Israel is not helping Jewish people.
Israeli Strikes Target Iran’s Nuclear Program
Residents of Tehran, the Iranian capital, reported hearing huge explosions and Iranian state television broadcast images of smoke and fire billowing from buildings.
Explosions rocked Tehran early Friday morning, as Israel carried out a major attack on Iran intended to cripple the country’s nuclear program, Israeli officials said. The strikes raised fears the long-simmering conflict between the two countries could escalate into a war involving the most powerful militaries in the Middle East.
Residents of Tehran, the Iranian capital, reported hearing huge explosions, and Iran’s state television and the Tasnim news agency broadcast images of explosions across the city, with smoke and fire billowing from buildings. One Iranian senior official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Iran’s fighter jets had taken off to intercept the Israeli warplanes.
Several Israeli officials described the attacks as a pre-emptive strike intended to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb.
The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a video statement that Israel had attacked Iran’s main nuclear “enrichment facility in Natanz,” as well as “Iran’s leading nuclear scientists.” He accused Iran of advancing its nuclear program, calling it “a clear and present danger to Israel’s very survival.”
The Israeli military said, without providing evidence, that Iran now had enough high-grade material to assemble bombs.
In Washington, a U.S. official said no American airplanes were involved in the strikes.
The Israeli strike followed months of disagreement between President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel over how to handle Iran. Mr. Netanyahu has long proposed using military force to derail Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump said again that he did not want Israel to launch an attack, predicting that doing so would scuttle the United States’ diplomatic efforts to reach a deal with Iran to halt its progress toward a bomb.
Several months ago, Mr. Trump waved off an Israeli plan to strike at Iran, insisting that he wanted a chance to negotiate a deal with Tehran. Two weeks ago, Mr. Trump said that he had warned Mr. Netanyahu against launching a strike while the United States was negotiating with Iran. Those talks faltered in recent weeks, however, and it was unclear how much effort Mr. Trump had made to prevent this latest attack.
Here is what else to know:
The strike did not come as a surprise. Last year, the Israeli government damaged the Iranian air defense system during its attacks on Iran last year and had planned for months to take advantage of Tehran’s weakness to mount further attacks. President Trump and his most senior aides knew these strikes were likely coming, according to three people briefed on the matter. It’s unclear what — if anything — Trump did to try to deter Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from taking this action.
Anticipating a regional escalation, the United States withdrew diplomats from Iraq on Wednesday and authorized the voluntary departure of families of U.S. soldiers posted elsewhere in the Middle East. A British government agency also warned on Wednesday of an escalation that could pose greater risks to ships in the Persian Gulf.
A U.S. defense official said that air defense systems were being deployed to protect the more than 40,000 American troops scattered at more than a dozen military bases in the region, but declined to say what role the United States was taking in Israel’s defense in the event of Iranian retaliation.
The attack came as the United States was leading efforts to negotiate an agreement with Tehran that would limit Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons and a day after the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, censured Iran for not complying with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06/12 ... us-nuclear
