Photo: AP Photo/Vahid Salemi
Israel carried out a "preventive" attack on Iran, Defense Minister Israel Katz said. He cited Tehran's atomic program as the reason. The airstrikes that began after midnight could be a prelude to an all-out attack. In the first wave, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard was killed
Israel carried out a "preventive" airstrike on Iran, Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed on Friday around three o'clock in the morning. About a hundred targets were attacked throughout the country.
A few hours later, Tehran retaliated with an attack with about a hundred drones. A state of emergency has been declared in Israel. The airspace over the Jewish state is closed.
Among the dead in Iran are the commander-in-chief of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Hossein Salami, commander Golamali Rashid, army chief Mohammad Bagheri, former head of Iran's national security Ali Shamkhani.
At least six experts in nuclear physics were also killed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacks were aimed at Iran's top military and nuclear experts and would last as long as necessary to eliminate Iran's nuclear threat.
This attack has far more weight than the usual armed skirmishes between two hostile countries in recent years. In addition to military targets, Israel also attacked nuclear facilities - as in 1981 on the Osirek nuclear reactor in Iraq, or in 2007 on a nuclear facility in Iraq that was under construction.
The attack on Friday, June 13, opens up a scenario many have feared for decades: open war between the two largest military powers in the Middle East.
Netanyahu's righteous performance
Netanyahu was in his element, as the world has known him for a long time. In bombastic language spoken in the tone of the righteous, he explained why Israel had to attack Iran in "self-defense".
The military operation is named Rising Lion, Netanyahu said. Its goal is to remove the "Iranian threat to the survival of Israel." The first attacks were, he says, aimed at the "heart" of Iran's program to enrich uranium for atomic weapons. The attacks are not directed against the Iranian people, but against the "Iranian dictatorship".
He outlined Iran's alleged progress to develop an atomic bomb, not without comparisons to the Nazis. "Today, the Jewish state refuses to be a victim of a nuclear holocaust," Netanyahu said.
And Iranian ballistic missiles pose a great danger. In order for the Americans, the most important military allies of the Israelis, to appreciate it, Netanyahu explained it like this: "Imagine that 10.000 tons of TNT fall on a country the size of New Jersey.
CNN reports that dozens of targets across Iran have been bombed. American television sources say that the military leadership and leading nuclear scientists in Iran were also targeted. Multiple waves of attacks are expected that could last for days.
Citing Israeli military sources, the Reuters agency writes that the target was nuclear facilities. Iran has reportedly developed its atomic program to the point where the production of nuclear weapons is only a matter of time.
Jordan is temporarily closing its airspace as a precaution, following Israeli strikes on Iran early Friday morning, CNN reports.
The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard and former head of national security was killed
Iranian state media reports several explosions near Tehran and in the capital itself. A reporter for Iranian state television claims to have seen several dead. Smoke is reportedly visible above the Natans nuclear plant in the center of the country. State television shows the affected buildings in Tehran. There are civilian casualties.
The Iranians claim that the commander of the Revolutionary Guard, Hossein Salami, was killed in an airstrike.
Iran's former head of national security, Ali Shamkhani, was killed in Israeli airstrikes on Iran, according to Iranian state media, as reported by CNN.
"The assassination of Ali Shamkani has also been confirmed," Iran's state-run IRINN news network said on Friday.
Shamkhani was a key adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and served as secretary of the National Security Council for nearly a decade.
Shamkhani was a rising star in Iranian diplomacy and well known in diplomatic circles in Washington and Europe. He was suddenly ousted in mid-2023, and analysts suggest Khamenei may have considered him too ambitious at the time.
Trump is in favor of negotiations with Tehran
US President Donald Trump previously called on Israel to refrain from attacking Iran, given that negotiations on Iran's nuclear program are ongoing.
"We're in front of a pretty good deal," Trump said Thursday. He warned of a "massive conflict" in the region, if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not listen to him and carry out the attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, which he had already announced.
Trump said he didn't want Israel to "fall in there," but that it seemed like something that could happen.
"My entire government has been instructed to negotiate with Iran," Trump said. But Tehran must "once and for all abandon the hope of obtaining atomic weapons."
America is not involved in the Israeli attack
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized that Israel attacked Iran unilaterally and claims that it did so in self-defense.
"We are not involved in airstrikes against Iran. Our priority is to protect American forces in the region," Rubio said in a statement issued by the White House.
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