Steve Huntley

June 22, 2025

War, more war, and fear of an even wider war or possibly a World War III.

All that dominates and roils our political debate, news reports and social media discourse.

First, there’s the actual war. It began with Israel’s bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear weapons project and Iran’s bombarding Israeli cities to kill and maim civilians.

Then there’s more war with the decision by President Trump to have America’s military step in to help end Tehran’s atom bomb ambitions by attacking three Iranian nuclear sites Saturday.

That combined air and naval campaign included dropping bunker-busting bombs on an Iranian atomic facility buried deep in the base of a mountain. So deep that the Israelis didn’t have a weapon capable of destroying it. That fact meant only U.S. military might could deliver a potential knockout blow to the ayatollahs’ nuclear ambitions.

Trump late Saturday night declared the strike a “spectacular military success.”

Finally, there are the protests from the antiwar left and the isolationist MAGA wing that see any foreign war as none of America’s business or, worse, a conflict that, if America gets involved, can end up being a trip wire maybe leading to World War III.

Informing that fear are a couple of truisms about warfare: No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. And “the fog of war” prevents a combatant from comprehending what its enemy is up to.

First the war itself.

The Israeli “Operation Rising Lion” attack ordered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to destroy Iran’s nuclear program should have surprised no one.

Oct. 7 made it inevitable.

The savage orgy of murder, rape, and hostage-taking by Hamas terrorists against Israel in 2023 put the Iranian nuclear program in the crosshairs of the Jewish state’s powerful military.

While the immediate objective was to defeat the sadistic monsters of Hamas, Israel’s leaders surely knew that down the road they would have to confront Iran. That nation’s ruling regime identifies the annihilation of the Jewish state as an essential national goal.

It remains to be determined if Tehran had a direct role in planning the Oct. 7 atrocity. The fanatical mullahs say not. But Iran has a long history of supporting Hamas, Hezbollah and other Islamist terrorists with funds and intelligence sharing.

Furthermore, if it wasn’t involved in the actual plotting, Iran was aware of the Hamas attack plan and welcomed it, according to secret documents reported by the New York Times. When the atrocity happened, Tehran immediately celebrated it.

What’s also essential to understand about the fallout from Oct. 7 is that the surprise attack brought home once again the central reality that Jews and Israelis face a death threat every day.

With that came the shocking realization that any attack on Israel enjoys wide support in some influential intellectual circles in America and Europe. Far left-wing progressives are drunk on the “liberation” school of thought that justifies anything — any horror — against “settler colonists.”

The cheering for the Hamas bloodlust and accompanying intimidation of Jewish students on elite college campuses stunned Jews everywhere.

The obvious conclusion: When the stakes are down, only Israel can defend Jewish lives and avenge Jewish deaths.

The mutilated bodies, dead babies, and the terrified hostages at the mercy of Jew haters also made this clear: Israel can’t wait to be attacked by its worst enemies and then retaliate.

The description, worst enemy, certainly fits Iran. Time and time again, the regime in Tehran declares that Israel must be wiped off the map, its people must be destroyed in a second Holocaust.

The current war demonstrates what everyone has long suspected — the military superiority of Israeli forces. Israel seized control of the air space over Iran within 48 hours of the start of Rising Lion and can attack at will. Its intelligence targeted military commanders and scientists for death. Its defenses knock down most Iranian missiles aimed at Israel.

A nuclear bomb would be the only hope for Iran to wipe Israel off the map.

Unlike the current nuclear powers, Iran is led by religious zealots who celebrate martyrdom. To them death from a retaliatory strike leveling Tehran would be a small price to pay for destroying Israel. Recall the Sept. 11 Islamist fanatics who died flying jetliners into the Twin Towers in New York.

The Islamists see us as weak because we love life and they consider themselves strong because they love death.

Iran damns Israel as “the little Satan” while America is “the big Satan.”

And it has a long history of assaults against America. It started with the Islamic revolution in the taking of 66 Americans hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979.

Over the years Iran orchestrated many fatal attacks on U.S. troops in the Middle East. That record prompted Trump in 2020 to order the assassination of a top leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

During his first term and in his second Trump declared often Iran must not acquire the worst weapons.

Which brings us to Saturday’s American intervention to deliver a hoped-for knockout blow to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Only a couple of weeks ago some Israel supporters were nervous about Trump’s backing for negotiations to persuade Iran to abandon its pursuit of atomic weapons. Tehran is highly skilled at stretching out talks while working overtime to reach nuclear-power status.

Aware of that, Trump smartly gave Tehran a deadline — 60 days for negotiations to bring home an agreement to dismantle its atomic project.

Iran thumbed its nose at that. And, as Trump observed, on day 61 Israel launched its barrage of attacks on Iran’s nuclear and military structure.

Even under a constant Israeli military barrage, Iran refused to return to negotiations, saying it had nothing to discuss with the United States. That forced on Trump the decision to order the Air Force and Navy to deliver a crushing blow to the Iranian nuclear project.

Air Force B2 bombers dropped six 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs on the Fordow nuclear lab buried deep beneath an Iranian mountain. Navy submarines launched 30 cruise missiles at two other nuclear facilities.

The Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated,” Trump said.

Even before the U.S. strike, Trump had upped the ante by calling for the unconditional surrender of Iran.

Its ancient leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rejected that and threatened “irreparable damage” to America.

Which brings us to fears about an ever-widening war. As Trump considered his options, some progressives and prominent MAGA voices warned of the potential for things to go badly if the U.S. joined the fight.

If America gets involved, things will go badly, assert some progressives and prominent MAGA voices.

They fret about another forever war, like past conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, or, worse, an eruption of World War III.

Critics remind us of the claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that no one ever found. Then they note that Netanyahu has for years harped on and on about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

But all that is just part of the story.

The critics ignore the Israeli bombings, targeted assassinations and sabotage that slowed Tehran’s project.

Now with Operation Rising Lion, Netanyahu put Israeli lives, civilian as well as military, on the line in the current campaign. That’s powerful evidence of Israel’s convictions.

And only a week ago the International Atomic Energy Agency found Iran in noncompliance with a treaty aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. As a Wall Street Journal editorial noted, “In reply Iran announced a major expansion of its nuclear-breakout capability.”

As for past never-ending wars, remember that Vietnam, Iran, and Afghanistan were open-ended conflicts with American boots on the ground, no end-game plan and no notion of what victory would look like.

In contrast, Trump and Netanyahu have a clear, limited objective: Destroy Iran’s nuclear program. That’s not an open-ended commitment. No one advocates for American GIs fighting inside Iran. There’s no talk of nation building.

As for worries about an expanding conflict bringing in other nations, or about the prospects for World War III, here’s a question: Who else is going to jump into this war?

Arab nations have grown less openly hostile to Israel, as evidenced by several of them signing the Abraham Accords negotiated by the first Trump administration. They still might not much care for the Jewish state, but they also worry about Iran seeking hegemony over the Mideast.

What about the big world powers?

Russia has its hands full with the war in Ukraine. What was supposed to be an easy victory in weeks for the Kremlin in 2022 ran into Ukrainian patriotism, bravery, and war-making innovation. So that war drags on more than three years later.

As for China, from all appearances it is focused on the Pacific Ocean generally and specifically on gaining possession of Taiwan, perhaps by invasion.

There’s no evidence that Russia and China are eager to see another country join the atom bomb club. Iran acquiring such weapons would almost certainly prompt one or more Arab nations to seek their own bomb. And then where does it end?

So, the chances of a wider war seem remote.

Still, nothing is written in stone.

Anyone who’s ever read Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August” or Christopher Clark’s “Sleepwalkers” knows how quickly and tragically things can go wrong. These books give vivid accounts of how European nations, through bad decisions, misunderstandings, erroneous preconceptions, and thoughtless bravado stumbled into the catastrophe of World War I.

Iran does get a say about what happens in the current conflict.

It could disrupt or close the Straits of Hormuz, a critical passageway in the world’s oil distribution network.

Or it could kill and maim through terrorist attacks by its proxies or by its Islamist terrorist allies.

Or the mullahs could order new attacks on U.S. troops in the Middle East. Trump warned that any such behavior would bring a devastating U.S. response.

War carries risk.

International relations are always potentially dangerous. And the world is even more dangerous these days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the worst massacre of Jews since World War II and China’s increasingly aggressive designs. European nations are getting serious about rearming. America also is aiming to strengthen our military.

So, today’s volatile world might be vulnerable to the kind of miscalculations that Tuchman and Clark wrote about. Our leaders must always be careful in matters of war.

That said, who thinks we would be safer if nuclear warheads were to end up in the hands of martyrdom-inspired religious fanatics who believe they could transform the world by using such awful weapons?

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at United Nations General Assembly last year. Experts believe that Israel has been expanding its secretive nuclear program.

The war that Israel launched against Iran seeks to take out its nuclear program, which much of the world views with alarm and experts say is growing to the point that it could make an atomic weapon within months.

Israel has its own secretive nuclear weapons program, one that it doesn’t publicly acknowledge but that, some experts believe, is also expanding.

“From an official diplomatic posture perspective, the Israelis will not confirm or deny” their nuclear arsenal, said Alexander K. Bollfrass, a nuclear security expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

Instead, Israel has said it will not be the first country to “introduce” nuclear weapons to the Middle East. That deliberately vague wording amounts to what Mr. Bollfrass called an “obfuscation over what is clearly an established nuclear weapons program.”

How big is Israel’s nuclear arsenal?

Israel is widely believed to have at least 90 warheads and enough fissile material to produce up to hundreds more, according to the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation and the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear watchdog for the United Nations, has assessed that 30 countries are capable of developing nuclear weapons but only nine are known to possess them. Israel has the second-smallest arsenal among the nine, ahead only of North Korea, according to a Nobel Prize-winning advocacy group, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Israel could fire warheads from fighter jets, submarines or ballistic missile ground launchers, experts said.

Israel is one of five countries — joining India, Pakistan, North Korea and South Sudan — that is not a signatory to the U.N. Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The agreement, which came into force in 1970, generally commits governments to promoting peaceful uses of nuclear energy and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

(Iran is a signatory to the treaty, although Israel and world powers have accused Tehran of violating it by unnecessarily enriching uranium at high enough levels to build a nuclear weapon.)

Israel would have to give up its nuclear weapons to sign the treaty, which recognizes only five countries as official nuclear states: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. All had detonated a nuclear weapon by 1967, the cutoff date in the treaty to qualify for the designation.

How long has Israel had nuclear weapons?

Israeli leaders were intent on building a nuclear arsenal to safeguard the country’s survival soon after it was founded in 1948 in the wake of the Holocaust, historical records indicate.

The Israel Atomic Energy Commission was established in 1952, and its first chairman, Ernst David Bergmann, said that a nuclear bomb would ensure “that we shall never again be led as lambs to the slaughter,” according to the Jewish Virtual Library.

Israel began building a nuclear weapons development site in 1958, near the southern Israeli town of Dimona, researchers believe. A recently declassified U.S. intelligence report from December 1960, by the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee, stated that the Dimona project included a reprocessing plant for plutonium production. The report concluded that the project was related to nuclear weapons.

Image Part of the nuclear power plant near Dimona, Israel, in 2014. The site has long been a symbol of fascination and, to some, anger over Israel’s nuclear weapons program. Credit… Jack Guez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Around 1967, Israel secretly developed the ability to build nuclear explosives, according to the Arms Control Association. By 1973, the United States “was convinced Israel had nuclear weapons,” the Federation of American Scientists later wrote.

Israel is not among the three dozen countries — all in Europe or Asia — considered to be protected by the United States’ so-called nuclear umbrella. That protection not only serves as an American deterrent against adversaries but also aims to encourage the countries not to develop their own nuclear weapons.

Experts said that the fact that Israel was not part of the American nuclear umbrella was another unspoken acknowledgment that Israel had its own atomic weapons and did not need protection or deterrence.

“Ultimately, there is a sense of responsibility that Israel’s security rests with Israel, and they will do what is necessary to provide for that,” Mr. Bollfrass said.

Has Israel used its nuclear weapons in war?

No.

The Jewish Virtual Library, which is considered among the world’s most comprehensive Jewish encyclopedias, has cited reports that Israel prepared its nuclear bombs during the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973, but the weapons were not used.

There have been a few reports over the past 50 years that Israel has tested its nuclear weapons at underground sites, including in the Negev desert in southern Israel.

The most prominent episode — and one that remains under debate — was in September 1979, when an American satellite designed to detect nuclear explosions reported a double flash near where the South Atlantic and Indian oceans meet. Some scientists believed that the double flash was likely to have been the result of a nuclear test, by Israel or South Africa, or possibly by both.

Image The International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Vienna, Austria. There is no agreement with Israel that would allow the U.N. watchdog agency to monitor the nuclear site in Dimona, according to experts. Credit… Joe Klamar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Israel denied involvement in what is known as the Vela incident, for the satellite’s name. Former President Jimmy Carter’s White House diaries, published in 2010, cited “growing belief” at the time that Israel had tested a nuclear explosion near the southern tip of South Africa. But that was never proven, and “relevant documents for the Vela incident are still classified,” the scientists Avner Cohen and William Burr wrote in 2020, citing the diaries.

Where does Israel build its nuclear weapons?

It’s widely believed that Israel’s nuclear weapons program is housed in Dimona.

Experts said it appeared that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency had never been to the site, and that there was no agreement with Israel that would allow the U.N. watchdog agency to monitor it. American scientists visited Dimona in the 1960s and concluded that the nuclear program there was peaceful, based on increasingly limited inspections, historical records show. But there is no public evidence that American inspectors have been back since.

Satellite photos show new construction at Dimona over the past five years. At a minimum, experts said, the facility is undergoing repairs and much-needed modernization.

There is also a growing belief among some experts that Israel is building a new reactor in Dimona to increase its nuclear capability. A report released this week by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said Israel appeared to be upgrading a reactor site there to produce plutonium, which can be used both for nuclear weapons and some peaceful purposes, like in space.

Because of its secrecy, Dimona has long been a symbol of fascination and, to some, anger over Israel’s nuclear weapons program.

In a rare public event at the site in 2018, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel used it as a backdrop to warn enemies that “those who threaten to wipe us out put themselves in a similar danger — and in any event will not achieve their goal.”

DUBAI — After a U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran is weighing its response — with its top diplomat saying “all options” are on the table after Washington proved “they only understand the language of threat and force.” The United States “opted for a dangerous military operation and aggression against the people of Iran,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday, and he separately warned of “everlasting consequences.”

For Iranian officials, the choice of how to retaliate is existential. A wider war would not only risk increased violence against the Iranian state, but senior Iranian officials believe an expanded conflict could also threaten regime survival, according to analysts and officials briefed on the matter.

The Trump administration has warned Iran against retaliation. “There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days,” said President Donald Trump.

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a Pentagon news conference Sunday that “this mission was not and has not been about regime change.” He said messages have been delivered to Iranian officials that “now is the time to come forward for peace.”

But after more than a week of war, it’s unclear how easily Iranian officials are able to communicate and plan. One European official briefed on the matter said calls scheduled between senior Iranian officials and their foreign counterparts have dropped or had to be repeatedly rescheduled in recent days because of connectivity issues.

Those kinds of communications disruptions could have an impact on decision-making in the moment, but Iran anticipated possible U.S. strikes for days, said Vali Nasr, a professor of Middle East and international studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “This is not a sudden decision for them. I think they’ve had a week, and perhaps even before the war started they had time to think about what their options are.”

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Nasr said Iran could try to mitigate the fallout from a strike on U.S. interests by providing advance warning. Or, he said, Iran may intensify strikes against Israel, a move that would save face but might not invite further escalation from the United States.

“It is not retaliation out of revenge; it is retaliation to try to create deterrence,” he said. “The response has to have a purpose, in the sense of managing the next stage.”

Because of their proximity, U.S. bases in the region are particularly exposed. Iranian officials have previously warned that U.S. bases would be considered “legitimate targets” in the event of U.S. intervention, and Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps described them Sunday as a “vulnerability.”

“The number, dispersion and size of U.S. military bases in the region have not been a strength, but have doubled their vulnerability,” the IRGC said. “Washington effectively placed itself on the front lines of aggression.”

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In the hours after the U.S. strikes, Iran shot back at Israel, firing two volleys of over 20 ballistic missiles. The attacks penetrated Israel’s sophisticated air defenses, hit residential buildings and wounded 86 people, according to Israel’s Health Ministry.

Support is also building in Iran for a withdrawal from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a move that would make it more difficult to monitor and verify the country’s nuclear program. “With the U.S. attack on nuclear facilities, there is no longer any reason to continue cooperation in the form of safeguards,” Mohammad Saleh Jokar, the head of the Iranian parliament’s Commission for the Country’s Internal Affairs, told state-run media.

Such a move could “set nonproliferation efforts in Iran back for decades,” said Sina Azodi, an expert on Iran and a lecturer at George Washington University. “This would mean that Iran goes nuclear, but then there is absolutely no monitoring of the Iranian nuclear program,” he said. “I can’t emphasize how dangerous this can be.”

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But a senior Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said: “If the Iranian regime decides to go on without any agreement and to try to rebuild again, they should understand that it won’t be a huge challenge for us to get there again and destroy it again. So, I think this regime will think now 100 times before doing anything.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency chief, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said in an X post that he is convening an emergency meeting Monday “in light of the urgent situation in Iran.” No increased levels of radiation were detected at the sites that were struck, according to the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s statement.

It’s unclear how much damage was done to the Iranian nuclear sites. Trump said three nuclear facilities — including the heavily fortified Fordow; the main uranium enrichment site, Natanz; and the Isfahan facility — were “obliterated.” The senior Israeli official said that Isfahan was “annihilated” and that Fordow and Natanz were “severely damaged.”

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Iranian officials downplayed the impact, saying that the facilities that were struck had been evacuated and that nuclear material was moved elsewhere.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a briefing Sunday that the facilities “sustained extremely severe damage” but that it was too early to determine the scale of destruction.

Araghchi said at a news conference Sunday that he did not have “exact information about the level of damages.”

In the lead-up to the U.S. attacks, Arab officials in the region were engaged in high-level diplomacy to prevent further escalation, encouraging Iran and the U.S. to return to the negotiating table. Iranian officials have previously said they are prepared to talk with the U.S. but insisted that Israeli strikes cease before formal negotiations could begin.

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Araghchi accused Washington and Israel of scuttling diplomatic efforts, after Friday’s talks with European foreign ministers in Geneva ended without a breakthrough.

Inside Iran, people reached by The Washington Post said they are bracing for a more prolonged conflict.

“The fact that America has entered this war is really a shock for all of us,” said a woman who fled her home in Tehran for Iran’s central Isfahan province. Like others, she spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisal.

“If, in the first days of the war, people thought that there would be some limits, that they’ll return again to negotiations, right now, the main dread is that this war will stretch on,” she said.

A businessman in Tehran said Iranians are bracing for more economic repercussions if the conflict stretches on. Already in the past week, Iranian businesses were seeing sharply reduced revenue and beginning talk of layoffs, he said. “It’s a mix of despair and fear right now,” he said.

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People who fled Tehran are also wondering when they can return to their homes, and worry that water and electricity might get cut off as part of prolonged fighting, said the Iranian woman. “These have become much more serious concerns,” she said, adding that she and her family are so afraid that gasoline supplies will be affected that they don’t dare to drive anywhere, choosing to walk instead.

The businessman in Tehran said Iranians had for years imagined the possibility of an American attack and saw it as a sort of “final stage,” indicating an imminent, more dangerous phase of conflict.

“From a mental perspective, people feel that they’ve entered the final stage that they always feared,” he said

Summary Targets did not include energy or nuclear facilities, US says

Biden says he hopes the strikes are the end of the confrontation

US was notified by Israel in advance, official says

Iran says it has ‘responsibilities towards regional peace and security’

Iran says it suffered four dead and some limited damage

DUBAI/JERUSALEM/CAIRO, Oct 26 (Reuters) – Iran on Saturday played down Israel’s overnight air attack against Iranian military targets, saying it caused only limited damage, as U.S. President Joe Biden called for a halt to escalation that has raised fears of an all-out conflagration in the Middle East.

Scores of Israeli jets completed three waves of strikes before dawn against missile factories and other sites near Tehran and in western Iran, Israel’s military said.

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It was retaliation for Iran’s Oct. 1 attack on Israel with about 200 ballistic missiles , and Israel warned its heavily armed arch-foe not to hit back after the latest strike.

Iran condemned the Israeli raid and its foreign ministry said Iran was “entitled and obligated” to defend itself. But it added that it “recognises its responsibilities towards regional peace and security,” a more conciliatory statement than after previous bouts of escalation.

Iran’s military said the Israeli warplanes used “very light warheads” to target border radar systems in the provinces of Ilam, Khuzestan and around Tehran.

“Enemy planes were prevented from entering the country’s airspace … and the attack caused limited damage,” Iran’s military joint staff said in a statement.

David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear weapons inspector, said low resolution commercial satellite imagery appeared to show that one Israeli strike hit the sprawling Parchin military complex near Tehran, damaging three buildings, including two where solid fuel was mixed for ballistic missile engines.

Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at CNA, a Washington think tank, said Israel also hit Khojir, a sprawling missile production site near Tehran.

Tensions between Iran and Israel have grown rapidly since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Iran-backed Hamas, raising fears of a wider regional conflict that could drag in global powers and imperil world energy supplies.

Worsening conflict in Lebanon, where Israel is waging an intense campaign against Iran’s main regional ally Hezbollah to stop it firing rockets into northern Israel, has raised the temperature still further.

The United States, which had pressed Israel to avoid targeting sensitive Iranian energy and nuclear sites, joined other countries in calling for a halt to the cycle of confrontation between Israel and Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that Israel had chosen the targets in Iran based on its national interests, not according to what was dictated by the United States.

Biden said the strikes appeared to have only hit military targets and added that he hoped they were “the end”.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who hopes to succeed Biden by winning the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election, said it was “the strong perspective of the United States that there must be de-escalation.”

Two regional officials briefed by Iran told Reuters that several high-level meetings were held in Tehran to determine the scope of Iran’s response. One official said the damage was “very minimal” but added that several Revolutionary Guards bases in and around Tehran were also hit.

Iranian news sites aired footage of passengers at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport, seemingly meant to show there was little impact.

Israel’s military, signalling it did not expect an immediate Iranian response, said there was no change to public safety restrictions across the country.

‘MESSAGE TO IRAN’

Beni Sabti, an Iran expert at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies, said the Israeli strike appeared designed to give Tehran an opportunity to avoid further escalation.

Item 1 of 6 A screengrab shows an Israeli Air Force plane, which the Israeli army says is departing to carry out strikes on Iran, from a handout video released on October 26, 2024. Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo [1/6] A screengrab shows an Israeli Air Force plane, which the Israeli army says is departing to carry out strikes on Iran, from a handout video released on October 26, 2024. Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab

“We see that Israel wants to close this event, to pass this message to Iran that it is closed and we don’t want to escalate it,” he said.

Videos carried by Iranian media showed air defences continuously firing at apparently incoming projectiles in central Tehran, without saying which sites were coming under attack.

Israel’s military said its jets had struck missile manufacturing facilities and surface-to-air missile arrays, and safely returned home.

“If the regime in Iran were to make the mistake of beginning a new round of escalation, we will be obligated to respond,” the military said.

U.S. Defense Secretary LLoyd Austin, in a statement, said Iran “should not make the mistake of responding to Israel’s strikes.” Austin said he also stressed in a call with his Israeli counterpart diplomatic opportunities to lower tensions in the region, including in Gaza and Lebanon.

Israel notified the U.S. before striking, but Washington was not involved in the operation, a U.S. official told Reuters. Targets did not include energy infrastructure or Iran’s nuclear facilities, a U.S. official said.

In the days after Iran’s strikes on Israel this month, Biden had warned that Washington, Israel’s main backer and supplier of arms, would not support a retaliatory strike on Tehran’s nuclear sites and had said Israel should consider alternatives to attacking Iran’s oil fields.

Arab states situated between Israel and Iran have been particularly worried that use of their airspace could prompt retaliation against them.

Jordanian television quoted a source in the country’s armed forces as saying no military planes had been allowed through its airspace. A Saudi official also said that Saudi airspace had not been used for the strike.

A regional intelligence source said Israeli jets had flown across southern Syria, emitting sonic booms near the Jordanian border, and then across Iraq.

Saudi Arabia, which has mended fences with Iran after years of regional rivalry, and had been edging towards better ties with Israel before the war in Gaza, condemned the attack as a violation of Iranian sovereignty and international law.

LEBANON CONFLICT

Israel’s military eased some safety restrictions for residents in areas of northern Israel late on Saturday, a possible indication that it does not expect any immediate large-scale attack from Iran or its proxies in the region.

The decision followed a “situational assessment”, it said in a statement.

Still, Lebanon’s Hezbollah warned residents of more than two dozen towns in northern Israel to evacuate immediately, saying they had become legitimate targets because it said Israeli troops were stationed there.

Israel meanwhile said it had struck Hezbollah facilities in Beirut’s southern Dahiyeh suburb including a weapons-making site and an intelligence headquarters.

The conflict in Lebanon, which has greatly intensified in recent weeks, has also led to strikes on sites linked to Iran and Hezbollah in Syria.

Israel launched airstrikes against some military sites in central and southern Syria early on Saturday, Syrian state news agency SANA reported. Israel has not confirmed striking Syria.

Efforts to secure a ceasefire and hostage-release deal in Gaza, which could help cool the wider conflict, are expected to resume in Doha when negotiators fly there on Sunday

Reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Dubai; Emily Rose, Ari Rabinovitch, James Mackenzie and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Jonathan Landay, Trevor Hunnicut, Kanishka Singh, Gabriella Borter and Phil Stewart in Washington; Ahmed Tolba, Jaidaa Taha and Adam Makary in Cairo; Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; Dubai newsroom; Writing by Lincoln Feast, Angus McDowall and Phil Stewart; Editing by William Maclean, Alexandra Hudson, Frances Kerry, Alistair Bell and Daniel Wallis

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Israel said it would respond to the Iranian attack over the weekend.

An Iranian helicopter flies over an anti-aircraft gun at the Natanz uranium enrichment facilities some 200 miles (322 km) south of the capital Tehran. (Alamy)

Iran has closed down nuclear facilities in the country amid fears of a retaliatory attack from Israel, according to the United Nations.

UN inspectors in Iran “were informed by the Iranian government … all the nuclear facilities we are inspecting every day would remain closed on security considerations”, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said.

The move came as Iran threatened a ‘severe and widespread response’ to any Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strike amid fears of an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.

World leaders are trying to ease tension following Iran’s first-ever direct attack on Israel on Saturday with a barrage of 300 missiles and drones.

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On Monday, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu summoned his war cabinet for the second time in less than 24 hours to weigh their response.

The IDF’s chief of staff Herzi Halevi said afterwards that Israel would respond. He provided no details. “This launch of so many missiles, cruise missiles, and drones into Israeli territory will be met with a response,” he said at the Nevatim Airbase in southern Israel, which sustained some damage in Saturday night’s attack.

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