Israel launched a blistering attack on the heart of Iran’s nuclear and military structure on Friday, deploying warplanes and drones smuggled into the country to target key facilities and kill top generals and scientists, in what Tehran described as “a declaration of war”.
Israel said the barrage was necessary before its adversary got any closer to building an atomic weapon.
The operation raised the potential for all-out conflict between the countries and propelled the region, already on edge, into even greater upheaval.
Iran quickly retaliated, sending a swarm of drones at Israel as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned of “severe punishment”.
Iran had been censured by the UN’s atomic watchdog a day earlier for not complying with obligations meant to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Israel had long threatened such a strike, and successive US administrations had sought to prevent it, fearing it would ignite a wider conflict across the Middle East and possibly be ineffective at destroying Iran’s dispersed and hardened nuclear programme.
But a confluence of developments triggered by Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack and the election in the US of President Donald Trump created the conditions that allowed Israel to finally follow through on its threats.
Israel had told the Trump administration that the large-scale attacks were coming, officials in the US and Israel said.
On Wednesday the US pulled some American diplomats from Iraq’s capital and offered voluntary evacuations for the families of US troops in the wider Middle East.
The United States is shifting military resources, including ships, in the Middle East in response to Israel’s strikes on Iran and a possible retaliatory attack by Tehran, two US officials said.
Countries in the region condemned Israel’s attack, while leaders around the globe called for immediate de-escalation from both sides. Iran asked for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
Israel’s military said about 200 aircraft were involved in the initial attack on about 100 targets.
Its Mossad spy agency positioned explosive drones and precision weapons inside Iran ahead of time, and used them to target Iranian air defences and missile launchers near Tehran, according to two security officials.
Among the key sites Israel attacked was Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz, where black smoke could be seen rising into the air.
Israel also said it destroyed dozens of radar installations and surface-to-air missile launchers in western Iran.
Israel military spokesman Effie Defrin said the Natanz facility was “significantly damaged” and that the operation was “still in the beginning”.
Among those killed were three of Iran’s top military leaders: one who oversaw the entire armed forces, General Mohammad Bagheri; one who led the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, General Hossein Salami; and the head of the Guard’s ballistic missile programme, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh.
Iran confirmed all three deaths, significant blows to its governing theocracy that will complicate efforts to retaliate. Khamenei said other top military officials and scientists were also killed.
In its first response, Iran fired more than 100 drones at Israel. Israel said the drones were being intercepted outside its airspace, and it was not immediately clear whether any got through.
Mr Trump urged Iran to reach a deal with Washington on its nuclear programme, warning on his Truth Social platform that Israel’s attacks “will only get worse”.
“Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire,” he wrote. “No more death, no more destruction, JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”
Israeli leaders cast the attack as necessary to head off an imminent threat that Iran would build nuclear bombs, though it remains unclear how close the country is to achieving that or whether Iran had actually been planning a strike.
Iran maintains its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes only.
“This is a clear and present danger to Israel’s very survival,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed as he vowed to pursue the attack for as long as necessary to “remove this threat”.
Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East but has never acknowledged having such weapons.
On Friday, Israelis rushed to supermarkets in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere to buy bottled water and other supplies. But, otherwise, streets and parks were mostly deserted.
For Mr Netanyahu, the operation distracts attention from Israel’s ongoing and increasingly devastating war in Gaza, which is now more than 20 months old.
Khamenei said in a statement that Israel “opened its wicked and blood-stained hand to a crime in our beloved country, revealing its malicious nature more than ever by striking residential centres”.
Mr Netanyahu expressed hope the attacks would trigger the downfall of Iran’s theocracy, saying his message to the Iranian people was that the fight was not with them, but with the “brutal dictatorship that has oppressed you for 46 years”.
“I believe that the day of your liberation is near,” he said.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said Israel took “unilateral action against Iran” and that it believed the strikes were necessary for its self-defence.
