There are a number of things to know about the war between Israel and Iran

Israeli Air Defenses Have Been Killed in Operation Over the Last Two Months: The Interior Ministry of Iran Explains the Operation

Israeli air defense systems have used US-supplied F-35 fighters and other aircraft to carry out hundreds of strikes against Iran’s air defenses in the past few days. Not a single Israeli aircraft has been shot down in the operation so far, Israel authorities says.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday on Fox News that a successful Mossad spy operation had helped to eliminate remaining air defenses in western Iran. Netanyahu stated that Israel had a “free highway” to Tehran.

In October, during tit-for-tat missile and drone attacks between Israel and Iran, Tehran’s air defenses reportedly sustained serious damage. It is possible that Israel believed that Iran wouldn’t be able to survive a major air assault, and that is the reason for the current operation.

Israel says its assault on Iran is needed to prevent the country from building a nuclear weapon and has taken out many top military leaders and nuclear scientists.

President Trump supports Israel but he made it known that the U.S. doesn’t currently participate in Israel’s operation which has included strikes that resulted in the deaths of top Iranian commanders.

As incoming Iranian missiles are hit by Israel’s defenses, they break up into large fragments that are still dangerous. So, Iron Dome is now being used to shoot down those falling fragments, according to Freilich.

Israel says it has eliminated a third of Iran’s mobile launchers for firing missiles. It is considered a challenging target due to the fact they are able to hide easy and being designed to shoot and scoot to avoid detection. Iran is a country with a lot of mountains. It’s difficult to find them.

There was a lot of confusion and panic in Tehran, as Israel warned hundreds of thousands of people to leave the city before it was hit by more strikes.

Cars filled with people fleeing waited in miles-long lines at gas stations, trying to buy fuel. Roads out of the city were packed with bumper-to-bumper traffic. On Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had launched a “large scale attack wave in the heart of Iran,” with dozens of fighter jets targeting 12 different sites.

Zahra, an unemployed fashion designer in Tehran, told NPR she was trying to get out of the city to head to her hometown in western Iran but all the roads were blocked. She asked that only her first name be used because she feared government reprisal for speaking to the media.

Palestinians are unsure of what we can do to save them: Israel-Iran air strikes and nuclear attacks in the current war between Israel and Iran

“We don’t know what we should do. Should we make these decisions or not? We don’t have an internet connection. She said in voice notes that it took her more than eighteen hours to send the news due to the lack of signal.

She said that each person thought about how they could save their own lives or that of their loved ones. Everyone is thinking about how to avoid the missiles.

He implied in a post on Tuesday that the U.S. knew where the supreme leader of Iran was. “We know where the ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding.” He is an easy target, but we are not going to take him out.

Those strikes have also killed more than 200 civilians, including at least 20 children, according to the Iranian government. Iran said its nuclear program is peaceful.

The 48 year old resident of Tehran, who requested to be identified only by her first name for fear of reprisal, says that the government has given no information on how to protect themselves.

“They don’t give us any practical tips. There is no information as to whether or not we should avoid certain locations or go to others that are safe. She says that they don’t talk about it. “They are only applauding and celebrating shooting missiles at Israel.”

Israel and Iran have traded direct fire several times – most recently in October of last year – since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in 2023 sparked the current war in Gaza. But this new round has lasted longer and been more destructive and deadly for both sides.

“Everything that we’re watching is defying expectations,” Aaron Stein, president of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told NPR’s All Things Considered. He said Israel has gained control of much of Iran’s airspace and taken out its missile capabilities faster than many experts thought possible.

“But if they don’t get certain nuclear facilities, and Iran has the capability at the end of this thing to rapidly build a nuclear weapon, I will have judged this as a failure on the Israeli side,” said Stein.

Source: 4 things to know as the war between Israel and Iran intensifies

Nuclear attack on Israel is not ruled out by American air strikes, but rather by a reversal of Iran’s nuclear ambitions

The facilities can be used to enrich the material to a purity that can be used in either a nuclear reactor or to build a warhead, according to experts.

Speaking to the BBC on Monday, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Director, General Rafael Grossi, said it was likely that all of the 15,000 centrifuges at Natanz, Iran’s largest such facility, had been severely damaged by Israeli airstrikes. He said there was “very limited, if any, damage” visible at the underground Fordo enrichment plant.

Fordo, “is deeply buried,” says Daniel Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, a non-partisan think thank in Washington, D.C. “[Only] the United States has the kind of bunker busting capabilities that can actually destroy that facility. But I don’t rule out that Israel has some surprises up its sleeve.”

A strike would cause the program to be stopped by a few weeks. Ali Vaez, director of the International Crisis Group’s Iran Project, said that if the U.S. launched an attack on Iran, it would be delayed by a couple of years.

“I don’t think regime change is the objective of this Israeli campaign,” says Shapiro, who served as ambassador to Israel during the Obama presidency. “I don’t think it’s possible to do it with this kind of military campaign, and I don’t think that’s even a legitimate objective.”

Miller says that Israel is likely to rely on a “mowed grass” strategy with expectations of striking again later in the process of reversing Iran’s nuclear program.

Meanwhile, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday that he was seeking “a real end” to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which he called “better than a ceasefire.”

Source: 4 things to know as the war between Israel and Iran intensifies

Does Israel Really Want to Make a Reproduiton in the Middle East? The Case of the Iran Nuclear Force in the Early 2000s

Although Israel operates sophisticated U.S.-made warplanes, such as the F-35 fighter, it does not possess the enormous 30,000 pound bunker-busting bombs and the B-2 stealth bombers needed to deliver them – tools only the U.S. possesses.

Whether or not Washington will do that is still a question. Trump was asked what it would take for the US to become involved in military action in the Middle East, but he wouldn’t talk about it.

If the US intervenes, the door will be closed completely. Iran would probably hunker down, trying to reconstitute its nuclear program, while trying to get a nuclear weapon.