Israel launched a stunning series of strikes on Friday morning on Iranian nuclear sites and killed several of the nation’s security chiefs, in an overbearing coup of intelligence and military force that decapitated Tehran’s chain of command.
Late at night, Iran began a ballistic missile counter-offensive.
US President Donald Trump warned that further attacks would be “even more brutal” and redoubled pressure on Iran to reach a new deal to curb its nuclear programme.
The US is shifting military resources, including ships, in West Asia in response to Israel’s strikes on Iran and a possible retaliatory attack by Tehran, two US officials said on Friday.
The Israeli military said that its strikes were continuing on Friday afternoon, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the assault as a last resort to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, which Israel views as an existential threat. The attacks also killed top Iranian officials and nuclear scientists and hit Tehran’s long-range missile facilities and aerial defences.
Trump, whose administration has been holding nuclear talks with Iranian officials, said on Friday that Tehran “must make a deal, before there is nothing left”.
For years, Israel fought Iran’s proxy forces across West Asia and more recently it has exchanged previous volleys of strikes with Iran. Yet Friday’s strikes were the first time it successfully hit Tehran’s nuclear facilities, including Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz, which a military spokesman said had suffered “significant damage”.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Israel “should anticipate a harsh punishment”. Later on Friday morning and before the missile counter at night, the Israeli military announced that Iranian forces had fired about 100 drones at Israel, as Netanyahu vowed the fighting would last “as many days as it takes”. The Israeli military said it was working to intercept the Iranian attack, and there were no immediate indications of significant damage caused by the drones.
Iran had been censured by the UN’s atomic watchdog a day earlier.
Countries in the region condemned Israel’s attack, while leaders around the globe called for immediate de-escalation from both sides.
Israel’s military said about 200 aircraft were involved in the initial attack on about 100 targets. Two security officials said the country’s Mossad spy agency was also able to position explosive drones inside Iran ahead of time and then activate them to target missile launchers at an Iranian base near Tehran.
They said Israel had also smuggled precision weapons into central Iran as well as strike systems on vehicles, which were activated as the attack began to hit Iranian air defences.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the highly secretive missions and it was not possible to independently confirm their claims. There was no official comment.
The Israeli attack hit several sites, including Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz, where black smoke could be seen rising into the air. Later in the morning, Israel said it had also destroyed dozens of radar installations and surface-to-air missile launchers in western Iran.
Israel military spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said Israel had “significantly damaged” Natanz and that the operation was “still in the beginning”.
Among those killed were three of Iran’s top military leaders, one who oversaw the entire armed forces, Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, one who led the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Hossein Salami, and another who ran the Guard’s ballistic missile programme, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh.
Iran confirmed all three deaths, which was a significant blow to Tehran’s governing theocracy and will complicate efforts to retaliate against Israel.
Khamenei said other top military officials and scientists were also killed. He moved quickly to appoint replacements, aiming to avoid the appearance of a leadership vacuum.
In its first response, Iran fired more than 100 drones at Israel. Jerusalem said the drones were being intercepted outside its airspace, and it was not immediately clear whether any got through.
Urging Iran to reach a deal with Washington on its nuclear programme, Trump warned on his Truth Social platform that Israel’s attacks “will only get worse”.
Without saying whether he was privy to specific Israeli plans, Trump said “there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being
even more brutal, come to an end”.
“Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire,” he wrote.
“No more death, no more destruction, JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”
Israel told the Trump administration that large-scale attacks were coming, US officials said on condition of anonymity to describe private diplomatic discussions.
On Wednesday the US pulled some American diplomats from Iraq’s capital and offered voluntary evacuations for the families of US troops in the wider West Asia.
Israeli leaders cast the attack as necessary to head off an imminent threat that Iran would build nuclear bombs, though it remains unclear how close the country is to achieving that or whether Iran had actually been planning a strike.
Iran maintains its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes only. Nervous Israelis rushed to supermarkets in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere to buy bottled water and other supplies, and
circulated messages on WhatsApp groups advising each other to prepare their shelters for potential long-term use.
Khamenei said in a statement that Israel “opened its wicked and blood-stained hand to a crime in our beloved country, revealing its malicious nature more than ever by striking residential centres”.
The Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah
issued a statement that offered condolences and condemned the attack, but did not threaten to join Iran in its retaliation.
Hezbollah’s latest war with Israel — which killed much of the group’s senior leadership — ended with a US-brokered ceasefire in November.
Netanyahu expressed hope the attacks would trigger the downfall of Iran’s theocracy, saying his message to the Iranian people was that the fight was not with them, but with the “brutal dictatorship that has oppressed you for 46 years”.
“I believe that the day of your liberation is near,” he said.
In addition to targeting nuclear and military sites, Israel aimed its attacks at officials leading Iran’s nuclear programme and its ballistic missile arsenal. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that an Israeli strike hit Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and said it was closely monitoring radiation levels.
The strike on Iran pushed the Israeli military to its limits, requiring the use of ageing air-to-air refuelers to get its fighter jets close enough to attack.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Israeli jets entered Iranian airspace or just fired so-called “standoff missiles” over another country.
People in Iraq heard fighter jets overhead at the time of the attack.
New York Times News Service and AP