Iran warns Israel allies
JERUSALEM/DUBAI: Iran and Israel traded missiles and air strikes on Saturday, the day after Israel launched a sweeping air offensive against its old enemy, killing commanders and scientists; and bombing nuclear sites in a stated bid to stop it building an atomic weapon.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel's strikes had set back Iran's nuclear programme possibly by years but rejected international calls for restraint, saying the attack would be intensified.
"We will hit every site and every target of the Ayatollahs' regime and what they have felt so far is nothing compared with what they will be handed in the coming days," he said in a video message.
In Tehran, Iranian state TV reported that around 60 people, including 20 children, had been killed in an attack on a housing complex, with more strikes reported across the country. Israel said it had attacked more than 150 targets.
In Israel, air raid sirens sent residents into shelters as waves of missiles streaked across the sky and interceptors rose to meet them. At least three people were killed overnight. An Israeli official said Iran had fired around 200 ballistic missiles in four waves.
US President Donald Trump has lauded Israel's strikes and warned of much worse to come unless Iran quickly accepts the sharp downgrading of its nuclear programme that the US has demanded in talks that had been due to resume on Sunday.
But with Israel saying its operation could last weeks and urging Iran's people to rise up against their clerical rulers, fears have grown of a regional conflagration dragging in outside powers.
The United States, Israel's main ally, helped shoot down Iranian missiles, two US officials said.
"If (Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front, Tehran will burn," Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said.
Iran had vowed to avenge Friday's Israeli onslaught, which gutted Iran's nuclear and military leadership and damaged atomic plants and military bases.
Tehran warned Israel's allies that their military bases in the region would come under fire too if they helped shoot down Iranian missiles, state television reported.
Iran's overnight fusillade included hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones, an Israeli official said. Three people, including a man and a woman, were killed and dozens wounded, the ambulance service said.
In Rishon LeZion, south of Tel Aviv, emergency services rescued a baby girl trapped in a house hit by a missile, police said, but later on Saturday Tel Aviv beaches were busy with people enjoying the weekend.
The Israeli military said it had intercepted surface-to-surface Iranian missiles as well as drones; and that two rockets had been fired from Gaza.
In Iran, Israel's two days of strikes destroyed residential apartment buildings, killing families and neighbours as apparent collateral damage in strikes targeting scientists and senior officials in their beds.
Iran said 78 people had been killed on the first day and scores more on the second day, many of them when a missile brought down a 14-storey apartment block in Tehran. — Reuters
GRAPH POINTS
1. Iran said 78 people had been killed on the first day and scores more on the second day
2. Israeli official says Iran had fired around 200 ballistic missiles in four waves
3. Israel said it had attacked more than 150 targets in Iran
4. Netanyahu said Israel's strikes had set back Iran's nuclear programme possibly by years
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The New Middle East War
In its air strikes across Iran, Israel reportedly killed senior military leaders as well as prominent figures in the country's nuclear programme. It also appears that Israel further degraded Iranian air defences, struck additional military targets and attacked at least one nuclear-related installation – and possibly more. Despite Israel's claim that it was acting preemptively, the attacks constitute a classic preventive action, mounted against a gathering threat, rather than an imminent danger. The difference has legal and diplomatic implications, as preventive military attacks tend to be far more controversial, falling under the heading of wars of choice. Preemptive attacks are seen as a form of self-defence and tend to be accepted as necessary. These are likely to be distinctions without meaningful differences for Israel, which has carried out such strikes (though more limited) against nascent Iraqi and Syrian nuclear programmes in the past. Moreover, acting against Iran plays well domestically: It is one of the few issues that most Israelis – deeply divided over the war in Gaza, the role of the courts in their democracy, and the country's secular-religious balance – can agree on. Why Israel chose to conduct this operation now has yet to be satisfactorily explained. According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 'In recent months, Iran has taken steps that it has never taken before, steps to weaponise [its] enriched uranium.' But it will be important to see if the Israeli government had new intelligence or developed a new assessment of Iranian capabilities and intentions. We know from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran was actively producing highly enriched uranium and had not been forthcoming about its nuclear-related activities. In recent weeks, however, US intelligence officials confirmed their assessment was that Iran had not yet decided to produce a nuclear weapon. According to reports, largely based on statements from Israeli officials, the US knew about the intended attack in advance and did not attempt to stop it. While we will likely learn whether it truly gave a green as opposed to a yellow light, it seems all but certain that it did not flash a red one, as it has at other times over the years. Still, US officials have sought to distance America from the Israeli action, stating that Israel acted unilaterally and making it clear that Iran should not attack US forces in response. The degree to which the US is prepared to assist Israel in any future military actions against Iran, or in buttressing its ability to defend itself from Iranian retaliation, is unclear. Prospects for reviving US-Iran nuclear negotiations, which President Donald Trump has suggested should continue, seem remote. It is too early to offer a definitive assessment of this operation's success. That assessment will depend on several factors, beginning with the extent and consequences of the damage. A related question is whether and how the attack will affect the Iranian regime's hold on the country, which the Israeli attack may have been designed to weaken. A second consideration is the scope of future Iranian retaliation. Iran's initial response was relatively modest: some one hundred drones launched towards Israel, against which Israel is well prepared to defend. But subsequently Iran launched several waves of ballistic missiles. The obvious question is what else will Iran choose to do against Israel and Israeli targets around the world. It is far from clear, though, that Iran has an attractive set of options, given its demonstrated vulnerabilities. Also to be seen is whether Iran acts against the US, which withdrew many of its personnel from the region in anticipation of retaliation, or against one or more of its Arab neighbours. Despite Iran's ongoing efforts to improve relations with the GCC states, an Iranian effort to interfere with the region's energy industry cannot be ruled out. That would jeopardise its standing in the Gulf but raise the price of oil (already up in the wake of Israel's attack), inflicting pain on the West and possibly increasing Iranian revenues at a time when sanctions relief, a subject of the nuclear negotiations with the US, is no longer imminent. There is also the prospect of additional Israeli military strikes against known and suspected nuclear sites. This, too, would require an assessment of what was accomplished and what the consequences might be. Iran, seeking to deter an attack like the one that just occurred, will have to decide whether to redouble its nuclear efforts, reconstitute its programme in more difficult-to-destroy facilities and continue to cooperate with the IAEA. Adding to the complexity is whether outside partners – such as China, Russia and North Korea, all of which have experience developing nuclear weapons – will lend assistance, and how both the US and Israel will respond if they do. Before determining whether military action was the best available policy, we will also need to learn more about what could have been negotiated and verified between the US and Iran. This could affect the political reactions in both Israel and Iran concerning whether the attacks could and should have been avoided. For now, there are more questions than answers about what happened or what could happen next. The only certainty is that this latest chapter in the conflict-torn Middle East is just beginning. Project Syndicate, 2025.
