Israelis are used to living under conflict but Iran's strikes are making many wary
The streets around Jerusalem are eerily quiet and empty.
Since Israel launched strikes into Iran late last week in what it says is an existential fight for its future, it feels like life inside Israel has come to a standstill.
In Jerusalem, schools, some restaurants, and even businesses including banks are closed.
Residents are heeding warnings to stay inside, anticipating another wave of retaliatory Iranian missiles at any moment.
In Tel Aviv, people have been hauling sleeping bags and pillows into bomb shelters night after night.
The mood feels tense and uncertain, even for a population that's very used to combat.
The last time Israel was thrust into a similar societal standstill was in the days following the October 7 Hamas attacks in 2023 and the start of the Israel-Gaza war.
Since then, Israel has been engaged in non-stop combat, it says sometimes on at least seven different fronts.
So most Israelis are used to living under conflict.
But now Israel is hooked in yet another, potentially more dangerous war.
There seems to be a widespread fear among civilians here that this moment in warfare is more dangerous, and different than all the others.
"Just when you think you're scraping the bottom of the barrel, it gets deeper," one person told the ABC.
It's not unusual for Israelis to receive an incoming rocket-alert notification on their phone, or for air-raid style sirens to ring out through the air.
The aerial defence systems Israel relies on to protect against outside threats have traditionally given Israelis confidence that their loved ones would be relatively safe under attack, especially in larger population areas like Tel Aviv.
There has long been a feeling here that while ongoing war is uncomfortable, Israel's defence capabilities would ensure civilian safety was largely guaranteed.
But that sense of security has been shattered in recent days as the defences are being put through their biggest test ever and the cracks are showing.
Iran is a far more formidable foe than other opponents Israel has engaged in war in the last 18 months, like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The power, and strength of Iran's weapons cache is potent.
It is estimated Iran has thousands of ballistic missiles, which Tehran has stockpiled for years and is now unleashing on Israel in retaliation.
Hundreds of Iranian rockets have been launched into Israeli airspace over the last few days, and despite Israel's advanced aerial defence systems, several are making landfall.
Even the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) concedes it doesn't have the capabilities to stop all the missiles when overwhelmed with a volley of hundreds.
Civilians, who live near major Iranian targets including the IDF's main headquarters in Tel Aviv, are increasingly scared.
Over the weekend, some limitations in Israel's fight against Iran were exposed when a rocket smashed into a residential complex in the central Israeli city of Bat Yam killing at least six people, including a 10-year-old boy and eight-year-old girl.
Despite Israel's attempts to intercept the ongoing waves of missiles, the last few days have reminded residents here that if even one of Iran's more powerful rockets can get through, it can cause mass civilian causalities.
The reality of war against an advanced opponent like Iran has left Israelis scared, and in shock.
Local social media groups have been flooded with fevered questions on how to leave the country with Israel's airspace remaining closed.
There are hours-long queues at land border crossings into Egypt and Jordan — currently the only way to exit Israel.
Israel's Health Ministry has also reported it has been inundated with calls to its emotional support hotlines since the fighting with Iran broke out.
People on the ground have told the ABC their sense of security has been rocked — and it is likely to get worse.
If Iran continues to fire even at least 100 missiles per day, it will potentially keep Israel's home front under heavy pressure for weeks, or perhaps even months.
In such a scenario, the likelihood of rising civilian casualties is high.
It's too early to tell what the appetite is here amongst Israelis for a protracted conflict with Iran.
A lot of people agree that the threat Iran poses to Israel is so big that it has warranted Israel's extraordinary strikes that kicked off the war.
But for a war-weary community, the reaction from Iran may mean this could start to feel like one fight too far.
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'This is containerised and believed to be stored at three different locations, and it is unclear whether Israel will be able to destroy all of it in the ongoing military strikes.' But enriched uranium does not on its own result in a bomb. Iran must also turn the concentrate into metal, size and shape it, and assemble it as a functional warhead. This, in turn, would need to be paired with a ballistic missile capable of delivering it to a target. At the weekend, some of Prime Minister Netanyahu's most vocal critics, France and Germany, offered qualified support for the strikes. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Tehran's nuclear program was an 'existential threat' to both Israel and Europe. Germany's Foreign Minister, Johann Wadephul, emphasised the need for diplomacy to diffuse the situation. Tactical outcomes Israel's attacks on Iran's nuclear and military facilities and personnel are ongoing. But targets appear to include the capital, Tehran, and the cities of Natanz, Tabriz and Karmanshah. Iranian nuclear scientists, military commanders, and diplomats involved in negotiations with the US have been killed. Several known nuclear research and production sites have also been hit. 'To get at these sites, Israel seems to have conducted not only repeated aerial strikes on the same underground targets, but engaged in a combined effort that also included sabotage, along with what could only be described as assassinations,' observes Bulletin of Atomic Scientists correspondent Dan Drollette. 'The effort was apparently to decapitate Iran's entire chain of command at once—but it also resulted in the death of one of Iran's most influential politicians, Ali Shamkhani, who had been overseeing nuclear talks with the United States at the request of Iran's supreme leader.' THREAD: New high-resolution satellite images released by Maxar Technologies show damage to several Iranian military sites tageted by Israel. New Maxar images show damage to multiple buildings and two tunnel entrances at a missile facility in Kermanshah. ðŸ'· @Maxar — Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) June 16, 2025 Natanz, 225km south of Tehran, is home to Iran's main nuclear site. Six research buildings mark the surface. Beneath are three underground uranium enrichment and processing facilities. Unverified social media footage out of Natanz appears to show four sites within the compound being subjected to repeated strikes. Commercially available satellite imagery confirms the site has been damaged. Footage shared on social media shows the Israeli strikes on Iran's Natanz nuclear facility earlier today. — Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) June 13, 2025 Israel's Defence Force (IDF) claims to have 'significantly damaged' the underground infrastructure. This reportedly includes multi-storey bunkers full of sophisticated centrifuges, electrical equipment and supporting equipment. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi says Natanz has been severely damaged, but added that 'there are no elevated radiation levels.' The Khondab nuclear reactor, which is powerful enough to produce enough plutonium waste for a nuclear weapon, has been hit. As has the Kermanshah ballistic missile facility. Another suspected nuclear site at Parchin, near Tehran, has been attacked. IAEA inspectors have been repeatedly prevented from investigating evidence of nuclear activity at this site. Iran's Fordow enrichment plant, built deep inside a mountain near Qom in central Iran, was not hit in the initial strikes. But the IAEA says it was targeted in Israel's follow-up attacks. New high-res satellite images released by Maxar Technologies show damage to buildings at the Bid Kanek military facilitiy southwest of Tehran. Several dispersed vehicles are also visible at the site. ðŸ'· @Maxar — Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) June 16, 2025 'It's difficult to assess the consequences of the strikes on the nuclear program itself and the facilities, as we are still waiting for independent analyses of the satellite imagery,' French Middle East proliferation analyst Héloïse Fayet told the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (the home of the Doomsday Clock). Columbia University analyst Richard Nephew says Israel's strikes have been successful in destroying power generators and supporting infrastructure linked to Iran's nuclear facilities. 'Israel has also demonstrated the ability to attack targets in Iran largely at will,' Nephew states. 'But success is by no means assured, given Iran's substantial investment in defensive fortifications, its commitment to the program, its redundant systems, and the intrinsic difficulty of Israel's task.' What comes next? 'There is no indication that Israel has rendered unusable Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium,' says the University of Columbia's Richard Nephew. 'If that stockpile is still available, and if Iran's centrifuges still exist, Tehran may be able to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program in just weeks.' Scheduled talks between US and Iranian diplomats in Oman later this week have been shelved after the assassination of several key participants. So, success in stunting Tehran's nuclear ambitions depends on Israel's military. Have critical components of Iran's nuclear program been entirely destroyed? Have key players and those who possess critical knowledge been killed? How will Iran's Axis of Authoritarian allies Beijing and Moscow respond? Will the war spread to other nations in the Middle East and draw in the United States? 'To fully succeed, Israel's attack must also have convinced Iran to reconsider the viability of its nuclear weapons project,' warns Nephew. Russia has condemned Israel's strikes as a violation of the UN Charter. China agrees, saying that it is 'deeply worried' about Israeli aggression. Meanwhile, academic and security analysts do not know how close Iran is to being able to shape 90 per cent refined uranium into a warhead, Nephew adds, 'although intelligence agencies had assessed that it would take Iran months to do so'. That may still be possible. 'If key sites like Fordow and Esfahan are not severely damaged in future strikes and underground advanced centrifuges remain operational at Fordow and Natanz, Iran could continue its nuclear development,' CSIS analysts Horschig and Williams argue. That decision is in the hands of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And history isn't in Prime Minister Netanyahu's favour. 'An attack on Iran's nuclear facilities may have the opposite result of prompting an escalation in Iran's nuclear developments, a pattern previously observed in response to kinetic actions attributed to Israel,' Harvard nuclear security researcher Assaf Zoran argued last year 'Such an attack could be used by Tehran as a justification and motivation to progress toward nuclear weapons development, confirming that conventional deterrence is insufficient' Middle East Institute analyst Kenneth Pollack points out the 1981 Israeli strike on Iraq's Osirak nuclear research facility provoked Saddam Hussein to dramatically ramp up his efforts - ultimately leading to the 1990s Gulf War. 'Accordingly, the real challenge … is to find ways to prevent Iran from following the path that Iraq did following the Osirak strike,' Pollack argues. 'If anything, the situation is more dangerous now than it was then, since Iran's nuclear program is so much more advanced, its scientists so much more knowledgeable, and its nuclear infrastructure so much more capable than Iraq's was in 1981.' .
