Fears of full-scale war as Israel says attack on Iran is ‘just the beginning'

The Guardian

13-06-2025

Israel has warned that its aerial assault on Iran, bombing nuclear facilities and air defences, killing military commanders and scientists, was 'just the beginning' of an operation to smash the country's nuclear programme, leaving the Middle East facing the prospect of a full-scale war.
Iran has vowed revenge, with the new head of the Revolutionary Guard, Mohammad Pakpour, hastily appointed after his predecessor was killed in Friday's attack, threatening to open 'the gates of hell' on Israel.
The Israeli strikes hit more than 100 major targets in Iran, including nuclear facilities and missile sites, and killed senior military commanders and scientists in what Tehran said was a 'declaration of war'.
Iran launched a salvo of 100 drones in its immediate response, which were mostly shot down before reaching Israel, but the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he expected 'several waves of Iranian attacks' and warned: 'Israeli citizens may have to remain in sheltered areas for lengthy periods of time.'
More explosions were reported in Iran on Friday evening, suggesting a secondary phase of Israeli attacks was already under way, in the early stages of a war that has been brewing for a quarter-century, ever since Iran's secret underground uranium enrichment facilities were first exposed, and the US and Israel insisted the country would not be allowed to build a bomb.
The focus of much of the Israeli munitions on Friday was the mostly subterranean uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. A Israel military spokesperson, Brig Gen Effie Defrin, said the facility was 'significantly damaged' and that the operation was 'just the beginning'.
Officers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) made clear that its war aims were to seize the opportunity offered by Iran's flattened air defences, to wreak lasting, crippling damage on Iran's nuclear programme.
'That's the goal, to remove the threat and to make sure they don't have a nuclear bomb and that there is not an active existential threat on the Israeli people,' an IDF officer said.
Among the uncertainties hanging over the region as night fell on Friday was how much of Iran's arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles were still usable, and whether Tehran would take revenge on the US as well as Israel.
The US role in the attack remained murky. In the run-up to the Israeli 200-plane attack, Donald Trump had publicly urged Israel to give diplomacy more of a chance, before US-Iranian talks that were planned for Sunday. On Friday, the US president insisted he had been well informed of Israel's plans, and described the Israeli attack as 'excellent'.
Asked by the Wall Street Journal what kind of heads-up the US had been given, Trump responded testily: 'Heads-up? It wasn't a heads-up. It was, we know what's going on.'
Speaking separately to ABC News, he praised the attacks and linked the timing to a 60-day ultimatum he had given Tehran in the spring, to negotiate a deal. 'I think it's been excellent. We gave them a chance and they didn't take it. They got hit hard, very hard. They got hit about as hard as you're going to get hit. And there's more to come. A lot more,' Trump said.
On his own Truth Social online platform, Trump urged Iran to make a deal or face further planned attacks that would be 'even more brutal'.
ABC quoted a 'source familiar with the intelligence' as saying the US had provided 'exquisite' intelligence and would help defend Israel as needed.
The US website Axios quoted two Israeli officials as suggesting the apparent disagreement with Israel had been a ploy, aimed at convincing Iran that no attack was imminent so the generals and scientists on the target list would not move to new locations. 'We had a clear US green light,' one of the officials said.
Israel's first wave of airstrikes took place soon after 8am Iranian time. About 200 Israeli warplanes hit 100 wide ranging targets.
In a televised address recorded in English for the benefit of foreign audiences, Netanyahu declared: 'We struck at the heart of Iran's nuclear enrichment programme. We struck at the heart of Iran's nuclear weaponisation programme. We targeted Iran's main enrichment facility in Natanz. We targeted Iran's leading nuclear scientists working on the Iranian bomb. We also struck at the heart of Iran's ballistic missile programme.'
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that the Natanz enrichment plant had been hit but no increase in radiation had been detected outside the facility.
Iranian state media said the head of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), Gen Hossein Salami, the army chief of staff, Maj Gen Mohammad Bagheri, and the commander of the Khatam al-Anbia joint forces headquarters, Maj Gen Gholam Ali Rashid, were killed in the strikes, as well as six nuclear scientists, including Fereydoun Abbasi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization from 2011 to 2013.
Israel said its assault had killed most of the senior leadership of the IRGC's air force.
IDF officers said that operation, codenamed Rising Lion, had involved the infiltration of Mossad commandos before the strikes, as well as drones, to target air defences and Iran's ballistic missiles.
Later in the day, the Mossad released grainy footage that it said showed agents on Iranian soil. Another video showed what the agency said was an attack on an Iranian defence system, while a third appeared to show an Iranian long-range missile being targeted.
Iranian civilians described a night of terrifying explosions. Golnar, a resident of Saadat Abad, in northern Tehran, said she woke to loud explosions just after 3am.
'I woke up to the first explosion and rushed to the windows to check. Then, minutes later, back to back I heard four explosions. The windows were shaking and people in the building started screaming,' she said. 'Everything happened so quickly. We were scrambling for information on whether this was an attack or a natural disaster. This morning there's debris all over the explosion site and surrounding streets.'
Ahmad Moadi, 62, said: 'How much longer are we going to live in fear? As an Iranian, I believe there must be an overwhelming response, a scathing response.'