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Israel has launched an attack on Iran aimed at “dozens” of targets including its nuclear facilities, military commanders and scientists, claiming it took unilateral action because Tehran had begun to build nuclear warheads.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the attack, dubbed Rising Lion, was aimed at “rolling back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival”, adding that it would take “many days”.
“We struck at the heart of Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme,” Netanyahu said in a recorded televised address. “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.”
Later, in comments that suggest the operation could be long and difficult, Netanyahu said “Israeli citizens may have to remain in sheltered areas for lengthy periods of time.”
Iranian state media said the head of the Revolutionary Guard, Hossein Salami, had been killed, as well as two scientists whom it named as Fereydoun Abbasi and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi.
Abbasi was the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization from 2011 to 2013 and survived an assassination attempt in 2010 that was part of a wave of targeted killings reportedly masterminded by the Mossad. Tehranchi was a theoretical physicist.
They appear to have been targeted in their homes. Iranian state television reported that children had been killed in at least one of the airstrikes, on a residential area of Tehran.
Explosions were reported in Natanz, Tehran and elsewhere in Iran, while sirens and mobile phone alerts went off across Israel as it braced for a response. Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport was closed to all flights.
“The response to the Israeli attack will be harsh and decisive,” an Iranian security source told the Reuters news agency, adding that details of Iran’s retaliation “are being discussed at the highest levels”.
Iran’s foreign ministry said the US – as Israel’s main supporter - would held be responsible for the consequences of “Israel’s adventurism”. In a statement, the ministry said the Israeli attack “exposes global security to unprecedented threat” and called on the international community to condemn it.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued a statement describing the operation as “a pre-emptive, precise, combined offensive to strike Iran’s nuclear programme”.
“Dozens of [Israeli air force] jets completed the first stage that included strikes on dozens of military targets, including nuclear targets in different areas of Iran,” the statement added.
Justifying the attack, Netanyahu said Iran was not only building up its supply of fissile enriched uranium, with enough for nine warheads, but also that it had taken unprecedented steps towards building bombs.
“In recent months, Iran has taken steps that it has never taken before, steps to weaponise this enriched uranium, and if not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could be a year. It could be within a few months, less than a year.
“That is why we have no choice but to act and act now. The hardest decision any leader has to make is sworn in danger before it is fully materialised,” he said, pointing to the western allies’ failure to stop Nazi aggression in the 1930s.
The attack on Iran comes a few days before a new round of US-Iranian talks were due in Oman aimed at finding a diplomatic solution to the standoff over Iran’s nuclear programme, which has expanded rapidly since 2018 when Donald Trump withdrew from an international deal constraining it.
In the hours before the strikes began, Trump had acknowledged there was a risk of an Israeli attack on Iran and had sought to discourage it while talks with Tehran were still under way. “I don’t want them going in,” he said, warning it would “blow” the chances for a diplomatic solution. It was unclear how much, if any, warning Israel gave Washington of its strikes.
Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the US had not taken part in the Israeli attack. “Tonight, Israel took unilateral action against Iran,” Rubio said. “We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region. Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defence.
“President Trump and the administration have taken all necessary steps to protect our forces and remain in close contact with our regional partners. Let me be clear: Iran should not target US interests or personnel.”
Democratic senator Chris Murphy said Israel’s decision to act unilaterally was a measure of Trump’s weakness on the world stage.
“Israel’s attack on Iran, clearly intended to scuttle the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran, risks a regional war that will likely be catastrophic for America and is further evidence of how little respect world powers – including our own allies – have for President Trump,” Murphy said.
Israel is likely to need US support in its defence if Israel responds with a missile barrage. In his speech, Netanyahu praised Trump for his efforts in confronting Iran but claimed that Tehran was just using negotiations to “buy time”. He claimed that Israel was not just acting in its own defence.
“I want to assure the civilised world, we will not let the world’s most dangerous regime get the world’s most dangerous weapons, and Iran plans to give those weapons – nuclear weapons – to its terrorist proxies that would make the nightmare of nuclear terrorism all too real,” he said. “The increasing range of Iran’s ballistic missiles would bring that nuclear nightmare to the cities of Europe and eventually to America.”
