any country that chooses to defend the atrocities of the Syrian regime will have to do in full public view, for all the world to hear."

The Security Council has called an emergency meeting at 11:30 a.m. to discuss the developments in Syria.  

The surprise strike marked a striking reversal for Trump, who warned as a candidate against the U.S. getting pulled into the Syrian civil war, now in its seventh year. But the president appeared moved by the photos of children killed in the chemical attack, calling it a "disgrace to humanity" that crossed "a lot of lines." 

The U.S. airstrike targeted an air base in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack that American officials believe Syrian government aircraft launched with a nerve agent, possibly sarin. It is believed that chemical weapons attacked killed more than 80, including children.

The president did not announce the attacks in advance, though he and other national security officials ratcheted up their warnings to the Syrian government throughout the day Thursday.

"I think what happened in Syria is one of the truly egregious crimes and shouldn't have happened and it shouldn't be allowed to happen," Trump told reporters traveling on Air Force One to Florida, where he was holding a two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.