How Israel Defended the Mossad in Tehran and Enforced the Security of the Middle East: The Case for a Successful Operation

Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security advisor in Israel who is now at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, says Israel has “succeeded quite nicely in clearing Iranian airspace so that it can conduct operations against other sites.”

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, appearing Sunday on Fox News, also offered details of what he described as a successful Israeli intelligence operation to infiltrate western Iran and disable its remaining air defenses in the area. Netanyahu said Israel has a “free highway to Tehran” because of the Mossad operation.

Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran last week, just as the U.S. had been in talks with Tehran over its nuclear program. Negotiations between the U.S. and Iran were supposed to continue last weekend, but have since stalled.

Israel says its strikes on Iran are needed to prevent the country from building a nuclear weapon, and it has taken out several top military leaders and nuclear scientists.

President Trump has expressed strong support for Israel, but has made clear that the U.S. is not at the moment part of Israel’s operation, which has also included strikes that resulted in the deaths of top Iranian commanders and reportedly dozens of civilians.

Large fragments are still dangerous as Iranian missiles break up in the face of Israel’s defense. So, Iron Dome is now being used to shoot down those falling fragments, according to Freilich.

Meanwhile, Israel says it has eliminated about a third of Iran’s estimated 100 mobile launchers for firing ballistic missiles. They are considered to be challenging targets because they are able to hide easy and are designed to escape detection. Iran is a mountainous country. It’s not easy to find them,” Freilich says.

Iran’s capital city of Tehran was in a state of chaos as hundreds of thousands of people were warned to leave ahead of more strikes by Israel.

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 told NPR she was trying to leave Tehran to go to her hometown but all the roads were blocked. She asked that her name be used only because of her fear of government reprisal.

The War between Israel and Iran Intensifies: How We Don’t Know What We Need to Know, But What We Can Do About It

We don’t know what to do. What decisions should we make? The internet is not available to us. We cannot even hear the news, we cannot even send a message because of the lack of signal,” she wrote in voice notes that took more than 18 hours to send.

“Each person is only thinking about how they can save their own lives or the lives of their loved ones,” she said. “Everyone is just thinking about how to avoid these missiles.”

He said in a Tuesday post that the U.S. knew where Iran’s supreme leader was. “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is safe and will not be taken out by us, at least not for now.

According to the Iranian government, those strikes have killed more than 200 people, including 20 children. Iran maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful.

Dena, a resident of Tehran is afraid of government reprisal and she says the government has no information on how to protect themselves.

“They do not give us any practical tips.” There is no information as to which locations we should avoid or where to go. She says that they don’t talk about it. They’re only applauding and celebrating the missiles that they shot 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. The new round has been very 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 that Israel had gained control of much of Iran’s airspace, and had taken out its missile capabilities in less than a year.

If Iran isn’t given certain nuclear facilities, I will see this as a failure on the Israeli side.

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

Nuclear attacks on Iran: Netanyahu and the U.S. ambassador to Israel and the astrophysical interests of a possible end to their nuclear ambitions

The facilities – and the centrifuges they contain – can be used to enrich uranium to a purity that could be used either in a nuclear reactor to generate electricity or to build an atomic weapon, experts say.

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. There was limited, if any, damage seen 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 armor that can actually destroy that facility. But I don’t rule out that Israel has some surprises up its sleeve.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated at a Monday evening news conference that his government’s strikes have prevented Iran’s nuclear program from becoming a reality. The main goal of the Israeli government is to dismantle Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but Netanyahu stated that the regime is not very strong.

The Israeli campaign doesn’t have a goal of regime change according to a former ambassador to Israel who served under 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.”

Instead, Israel is likely relying on a “mowing the grass” strategy, with the expectation of striking again later in an iterative process of setting back Iran’s nuclear program, Miller says.

On Tuesday, Trump told reporters at Air Force One that he was looking for a real end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions and that he was better than a ceasefire.

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

What will Israel do if the U.S. intervenes in its warplanes? A warning from Trump during the G7 summit in Canada

Israel’s warplanes are made in the U.S., but they don’t possess the huge bombs and stealth planes that the U.S. possesses.

It’s not clear if Washington will do that. Trump was asked at the G7 summit in Canada what it would take for the U.S. to become militarily involved, to which he responded simply: “I don’t want to talk about that.”

However, he cautions: “If the U.S. intervenes, the door to diplomacy will be shut entirely… Iran would probably hunker down… while trying to reconstitute its nuclear program and dash for a nuclear weapon.”