How Israelis view Netanyahu's strikes on Iran

Australia Broadcast Center

6 hours ago

News presenter: Breaking news this morning, Middle East correspondent Eric Tlozek joins us live now.
News reporting, Eric Tlozek: This is a huge step, widespread strikes across Iran. There's been multiple waves of ballistic missiles, some of which have landed here in Tel Aviv. This could just be the start of Iran's retaliation. Behind me, an apartment building's been struck. Are we being told to shelter? Yes. Okay, there's another raid underway right now. We've got to take shelter. Well, it's underway. It's happening right now. We just had a very large boom. The buildings were shaking. We're hearing multiple interceptions in the skies above. This is not being described as a short operation. It's being more described as a war, and it could last for weeks. By the end, there may be many more scenes like this.
Sam Hawley: When Israel began its strikes against Iran, it took the Iranian regime and its residents largely by surprise. But the Israeli people also had no idea what their leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, was about to embark on. Today, Middle East correspondent Eric Tlozek on the ground in Israel. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Eric, we'll discuss in a moment what's happening on the ground in Iran, but you're in Jerusalem at the moment, and you've been reporting from Tel Aviv. Tell me what is life like in Israel at the moment?
Eric Tlozek: Sam, Israel has something called the Home Front Command, which is like a liaison office of the military that deals with the civilian population. And they've put in place restrictions on public gatherings, on which shops and businesses can trade, and also recommended that people stay off the roads, limit travel between cities and remain near shelters and protected spaces. So that means that there's not very much traffic. Most people are staying near their homes. A lot of businesses have been closed. The streets and parks and things like that are a lot less busy than they'd normally be in summer. And in the evenings when the barrages have been coming over, most people are staying at home. So they can get either to a public shelter or to what are called safe rooms in most people's buildings or houses. So there's reinforced concrete rooms in most buildings that people go to when they're given the warning that an Iranian missile strike is on its way.
Sam Hawley: How much warning do they get, Eric, to get into those bunkers?
News reporting, Eric Tlozek: Well, the
Eric Tlozek: military's been sending out a warning about half an hour prior to the missiles arriving. And then there's specific sirens in each city that will sound if it's projected that one of the missiles will land in that city. And there's also about a 10 minute warning as well that comes out. And interestingly, the Israeli military has said today that's going to stop the half an hour warning because people are finding it a bit confusing. And it's going to start at just the 10 minute warning. So people are going to get 10 minutes notice that there's a missile strike on its way. And then they've got that 10 minutes to get into their safe areas before the sirens might start up and the actual barrage begins. And you can actually see the barrages passing over to the north of Jerusalem. And there's no alert for Jerusalem, but you see the big wave of missiles coming over in the sky north of Jerusalem and interceptors coming up from the plain down and towards Tel Aviv to start doing what are called exo-atmospheric interceptions. So some of the Israeli systems actually intercept the ballistic missiles above the Earth's atmosphere. And then you get this kind of burst of color and light very, very high up in the sky when one of those occurs. So you can see them in the night sky as the barrages come over, particularly the ones that have been targeting Haifa and Tel Aviv.
Sam Hawley: Yeah. And how many of these missiles are actually getting through, do you know? Is it clear how much damage has been caused at this point in Israel itself?
Eric Tlozek: No, because the Israeli authorities are always keen for you to focus your coverage on any missiles that might have hit a civilian area like a residential building. Many of the strikes we've been going to have hit residential buildings. But the Israeli military said yesterday that it believes 90 to 95 percent of the strikes have targeted military and intelligence facilities. So and those are the ones we can't get anywhere near. They maintain a pretty heavy cordon around them. And it's also illegal under the censorship restrictions in Israel to report on damage to those kind of sites. So you won't see any reporting in the local media. We can't get close to those sites and we don't know the extent to which they've been damaged. And those are the sites that the Iranian military says it's been focusing on. So that accords with what the Israeli military is saying. They are mentioning air force bases, intelligence bases, weapons factories, the oil refinery in Haifa. The Israelis did actually confirm that that was hit and damaged and three people died there. And also the Weizmann Research Institute, which is near Tel Aviv, which is an area that does all sorts of scientific research, but that Iran claims was linked to some Israeli military programs. That's also been badly damaged. So we know that we know that the damage is probably more extensive than what we're just seeing, you know, from these residential sites that have been hit.
Sam Hawley: All right, well, Eric, let's now consider more deeply the decision by Benjamin Netanyahu to launch these strikes, what that means for his leadership and for the people of Israel. What do we know about whether Israelis actually support this conflict with Iran?
Eric Tlozek: Well, to us, people on the streets are saying they believe this was necessary. So they seem to have been convinced by Benjamin Netanyahu's rhetoric about Iran, you know, being an imminent threat. And also that this the belief that Iran was racing towards a nuclear bomb. That's something that's even though that's contradicted by a recent U.S. intelligence assessment and the International Atomic Energy Agency also said that its reports had no evidence of a systemic push by Iran towards a nuclear weapon. What we do know is that Iran was enriching uranium to higher levels than ever before. And Iran had said it was doing that. And it was doing that in response to the U.S. pulling out of the nuclear control deal that Iran had signed and was complying with in 2018. But Israelis seem to believe the rhetoric from Benjamin Netanyahu, also from the Israeli military, that Iran was not only enriching uranium to weapons grade, but that it was also preparing other components that would allow the delivery of a nuclear warhead. So people on the ground have been saying to us we had to do it. It is a heavy price to pay. You know, the civilian impacts are heavy and the unknown military and other impacts as well. But it is a heavy price to pay for a necessary action. And they also have repeated to me this line that Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians keep saying, which is that we're doing this for the rest of the world because we don't want a nuclear Iran.
Sam Hawley: And this has been, hasn't it, a long time ambition of Benjamin Netanyahu. Just tell me about that.
Eric Tlozek: Well, yeah, it's perhaps not surprising that people were ready to believe Benjamin Netanyahu because he has literally been saying this for decades since the 1990s. He has been talking about Iran's nuclear ambitions and warning that it poses a threat to Israel. So it's something that, you know, the Israeli government has been talking about the Israeli political figures. The Israeli military has gamed out these scenarios for years, you know, about how it would attack Iran. It has sought to engage the US in attacks on Iran, you know, for years because, you know, the question is, yes, Israel might have technical superiority, have air superiority, have intelligence superiority over Iran. But it's one thing to be able to attack Iran. It's another thing to kind of have any effective change in Iran based on Israel's strike. So that's now the question for the Israelis. What is their end goal here and what are they trying to achieve beyond, you know, the short term? So I think those questions are still really open.
Sam Hawley: But in a sense, there has been, I guess, a shift in public mood, if you like, to back in Benjamin Netanyahu and his decision on this, because leading up to these strikes, there's been mass protests on the streets. He has not been a popular leader, if you like.
Eric Tlozek: No, that's right. He's got about support of maybe a quarter of the population in terms of the polling for his party. And he's had massive, sustained protests against not just his handling of the war in Gaza, but also an ongoing corruption trial that he's actually in at the moment. You know, he keeps having to appear in court to testify on these multiple charges of related to corruption allegations. And, you know, prior to that, he was also facing allegations of an attempted takeover of Israel's democratic institutions. So he was accused of trying to weaken Israel's high court and also, you know, many of the kind of key safeguards in the Israeli democracy, like public officers, like the attorney general. So those kind of moves have been hugely controversial and unpopular in Israel and have led to allegations that, you know, Benjamin Netanyahu has been acting like an autocrat and has been weakening Israeli democracy. And, you know, the launch of these attacks against Iran at this time is seen by some Israelis, particularly those critical of Benjamin Netanyahu, as perhaps another attempt by the prime minister to keep conflicts ongoing at a high intensity that enable him to stay in office for longer.
Sam Hawley: All right, well, Eric, on the other side of this, of course, are the Iranian civilians. It is so much harder for us to get a real handle on what is happening there, isn't it? Because foreign journalists aren't allowed to report from there. Censorship is really, really tight.
Eric Tlozek: That's right. Iran's got a highly controlled media environment and it's also restricted Internet access in recent days. So it said it's doing that to to stop Israeli intelligence operations. But it also makes it really difficult to get information out about what's happening. People, ordinary Iranians, are also very scared, you know, to provide information about what's going on because there's the risk of being jailed by the Iranian government. There's a whole range of restrictions and difficulties in in getting information from Iran. So to get a clear picture, we really have to rely on a whole range of different sources. And even then, we're still we're still wondering in many cases about the extent of the impacts, how many of them are in civilian areas. What is the true civilian death toll? We simply don't know. The Iranian government released a figure two days ago saying 224 people had been killed and more than 1200 injured. But there's other sources that suggest the toll is higher and the Iranian government is kind of artificially keeping it low to make it seem like, you know, it's got a better handle on things than it really does.
Sam Hawley: Yeah, the Israeli targets are really quite widespread now, aren't they? It started with military leaders, scientists, nuclear sites. But now we've seen state TV hit, oil and gas facilities. We've seen these images of really packed roads, civilians trying to flee.
Eric Tlozek: Yeah. And Tehran has been hit very intensely on successive days. And that includes residential areas, upscale parts of north Tehran, working class parts of the east. We've seen whole residential buildings knocked down. So, you know, there's a fear amongst many Iranians that the strikes will be much more widespread and much less targeted to military facilities. So, you know, we know that a number of scientists have been targeted in residential areas, government officials, military officials. And we know that, as you said, oil and gas infrastructure, but not just the big export infrastructure, but fuel depots for domestic fuel consumption, meaning it's difficult for Iranians to get petrol now, oil depots for power generation and gas and things like that. So it looks like Israel's attempting a campaign to not only weaken Iran militarily, but to also make conditions difficult within Iran. And that could be an attempt to further put pressure on the government. And it coincides with the statements by the Israeli officials saying, you know, Iranians should rise up and topple the government. So clearly trying to put more pressure on there.
Sam Hawley: Well, Eric, just tell me, what will you be actually watching for now? How will we know when this is either de-escalating or basically just becoming a lot worse?
Eric Tlozek: Well, Israel seems intent on intensifying even further. So, I mean, what I'll be watching for is do the attacks shift even more to key officials within the government? Does Israel's goal become openly, you know, and actively changing the Iranian government, toppling the theocratic regime? And also the key question is, will the US become directly involved? It's been helping defend Israel by shooting down Iran's ballistic missiles. But will it start participating in attacks against Iran directly? That that would trigger a broader response from Iran and Iran's proxies like the Shia militia. They have the ability to attack US bases in the region. Iran could also attack US bases in the Gulf. It could stop shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, closing off one fifth of the world's oil traffic. It could also attack infrastructure in the Gulf states and broaden this conflict and make the impacts much more widespread, then raising the stakes even more.
Sam Hawley: Eric Tlozek is an ABC Middle East correspondent who is currently in Jerusalem. This episode was produced by Sydney Pead and Adair Sheppard. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.