Israel-Iran: How did latest conflict start and where could it lead?

1 hour ago Share Save Lana Lam, Sofia Ferreira Santos, Jaroslav Lukiv & Nathan Williams BBC News Share Save

Footage captures exchange of attacks between Iran and Israel overnight into Sunday

Israel and Iran have continued to exchange strikes in their latest conflict, which began on Friday. There has been angry rhetoric from both sides, and US President Donald Trump is now considering whether to join Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. It started when Israel attacked nuclear and military sites in Iran, and then Iran retaliated with aerial attacks targeting Israel. More than 220 people have been killed in Israeli strikes so far, according to Iran’s health ministry, while Israel says Iranian attacks have killed 24 people.

Israel launches Operation Rising Lion, and Iran retaliates

On Thursday 12 June, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told people in Tehran’s District 18, which includes military buildings and residential neighbourhoods, to evacuate. Hours later, the first volley of strikes was reported in Tehran at about 03:30 local time (01:00 BST) on Friday, with residential areas in the capital hit, Iranian state television reported. BBC journalists are unable to report from inside Iran due to restrictions by the country’s government, making it difficult to assess the damage caused by Israel’s offensive. Israel targeted the Natanz nuclear facility – about 225km (140 miles) south of Tehran, causing significant damage, the IDF said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack – called Operation Rising Lion – targeted “the heart” of Iran’s nuclear programme. “If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time,” Netanyahu claimed. Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Israel “should anticipate a severe punishment”, while its foreign minister called the strikes a “declaration of war”. Iran’s retaliation began hours later, when ballistic missile attacks were launched on “dozens of targets, military centres and air bases” in Israel, in an operation it called True Promise 3. The IDF said about 100 missiles were launched towards Israel, and most had been intercepted by its Iron Dome system. These exchanges have continued for days. On Thursday 19 June, an Iranian missile directly hit Soroka hospital in Beersheba, southern Israel, injuring at least 32 people according to Israel’s emergency service Magen David Adom. Iran said it aimed to target an IDF command centre and intelligence camp adjacent to the building, according to state media – but Sharren Haskel, the Israeli deputy foreign affairs minister, accused Iran of deliberately targeting a hospital. On the same day Israel said it had carried out an attack on the nuclear reactor in Arak, north-western Iran, which it said was “inactive”. The reactor is designed to produce high-yield plutonium, the IDF said, which is a material used to make nuclear weapons. It added the strike was intended to “prevent the reactor from being restored”. It justified its attacks by saying Iran was reaching the “point of no return” in its nuclear programme. After days of very limited impact with its strikes, the scale of Iranian attacks had appeared to diminish recently, possibly indicating the impact that Israeli strikes has had on Iran’s military, reports the BBC’s Hugo Bachega. Thursday’s attacks prove Iran still has the ability to fire missiles and cause harm.

In its first wave of strikes, Israel killed several top Iranian military figures, including Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and several nuclear scientists, including Fereydoon Abbasi, former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization. Iran said civilians, including children, were also among those killed. The Israeli military declared on Tuesday that it had achieved “full air superiority” over Tehran, and had destroyed a third of Iran’s missile launchers. It came after Iranian missiles struck four different areas in the northern and central Israel, killing at least eight civilians, according to the military. Iran’s health ministry said at least 224 people had been killed since Friday. Israel has reported 24 deaths in the same period. They were in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Tamra, Rishon LeZion and Bat Yam, where a 10-storey block of flats was hit.

Hugo Bachega reports from Israel’s Bat Yam, where an Iranian strike killed six people on Sunday

The US considers its next move

These latest attacks come at a critical time, as President Trump considers the possibility of direct American involvement in Israel’s campaign. According to the BBC’s US partner, CBS News, Trump is considering joining Israel’s campaign to target Iranian nuclear sites. The American arsenal contains a bomb capable of significantly damaging Iran’s secretive Fordo nuclear enrichment plant, located in a mountainous region close to the city of Qom deep underground. Washington’s 13,000kg (30,000lb) GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) – known as a “bunker buster” bomb, is designed to attack deeply-buried bunkers and tunnels, according to the US Air Force. While the US has already helped shoot down Iranian missiles that have been sent towards Israel, it has not been directly involved in any of the attacks on Iran so far. The latest attacks on the Israeli hospital will probably be used by Israeli officials and those in favour of military action to put pressure on Trump to act. Trump and Netanyahu spoke on the phone on Tuesday following a meeting of the US National Security Council. The US president had earlier taken to social media to call for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” and said the US knew where Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei was located, but would not kill him, “for now”. This followed reports on Sunday that Trump had rejected a plan by Israel to kill Iran’s leader. For his part, Khamenei warned Trump of “irreparable harm” if the US military intervened in the conflict. Trump’s Iran dilemma exposes bitter split in president’s circle

Reuters Donald Trump spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One after departing early from the G7 summit in Canada

How did we get to this point?

Netanyahu said on Friday that the strikes were “a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival”. He said the operation would “continue for as many days as it takes to remove the spread”. An Israeli military official told the BBC Iran had enough nuclear material to create nuclear bombs “within days”. Iran has said it has never sought to develop a nuclear weapon and that its nuclear activities are peaceful. The strikes began as US talks over Iran’s nuclear programme, which started in April, appeared to have stalled. Trump had hoped to strike a deal to stop Tehran developing a nuclear weapon, but the latest round of talks was cancelled in light of the recent escalation in hostilities. Last year, Iran and Israel launched a number of air strikes against each other in April and October – though Israel’s strikes last year were not believed to have been as wide-ranging as its current operation.

What is Iran’s nuclear programme?

The Middle East is once again in danger of exploding, with massive global geopolitical and economic implications. The leader who bears most responsibility for this is undoubtedly Benjamin Netanyahu.

For years, the Israeli prime minister has doggedly pursued the demise of the Iranian Islamic regime in line with his power interests and his vision of Israel’s security requirements. His stated goal has long been to bring down the “Islamic empire in Iran”, “expand the Abraham Accords with Arabs” and once and for all end the Palestinians’ aspirations for an independent state. As part of this Middle East master plan, he has also zeroed in on Iran’s nuclear program.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

But let’s not forget: No concrete evidence exists that Iran has been manufacturing nuclear weapons. In a congressional hearing earlier this year, the United States’ Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard confirmed this fact. And earlier this week, Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that “on the basis of our evaluation, we came to the conclusion that we could not affirm that there is any systematic effort in Iran to manufacture a nuclear weapon”.

Despite this, Netanyahu continues to insist that Iran is on course to produce nuclear weapons within weeks, and the US is teetering on entering the war in Israel’s support.

Meanwhile, he omits the fact that Israel itself has its own nuclear program.

Read more on this opinion piece from professor Amin Saikal here.

Trump does not want to go to war with Iran, former national security chief says

Donald Trump does not want to go to war with Iran and has left the door open for Tehran to resume negotiations, a former chief of staff of the US National Security Council has told Sky News.

Speaking on The World With Yalda Hakim, Fred Fleitz said the US president was “going to make Iran a pretty good deal for a peaceful nuclear programme”.

But he said if Iran did not give up its enrichment programme then “the clock is running out” and Trump would send US bombers to drop bunker-buster bombs on its Fordow nuclear site.

“Trump is a man of his word,” he said. “He gave the Iranians 60 days. And if they don’t agree soon on this, Trump has concluded that an Iranian nuclear weapon will be here soon.

“And it is not just a threat to Israel. It is a threat to the United States. And that’s why I think there’s a good chance Trump will drop bunker-buster bombs on the Fordow facility.”

He said Iran would have to agree to give up the site and agree to stop enriching uranium: “If it wants a peaceful nuclear programme, the US will help it build one.”

Watch the full episode of The World here…

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Last Updated: June 19, 2025, 14:51 IST

Iran-Israel War News Today Live Updates Day 7: Tensions escalated in the Middle East due to violent engagement between Iran and Israel for seventh straight day on Thursday with both the sides exchanging strikes. While Israel targetted an area near the heavy water facility of Iran’s Khondab nuclear facility, Tehran directly hit southern Israel’s biggest hospital ‘Soroka Medical Center’ in a missile attack.

Meanwhile, sirens were activated across Israel as Iran launched another barrage of missiles targeting it.

With the latest development, uncertainty looms over the prospect of peace in the Middle East region amid conflict. Further, Israel has issued an evacuation warning to the residents of Arak and Khondab in central Iran, which is home to a heavy water reactor facility – one of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The Middle East has been witnessing deadly attacks for the past few years now and is expected to see more with United States President Donald Trump giving hints that he might push US directly into the fight.

US President, who cut short the G7 Summit and said some thing bigger was the reason behind him doing so and not the ceasefire as people were speculating, has open the possibility of the US joining Israeli military action against Iran as he claimed that Tehran had made overtures to negotiate.

“I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” Donald Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn amid a sharp escalation in the Middle East as Israel claimed responsibility for airstrikes on military targets in Tehran, including what it described as Iran’s “internal security headquarters.”

Rescue workers inspect the site of an Iranian missile strike in Ramat Gan, Israel, on Thursday. Abeer Salman/CNN

The impact of an Iranian ballistic missile in the Israeli city of Ramat Gan damaged buildings and cars in nearly every direction around the blast radius. The missile, which struck the location just east of Tel Aviv shortly after 7 a.m. local time (00.00 ET), shredded the facades of buildings and blew out windows in high-rise blocks.

Debris from the explosion dangled from the windows of several buildings, while falling wreckage damaged cars on the streets below and covered the entire area in shrapnel and dust.

First responders closed off an intersection near the impact site, as they began surveying the damage Thursday morning.

The missile that struck Ramat Gan was part of a barrage that saw missiles strike a hospital in Beer Sheva, southern Israel, and in Holon to the south of Tel Aviv.

Search and rescue teams were deployed to the different impact sites, said Golan Landsberg, an emergency responder with the Israeli military.

“We sent teams across the different hits… I came in here because the density of this area and potential casualty count – people that need extraction – was high in our estimation. And this one was probably the highest damage in this round,” Landsberg told CNN.

“Whoever stayed in the safe room was unhit. (There was) major damage to the apartments, but the safety rooms are complete and safe. They save lives.”