Israel launches attack on Iran
Israel began a military operation against Iran after not halting uranium enrichment.
According to Israeli military, Iran began a retaliatory drone strike on June 13th. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel has launched an operation aimed at rewinding Iran’s “highly threat to Israel’s survival.”
The Israeli Defense Forces said Iran had been working to launch more than 100 UAVs towards Israel and intercept them. Iran has not confirmed its counterattack, according to Iranian military media, but Israel follows what was characterized as a “preemptive attack” against other military targets, including senior officials such as Iran’s nuclear program and General Hossein Salami, director of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard.
Netanyahu said the Israeli attacks would continue “as many days as necessary.” Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei confirmed that some of his country’s senior military commanders and nuclear scientists had been killed in Israeli attacks, and attacked parts of Iran’s capital, Tehran. Khamenei also warned that Israel “prepared for itself a bitter fate.”
Here’s what you need to know about the Israeli attack on Iran and what will happen next.
Why is Israel attacking Iran now?
Iranian rulers have pledged to destroy Israel since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Netanyahu has long argued that Iran is unreliable, and that Israel must ultimately attack Iran’s nuclear sites to prevent it from gaining nuclear weapons. Although Iran claims that its nuclear program is intended for civilian energy purposes only, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, recently concluded that Iran is very close to the 90% uranium enrichment level required to build nuclear weapons.
Israel attacks Iran. Iran’s strikeback: What’s the latest?
The Israeli Defense Forces said more than 200 fighters have collided with dozens of Iranian targets, including what they call “hiding places” for senior operatives in Iranian military leadership. According to the IDF, in addition to the IRGC’s chief salami, the attack killed Iran’s highest ranked military officer, Mohammad Bagheri, and his deputy commander, Goramari Rashid. Iran’s state media said at least five people have been killed and 20 have been injured.
Television images and footage from the Iranian province showed damaged apartments and cars in Tehran. The IAEA confirmed that at least one strike has hit Iran’s uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, a central Iranian district. The nuclear watchdog said in a statement it had previously discovered that “radiation levels have not increased” in Natantz.
Israeli media reported that Iranian drones were being intercepted.