Israels

Last Thursday, just days after he had ordered strikes upon Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood outside Beersheba’s Soroka Hospital and spoke of his outrage that the building had been hit in an Iranian counterstrike.

“They’re targeting civilians because they’re a criminal regime. They’re the arch-terrorists of the world,” he said of the Iranian government.

Similar accusations were levelled by other Israeli leaders, including the president, Isaac Herzog, and opposition leader Yair Lapid, during the conflict with Iran, which ended with a ceasefire brokered by United States President Donald Trump on Monday.

However, what was missing from these leaders was an acknowledgement that Israel itself has attacked almost every hospital in Gaza, where more than 56,000 people have been killed, or that the Strip’s healthcare system has been pushed to near total collapse.

It was an omission noticeable in much of the Israeli press reporting on the Beersheba hospital attack, with few mentions of the parallels between it and Israel’s own attacks on hospitals in Gaza. Instead, much of the Israeli media has supported these attacks, either seeking to downplay them, or justifying them by regularly claiming that Hamas command centres lie under the hospitals, an accusation Israel has never been able to prove.

Weaponising suffering

According to analysts who spoke to Al Jazeera, a media ecosystem exists in Israel that, with a few exceptions, both amplifies its leaders’ calls for war while simultaneously reinforcing their claims of victimhood, all while shielding the Israeli public from seeing the suffering Israeli forces are inflicting on Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

One Israeli journalist, Haaretz’s media correspondent Ido David Cohen, wrote this month that “reporters and editors at Israel’s major news outlets have admitted more than once, especially in private conversations, that their employers haven’t allowed them to present the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the suffering of the population there”.

“The Israeli media … sees its job as not to educate, it’s to shape and mould a public that is ready to support war and aggression,” journalist Orly Noy told Al Jazeera from West Jerusalem. “It genuinely sees itself as having a special role in this.”

“I’ve seen [interviews with] people who lived near areas where Iranian missiles had hit,” Noy added. “They were given a lot of space to talk and explain the impact, but as soon as they started to criticise the war, they were shut down, quite rudely.”

Last September, a complaint brought by three Israeli civil society organisations against Channel 14, one of Israel’s most watched television networks, cited 265 quotes from hosts they claimed encouraged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide. Among them, concerning Gaza, were the phrases “it really needs to be total annihilation” and “there are no innocents.”

A few months earlier, in April, the channel was again criticised within the Israeli media, this time for a live counter labelled “the terrorists we eliminated”, which made no distinction between civilians and fighters killed, the media monitoring magazine 7th Eye pointed out.

Analysts and observers described how Israel’s media and politicians have weaponised the horrors of the past suffering of the Jewish people and have moulded it into a narrative of victimhood that can be aimed at any geopolitical opponent that circumstances allow – with Iran looming large among them.

“It isn’t just this war,” Noy, an editor with the Hebrew-language Local Call website, said. “The Israeli media is in the business of justifying every war, of telling people that this war is essential for their very existence. It’s an ecosystem. Whatever the authority is, it is absolutely right. There is no margin for doubt, with no room for criticism from the inside. To see it, you have to be on the outside.”

“The world has allowed Israel to act as some kind of crazy bully to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants,” Noy added. “They can send their troops into Syria and Lebanon, never mind Gaza, with impunity. Israel is fine. Israel is bulletproof. And why wouldn’t they think that? The world allows it, then people are shocked when Iran strikes back.”

The Israeli media largely serves as a tool to manufacture consent for Israel’s actions against the Palestinians and in neighbouring countries, while shielding the Israeli public from the suffering its victims endure.

Exceptions do exist. Israeli titles such as Noy’s Local Call and +972 Magazine often feature coverage highly critical of Israel’s war on Gaza, and have conducted in-depth investigations into Israel’s actions, uncovering scandals that are only reported on months later by the international media. Joint reporting from Local Call and +972 Magazine has revealed that the Israeli military was using an AI system to generate bombing target lists based on predicted civilian casualties. Another report found that the Israeli military had falsely declared entire Gaza neighbourhoods as evacuated, which then led to the bombing of civilian homes in areas that were still inhabited.

A more famous example is the liberal daily Haaretz, which regularly criticises Israel’s actions in Gaza. Haaretz has faced a government boycott over its coverage of the war.

“It’s not new,” Dina Matar, professor of political communication and Arab media at SOAS University of London, said. “Israeli media has long been pushing the idea that they [Israel] are the victims while calling for actions that will allow them to present greater victimhood [such as attacking Iran]. They often use emotive language to describe a strike on an Israeli hospital that they’ll never use to describe an Israeli strike on a hospital in Gaza.”

Take Israeli media coverage of the siege of northern Gaza’s last remaining functioning healthcare facility, the Kamal Adwan Hospital, in December.

While descriptions of the attacks on the hospital from United Nations special rapporteurs spoke of their “horror” at the strikes, those in the Israeli press, in outlets such as Ynet or The Times of Israel, instead focused almost exclusively upon the Israeli military’s claims of the numbers of “terrorists” seized.

Among those seized from the hospital were medical staff, including the director of Kamal Adwan, Dr Hussam Abu Safia, who has since been tortured in an Israeli military prison, his lawyer previously told Al Jazeera.

In contrast, Israeli coverage of the Soroka Hospital attack in Beersheba almost universally framed the hit as a “direct strike” and foregrounded the experience of the evacuated patients and healthcare workers.

In this environment, Matar said, Netanyahu’s representation of Israel as home to a “subjugated people” reinforced a view that Israelis have long been encouraged to hold of themselves, even amid the decades-long occupation of Palestinian land.

“No one questions what Netanyahu is saying because the implications of his speech make sense as part of this larger historical narrative; one that doesn’t allow for any other [narrative], such as the Nakba or the suffering in Gaza,” the academic said.

Israel is no longer concealing its intention to forcibly displace Palestinians from their homeland, as it now announces this plan more openly than ever before through official rhetoric at the highest levels, said Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor in a report issued today.

Through actions on the ground and institutional measures designed to reframe the crime as “voluntary migration”, explained Euro-Med Monitor, Israel has attempted to implement its displacement campaign by exploiting the international community’s near-total silence, which has enabled the continuation of the crime and Israeli impunity despite the unprecedented nature of humanity’s first livestreamed genocide.

“Israel is now attempting to carry out the final phase of its crime, and its original goal: the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Palestine, specifically from the Gaza Strip. For a year and a half, Israel has carried out acts of genocide, killing and injuring hundreds of thousands of people, erasing entire cities, dismantling the Strip’s infrastructure, and systematically displacing its population within the enclave. These actions aim to eliminate the Palestinian people as a community and as a collective presence.”

The current plans for forced displacement, said the Geneva-based rights group, are a direct extension of Israel’s long-standing, settler-colonial project, aimed at erasing Palestinian existence and seizing land. What distinguishes this stage, it added, is its unprecedented scale and brutality.

“Israel is targeting over two million people who have endured a full-scale genocide and have been stripped of even the most basic human rights, under coercive, inhumane conditions that make living any sort of a normal life impossible. Israel’s deliberate objective is to pressure Palestinians into leaving by making it their only means of survival.”

Having succeeded in revealing the weak principles of international law, such as protections for civilians based on their perceived racial superiority or lack thereof, Israel is now reshaping the narrative once again.

READ: Gaza reaches WHO’s most critical malnutrition level amid Israeli blockade

“Armed with overwhelming force and emboldened by the international community’s abandonment of legal and moral responsibilities, Israel seeks to portray the mass expulsion of Palestinians as ‘voluntary migration’,” said the group. “This is a blatant attempt to rebrand ethnic cleansing and forced displacement using dishonest language — like ‘humanitarian considerations’ and ‘individual choice’ — and is a direct contradiction of legal facts and the reality on the ground.”

Euro-Med Monitor emphasised that forced displacement is a standalone crime under international law, because it involves the removal of individuals from areas where they legally reside, using force, threats, or other forms of coercion, without valid legal justification.

“Coercion, in the context of Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip, goes beyond military force. It includes the creation of unbearable conditions that render remaining in one’s home practically impossible or life-threatening.” A coercive environment includes fear of violence, persecution, arrest, intimidation, starvation or other forms of hardship that strip individuals of free will and force them to flee.

“Israel has already committed the crime of forced displacement against Gaza’s population, having driven them into internal displacement without legal grounds and in conditions that violate international legal exceptions, which only permit evacuation temporarily and under imperative military necessity, while ensuring safe areas with minimum standards of human dignity,” said Lima Bustami, Director of Euro-Med Monitor’s Legal Department.

“None of these standards have been met. In fact, Israel has used this widespread and repeated pattern of displacement as a tool of genocide, aimed at destroying and subjecting the population to deadly living conditions.”

Bustami added that although the legal elements of the crime are already fulfilled, Israel is further escalating it to a more lethal level against the Palestinian people, manifesting its settler-colonial vision of expulsion and replacement. “Now it is attempting to market the second phase of forced displacement — beyond Gaza’s borders — as ‘voluntary migration’: a transparent deception that only a complicit international community — one that chooses silence over accountability — would accept.”

Today, the people of the Gaza Strip endure catastrophic conditions that are unprecedented in recent history, said Euro-Med Monitor. “Israel has obliterated all forms of normal life; there is no electricity or infrastructure, and there are no homes, no essential services, no functioning healthcare or education systems, and no clean water services.”

Indeed, the group’s report notes that around 2.3 million Palestinians are confined to less than 34 per cent of the Strip’s 365 square kilometres. Approximately 66 per cent of the territory has been turned into so-called “buffer zones”, or areas that are completely off-limits to Palestinians and/or that have been forcibly depopulated through Israeli bombings and displacement orders. “Most of the population is now living in tattered tents amid the spread of famine, disease and epidemics and an accumulation of waste, conditions symptomatic of the near-complete collapse of the humanitarian system.”

Moreover, Israel continues to systematically block the entry of food, medicine and fuel; destroy all remaining means of survival; and obstruct any efforts aimed at reconstruction or restoring even the minimum conditions for a healthy life.

“These conditions in place are not the result of a natural disaster,” the Euro-Med report says pointedly. “They have been deliberately engineered by Israel as a coercive tool to pressure the population into leaving the Gaza Strip. The absence of any genuine, voluntary alternative for Palestinians in the enclave renders this situation a textbook case of forcible transfer, as defined under international law and affirmed by relevant jurisprudence.”

READ: Israel advocate says, ‘I’m OK with as many dead kids as it takes’

According to Bustami, “While population transfers may be permitted in certain humanitarian contexts under international law, any such justification collapses if the humanitarian crisis is the direct consequence of unlawful acts committed by the same party enforcing the transfer. It is impermissible to use forced displacement as a response to a disaster one has created, a principle clearly upheld by international tribunals, particularly the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.”

Framing this imposed reality as a “voluntary” migration and an option not only constitutes a gross distortion of truth, said Euro-Med Monitor, but also undermines the legal foundations of the international system, erodes the principle of accountability, and transforms impunity from a failure of justice into a deliberate mechanism for perpetuating grave crimes and entrenching the outcomes of such crimes.

“Repeated public statements from the highest levels of Israel’s political and security leadership have escalated in intensity over the past year and a half, and expose a clear, coordinated intent to displace the population of the Gaza Strip. In a blatant bid to enforce a demographic transformation serving Israel’s colonial-settler agenda, senior Israeli officials — including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir — have publicly called for the expulsion of Palestinians from the Strip and for the settlement of Jewish Israelis in their place.”

Netanyahu expressed full support in February 2025 for US President Donald Trump’s plan to resettle Palestinians outside of the Gaza Strip, describing it as “the only viable solution for enabling a different future” for the region. Likewise, Smotrich announced in March that the Israeli government would back the establishment of a new “migration authority” to coordinate what he termed a “massive logistical operation” to remove Palestinians from the Strip.

Ben-Gvir, meanwhile, has openly advocated for the encouragement of “voluntary migration” coupled with calls to resettle Jewish Israelis in the territory.

The human rights organisation referred to the 23 March decision of the Israeli Security Cabinet to establish a dedicated directorate within the Ministry of Defence, to manage what it calls the “voluntary relocation” of the Gaza Strip’s residents to third countries. “This is evidence that this displacement is not a by-product of destruction or political rhetoric, but an official policy,” it noted. “This policy is being implemented through institutional mechanisms, directed from within Israel’s own security apparatus, with full operational powers, executive structures, and strategic goals.”

READ: Israel bombing kills 4-year-old twin girls as they slept in Gaza

Furthermore, current Defence Minister Israel Katz’s statement on the new directorate confirmed that it would “prepare for and enable safe and controlled passage of Gaza residents for their voluntary departure to third countries, including securing movement, establishing movement routes, checking pedestrians at designated crossings in the Gaza Strip, as well as coordinating the provision of infrastructure that will enable passage by land, sea and air to the destination countries.”

The true danger of establishing such a directorate, said Euro-Med Monitor, lies not only in its institutionalisation of forced transfer, but in the new legal and political reality it seeks to impose. “It rebrands displacement as an ‘optional’ administrative service while stripping civilians of their ability to make free, informed decisions, therefore cloaking a war crime in a veneer of bureaucratic legitimacy.”

Any departure from the Gaza Strip under current circumstances cannot be considered “voluntary”, it added, but rather constitutes, in legal terms, forcible transfer, which is strictly prohibited under international law. “All individuals compelled to leave the Strip retain their inalienable right to return to their land and property immediately and unconditionally. They also have the full right to seek compensation for all damages and losses incurred as a result of Israeli crimes and rights violations, including the destruction of homes and property, physical and psychological harm, the assault on human dignity, and the denial of livelihood and basic rights.”

Under its obligations as an occupying power responsible for the protection of the civilian population, Israel is prohibited from forcibly transferring Palestinians and bears full legal responsibility to ensure their protection from this crime.

The rules of international law, particularly customary international law and the Geneva Conventions, require all states not to recognise any situation arising from the crime of forcible transfer and to treat it as null and void. States are also obligated to withhold all material, political and diplomatic support that would contribute to the entrenchment of such a situation.

“International responsibility goes beyond mere non-recognition,” said the rights group. “It includes a legal duty for states to take urgent effective steps to halt the crime, hold perpetrators accountable, and provide redress to victims. This includes ensuring the safe, voluntary return of all displaced persons from the Gaza Strip, and providing full reparations for the harm and violations they have suffered. Any failure to act in this regard constitutes a direct breach of international law and complicity that could subject states to legal accountability.”

READ: Israeli air strike hits Gaza children’s hospital

Euro-Med Monitor said that the international community must move beyond deafening silence and abandon paltry rhetorical condemnations, which have come to represent the maximum response it dares to make in the face of the livestreamed genocide unfolding before its eyes. “It must act swiftly and effectively to halt Israel’s ongoing project of mass displacement in the Gaza Strip and prevent it from becoming an entrenched reality. This action must be based on international legal norms, a commitment to justice and accountability, and an honest reckoning with the root structural cause of the crimes: Israel’s unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 1967.”

Endorsing or remaining silent about Israeli plans to forcibly transfer Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip not only exonerates Israel but rewards it for its illegal conduct by granting it gains secured through mass killing, destruction, blockade, and starvation, said the organisation. “This is not just a series of war crimes or crimes against humanity, it embodies the legal definition of genocide, as established by the 1948 Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”

All states, individually and collectively, must uphold their legal obligations and take all necessary measures to halt Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip.

This includes taking immediate, effective steps to protect Palestinian civilians and to prevent the implementation of the US-Israeli crime of forcible transfer that is openly threatening the Strip’s population.

“The international community must impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel for its systematic and grave violations of international law. This includes halting arms imports and exports; ending all forms of political, financial and military support; freezing the financial assets of officials involved in crimes against Palestinians; imposing travel bans; and suspending trade privileges and bilateral agreements that offer Israel economic advantages that sustain its capacity to commit further crimes.”

The rights group insisted that states must also hold complicit governments accountable — chief among them the United States — for their role in enabling Israeli crimes through various forms of support, including military and intelligence cooperation, financial aid and political or legal backing.

“The ethnic cleansing and genocide taking place right now in the Gaza Strip would not be possible without Israel’s decades-long unlawful colonial presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This is the root structural cause of the violence, oppression, and destruction in the besieged enclave,” concluded Euro-Med Monitor. “Any meaningful response to the escalating crisis in the Strip must begin with dismantling this colonial reality, recognising the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, and securing their freedom and sovereignty over their national territory.

“As Israel and its allies must be compelled to abide by the law, international intervention is the only path to ending the genocide, halting all forms of individual and collective forcible transfer, dismantling the apartheid regime, and establishing a credible framework for justice, accountability, and the preservation of human dignity.”

OPINION: Palestinian voices are throttled by the promotion of foreign agendas

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

Intelligence operations years in the making were behind Israel’s targeting of key military positions and leaders in Iran this month, according to the Israeli press.

The strikes that took out much of Iran’s key defensive infrastructure and killed military commanders are credited to an Israeli intelligence service that is claimed to have infiltrated much of Iran’s security apparatus.

Inside Iran, scores of people have reportedly been arrested and accused of spying for Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, providing media support for Israel or disturbing public opinion.

Just a few days ago, the Iranian government ordered senior officials and their security teams not to use smartphones connected to the internet to avoid Israeli hacking of sensitive communications. Iranian security services, meanwhile, are understood to have asked the public to report any building they have rented to companies or individuals in the last couple of years.

Iran’s crackdown follows what has been framed as an unprecedented Israeli intelligence operation that led to its recent strikes on the country, but how extensive has the infiltration been, and how long has it been in the works?

How large a role did Israeli intelligence play in its initial strikes on Iran?

A significant one.

Shortly after Israel’s strikes on Iran, stories of the intelligence operations that preceded the “unprecedented” attack flooded the media. In interviews given by senior members of Israel’s intelligence community, details were given about how both human intelligence and AI were used in tandem to stage the attack, which they claimed hobbled much of Iran’s air defences.

On June 17, just days after the strike, The Associated Press published interviews with 10 Israeli intelligence and military officials with knowledge of the strike.

“This attack is the culmination of years of work by the Mossad to target Iran’s nuclear program,” Sima Shine, the former research director of Mossad, told the AP. The piece also detailed how Israeli agents were able to smuggle in a series of drones and missile systems into Iran, which were then used to strike numerous targets determined by a United States AI model working on data provided to it by Israeli agents within Iran, as well as information gained from previous strikes.

Are the intelligence operations ongoing?

They appear to be.

Israel claimed that the locations of two senior officers in Iran’s Quds force, Saeed Izadi and Behnam Shahryari, who were killed over the weekend, had been determined by its intelligence networks.

Earlier, on June 17, Israel was able to locate and kill one of Iran’s most senior military figures, Major-General Ali Shademani, and that was just four days after the assassination of his predecessor in a targeted air strike.

“I don’t think people realise how much audacity we have,” Israeli military intelligence specialist Miri Eisin told The Observer in the United Kingdom, noting that a target would have to entirely rid themselves of any electronic devices that could connect to the internet to avoid detection. “Most people don’t take themselves off the grid,” she said. “You can get to anybody.”

“Israel likely has around 30 to 40 cells operating inside Iran,” defence analyst Hamze Attar told Al Jazeera from Luxembourg, “with most of those made up of collaborators, rather than Israeli agents, which also makes Iran look weak,” he said, citing the assembly instructions found on the hardware seized by authorities.

“Some of those cells will be responsible for smuggling weapons from Israel, others for carrying out attacks and others for intelligence gathering,” he said.

How long has this been going on?

Israeli intelligence operations inside Iran are nothing new. According to analysts, operations designed to monitor, infiltrate, sabotage and undermine Iranian defences date back to the Iranian revolution of 1979.

Speaking in November 2024, Ali Larijani, a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, acknowledged the extent of Israeli operations in Iran, telling the ISNA news agency that the “problem of infiltration had become very serious in recent years”.

“There have been some instances of negligence for years,” the former parliamentary speaker and nuclear negotiator added.

The detonation of communication devices used by the armed Lebanese group Hezbollah in September 2024 was only possible after the infiltration of the group’s supply chain by Israeli intelligence. Likewise, the assassination of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was carried out after details of his location were obtained by Israeli agents. Similar subterfuge was also used in the targeted assassination of Hamas’s political chief Ismael Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024, when an explosive device placed in his residence weeks before was detonated.

In the last two decades, Israel has killed a number of Iran’s nuclear scientists, including Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was assassinated by a remote-controlled gun mounted on the back of a pick-up truck. Israel was also responsible for the release of the Stuxnet computer virus in 2010, which was thought to have infected 30,000 computers across at least 14 nuclear facilities in Iran.

Does Iran also spy on Israel?

Absolutely.

In late October, Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, announced the arrest of seven Israeli citizens on suspicion of spying for Iran. A day earlier, authorities had detained another group of seven in Haifa, alleging they had assisted Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence during wartime.

At the time, Israeli police sources indicated that additional covert networks with ties to Iran may be active within the country.

If this is a covert operation, why do we know so much about it?

Because, according to analysts, publicity can also be a powerful tool in an intelligence agency’s toolkit.

Publicising the degree to which an opposing country’s security infrastructure can be infiltrated and sabotaged undermines that country’s morale while scoring points at home.

“It’s psychological warfare,” Attar said. “If I keep saying that I’ve broken into your house and you keep denying it, then I present proof of having done that, how do you look? You look weak. Israel will keep bragging about the extent of their infiltration in the hope that Iran will deny it, then they’ll provide further proof of it.”

The three largest European nations by population, Germany, France and the UK, held talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday, in an effort to avert a protracted war in the Middle East.

US President Donald Trump, who has said he will decide within two weeks whether to join the assault on Tehran, denounced the talks with European leaders as a failure.

“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this one,” he told reporters.

Araghchi had said Iran was not attending the talks in Geneva to negotiate anyway, only to listen.

However, he added, “There is no room for negotiations with the US [either] until the Israeli aggression stops,” as Iran and Israel traded salvoes of missiles and drones.

The US has been Israel’s chief ally and supporter in all its wars, and is the only country with major military assets deployed in the region, which might be able to alter the course of the war.

Why are the Europeans getting involved?

Germany, France and the UK – referred to as the E3 in the context of Iran talks – helped negotiate a 2015 treaty with Iran.

The 2015 treaty, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), saw Iran agree to develop only peaceful nuclear programmes and to submit to independent monitoring. Russia, China and the United States also helped negotiate it, as did the UN.

But Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA in May 2018, during his first term as president. The E3 tried to keep the treaty alive but failed. Iran abandoned it a year after the US did.

On Saturday, the EU high commissioner for external action, Kaja Kallas, who also attended the talks on Friday, issued a statement reaffirming “commitment to Israel’s security” and “longstanding concerns about Iran’s expansion of its nuclear programme, which has no credible civilian purpose, in violation of almost all the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) provisions”.

But Israel’s war in Gaza has divided the E3 over their approach to Israel, weakening European foreign policy unity further, although all want to avoid another war on Europe’s doorstep.

How are the E3 divided in their approach towards Israel?

The E3 positions on Israel have diverged since Israel’s war in Gaza began in October 2023.

Germany has remained the most ardently pro-Israel, refusing to criticise Israel for indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Gaza and halting its funding to UNWRA, the UN agency assisting Palestinian refugees, which Israel accuses of aiding Hamas.

Originally pro-Israel, the UK somewhat changed its stance after Labour’s election victory last year. Earlier this month, the UK joined four other countries in formally sanctioning Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, for “incitement of violence” against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Israel called the decision “outrageous” and “unacceptable”.

France is even more sceptical towards Israel. It was one of four EU members that started calling for a Gaza ceasefire in April last year. A year later, on April 9, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would formally recognise the state of Palestine within months, partly because “at some point, it will be right”, and partly to encourage Arab states to recognise Israel. France was reported to be lobbying other European nations to follow suit. Spain, Norway and Ireland all formally recognised Palestine the following month.

What leverage do the E3 have with Iran or Israel?

They are the three biggest economies in Europe, with a collective gross domestic product (GDP) of about $11 trillion.

Two of them, France and the UK, possess aircraft carriers and expeditionary forces that have deployed to the Middle East and North Africa regions. They are also nuclear powers.

Ultimately, though, none of these things is enough to sway either Iran or Israel on matters of national security. The true value of the E3 lies in their “acceptability” to both Iran and Israel as good-faith mediators and their ability to work towards common goals with the US.

“Germany, France and the UK have attempted to mediate for more than 20 years, and their approach has been milder than that of the US,” George Tzogopoulos, a lecturer in international relations at the European Institute in Nice, told Al Jazeera. “The same is happening now. We have a war crisis, and these three prioritise diplomacy for the conflict to stop if possible and for negotiations to restart.”

Could the E3 broker a deal between Iran and Israel?

It would be difficult, given their failure to resuscitate the JCPOA without the US.

“The main reason [the E3 failed with the JCPOA] is the conclusion, made by both the Trump administration, President Trump himself, and the Israeli government that diplomacy cannot work in the case of Iran and, therefore, the role of the three was sidelined,” said Tzogopoulos.

But it is also difficult for them to coordinate with the US. Trump has now sidelined his own intelligence community to adopt the Israeli view that Iran is developing a bomb. On Friday, Trump told reporters that his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was “wrong” when she testified that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had not re-authorised the country’s suspended nuclear weapons programme.

“If Israel has evidence that Iran was dashing for a bomb, I think it needs to come out more publicly and share that, because nobody else is confirming that assessment,” said Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, a nongovernmental organisation based in the US.

“If there is some coordination between the US and the E3, we might be more optimistic, but for Europe, for the E3 to act autonomously, I wouldn’t bet my money on their potential success,” he said.

“The Europeans have very low chances,” agreed Angelos Syrigos, a professor of international law at Panteion University in Athens. “The only people who can intervene seriously are the Americans. But I don’t know if the Iranians are open to that. To have final peace, you usually need a decisive defeat,” he said, referring to the Yom Kippur War between Israel and Egypt of 1973, which led to the Camp David agreement six years later, and US intervention in the Yugoslav War, which led to the Dayton Accord in 1995. “One party has to understand there is no military solution.”

Could the United Nations Security Council find a diplomatic solution?

No, say experts, because China, Russia and the US disagree on Israel and Iran.

“The Security Council won’t find a solution to this,” said Syrigos. “Either the US or Russia or China will veto it. The difference is mainly between the US and China. The Chinese have invested a lot in Iran in recent years. That’s where they buy most of their oil; they send [Iran] materials for nuclear weapons. It’s China that is mostly connected to Iran.”

Russia has called on the US not to attack Iran, because of the risk of destabilising the region. But Russia also does not have the power to come to Iran’s aid, said Syrigos.

“Right now, Russia is going along with the US. It doesn’t want to get involved. It hasn’t the power. So, it’s turning a necessity into a voluntary act,” he said.

“The logic of war will guide diplomatic efforts at this point, and we cannot know how the war will go, or the extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear programme,” said Tzogopoulos.

Israel’s war on Iran was one that many have expected, and yet with nuclear talks between the United States and Iran ongoing, few saw it coming. Propaganda from the Netanyahu government and credulous reporting in the Western media have played a major part in how we got here.

Contributors:
Narges Bajoghli – Author, Iran Reframed
Matt Duss – Executive Vice President, Center for International Policy
Assal Rad – Non-Resident Fellow, Arab Center Washington DC
Mohammad Ali Shabani – Editor, Amwaj Media

On our radar

As Israeli media cheerlead for the war on Iran, military censors are tightening their grip on local and foreign media outlets alike. Ryan Kohls reports.

The war on Iran feels eerily familiar – from justifications that hold no water to the uncritical reporting in the media. Chris Hedges joins us to unpack the unsettling parallels with the 2003 Iraq War.

Featuring:
Chris Hedges – Former Middle East Bureau Chief, The New York Times

An EU diplomatic service audit report, seen by Reuters and AFP, looked at Israel’s actions in Gaza and occupied West Bank.

There are indications Israel may have breached its human rights obligations under the terms of a pact governing its ties with the European Union, a review of the agreement shows.

According to an EU document seen by the Reuters and AFP news agencies on Friday, the European External Action Service said that Israel’s actions in Gaza were likely not in line with rules laid out in the EU-Israel Association.

“On the basis of the assessments made by the independent international institutions … there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations,” the audit drafted by the EU’s diplomatic service read.

The report comes after months of deepening concern in European capitals about Israel’s operations in Gaza and the humanitarian situation in the enclave.

“Israel’s continued restrictions to the provision of food, medicines, medical equipment, and other vital supplies affect the entire population of Gaza present on the affected territory,” it said.

The document includes a section dedicated to the situation in Gaza – covering issues related to denial of humanitarian aid, attacks with a significant number of casualties, attacks on medical facilities, displacement and lack of accountability – as well as the situation in the occupied West Bank, including settler violence, Reuters reported.

The document said it relies on “facts verified by and assessments made by independent international institutions, and with a focus on most recent events in Gaza and the West Bank”.

The audit was launched last month in response to the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, in a push backed by 17 states and spearheaded by the Netherlands.

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, is expected to present the findings of the report to the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.

EU-Israel agreement

Under the EU-Israel agreement, which came into effect in 2000, the two parties agreed that their relationship would be based on “respect for human rights and democratic principles”.

Suspending the agreement would require a unanimous decision from the bloc’s 27 members, something diplomats have said from the beginning was virtually impossible.

According to AFP, diplomats have said that they expect Kallas to propose options on a response to the report during the next foreign ministers’ meeting in July.

“The question is … how many member states would still be willing not to do anything and still keep on saying that it’s business as usual,” an unnamed diplomat told the news agency ahead of the review’s findings.

“It’s really important to not fall into the trap of Israel to look somewhere else,” they said.

The EU is Israel’s largest commercial partner, with 42.6 billion euros ($48.2bn) in goods traded in 2024. Trade in services reached 25.6 billion euros ($29.5bn) in 2023.

Israel’s mission to the EU did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment about the contents of the document.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have called for de-escalation in the conflict between Israel and Iran, following a call between the leaders.

The presidents showed a united front in their response to the escalating crisis on Thursday, after their shared geopolitical rival, the United States, indicated it had not ruled out joining Israel’s strikes on Iran.

During the call, Xi called for “major powers” to help cool the conflict, in a thinly veiled reference to Washington. Russia, which has a strategic cooperation pact with Tehran, says it has been urging the US not to strike Iran, warning it would dramatically destabilise the region and risk a nuclear disaster.

Following the call, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that Putin and Xi “strongly condemn Israel’s actions, which violate the UN Charter and other norms of international law”, news agencies reported.

Both leaders “fundamentally believe that there is no military solution to the current situation and issues related to Iran’s nuclear programme”, he said, adding that a solution “must be achieved exclusively through political and diplomatic means”.

Putin has presented his country as a potential mediator in the conflict over Iran’s nuclear programme, but so far he has not been taken up on his offer.

Ushakov said that during the call, Putin reiterated his suggestion of mediating in the dispute, and Xi expressed his support, “as he believes it could serve to de-escalate the current acute situation”.

Chinese state media reported that, during the call, Xi had called for all parties, “especially Israel”, to “cease hostilities as soon as possible to prevent a cyclical escalation and resolutely avoid the spillover of the war”.

He added that “major countries” with “special influence” in the region should step up their diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the situation, Chinese state media reported, in an apparent reference to the US.

‘Rough edges’

The leaders also remarked on the apparent friction between Western leaders at the recent G7 conference in Canada, Ushakov said.

“They noted the well-known rough edges that emerged in the relations between participants,” the Kremlin aide said, according to the Reuters news agency.

The G7, an informal club of major industrialised democracies, concluded its latest summit on Tuesday without leaders issuing a joint statement in support of Ukraine, as it had in recent years.

Trump, having made comments in support of Russia at the summit, left a day earlier than expected, making bellicose statements about Iran on his return that have fuelled fears of more direct US involvement in the conflict.

Iran-Russia cooperation

Moscow and Tehran signed a long-delayed strategic cooperation agreement in January, reinforcing ties between the allies who share an anti-US stance.

Although Russia has not yet provided Iran with weaponry, it has assisted with its contentious nuclear programme, which Tehran insists is for peaceful civilian purposes.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum on Thursday, Putin said that more than 200 Russians were continuing to work at Iran’s Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant, and that an agreement had been reached with Israel over their safety.

Xi made his first public comments on the crisis at a summit in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, saying he was “deeply worried” about Israel’s military operation against Iran.

Ushakov said Xi and Putin had agreed to keep in close contact in the coming days as the crisis unfolds. The leaders plan to next meet in China in late August at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting, the Kremlin aide said.

Iranian TV has aired footage of what it says is Iran’s air defences shooting down an Israeli Hermes 900 drone. It’s the first time Iran has aired footage of a drone takedown. The UAV crashed near the city of Isfahan.

British sympathy for the Palestinian cause – and criticism of Israel – is surging, according to a new survey.

London, United Kingdom – Most Britons who oppose Israel’s war on Gaza believe the onslaught, which has to date killed more than 55,000 people, amounts to genocide, according to a new poll.

The survey, carried out by YouGov and commissioned by the Action for Humanity charity and the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) advocacy group, found that 55 percent of Britons are against Israel’s aggression. A significant number of those opponents – 82 percent – said Israel’s actions amount to genocide.

“This translates to 45 percent of adults in the UK who view Israel’s actions as genocidal,” said Action for Humanity and ICJP.

Details of the poll, which 2,010 people responded to in early June, were released on Wednesday.

Sixty-five percent said the UK should enforce the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he were to visit Britain.

“It is clear that a majority of the public here are disgusted with Israel’s conduct, and a growing number agree that this is clearly a genocide,” said Othman Moqbel, head of Action for Humanity.

He added that all but a few believe the UK should do “everything in its power to stop Israel and seek justice against those responsible”.

“The government’s failure to recognise the scale of the crimes being inflicted upon Gaza is not just putting them on the wrong side of history, it’s putting them on the wrong side of the present day.”

Tens of thousands of Britons have taken to the streets over the past 20 months to protest against Israel’s war on Gaza.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government has in recent weeks adopted harsher tones on Israel and sanctioned top officials. In 2024, the UK suspended 30 arms export licences to Israel for use in Gaza amid concerns Israel was violating international humanitarian laws.

But critics have lamented the pace and power of the UK’s response, calling for tougher sanctions and measures that would prevent Israel from receiving F-35 components made in Britain.

The survey also highlighted the positions of Britons who voted for the Labour Party in the 2024 general election.

Of the 68 percent of Labour voters who are against Israel’s actions in Gaza, 87 percent believe they amount to genocide. Seventy-eight percent of Labour voters said the UK should enforce the ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu.

The UK has suggested it would comply with the ICC warrant.

“The UK government is totally out of touch with the British public they are supposed to represent, and the Labour Party are even more out of touch with their own voters,” said Jonathan Purcell of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians.

“UK policymaking should be based on complying with international law obligations, regardless, but this poll just goes to show the level of popular support for such policies too. There is absolutely no appetite to drag our national reputation through the mud by continuing to stand with a rogue, pariah state.”

As the conflict between Iran and Israel escalates, United States President Donald Trump’s administration is offering mixed signals about whether it still backs a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear programme.

Publicly, it has backed a negotiated agreement, and US and Iranian negotiators had planned to meet again this week. As recently as Thursday, Trump insisted in a Truth Social post: “We remain committed to a Diplomatic Resolution.”

But 14 hours later as Israel began its attacks on Iran, Trump posted that he had given Iran a 60-day deadline to reach an agreement – and that the deadline had passed. By Sunday, Trump was insisting that “Israel and Iran should make a deal” and they would with his help.

On Monday as Trump prepared to leave the Group of Seven summit in Canada early, his warnings grew more ominous: He posted that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” The US president later denied speculation that he had returned to Washington, DC, early to negotiate a ceasefire, noting that it was for something “much bigger than that”.

Trump’s ambiguous statements have fuelled debate among analysts about the true extent of US involvement and intentions in the Israel-Iran conflict.

Debating Trump’s wink and a nod

Trump has denied any US involvement in the strikes. “The U.S. had nothing to do with the attack on Iran, tonight,” he wrote on Sunday.

Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the US-based Arms Control Association, said Trump’s messaging had been clear. “I think that President Trump has been very clear in his opposition to the use of military force against Iran while diplomacy was playing out. And reporting suggests that he pushed back against [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” she said.

What’s more likely, Davenport said, is that “Israel was worried that diplomacy would succeed, that it would mean a deal” and “that it did not view [this as] matching its interests and objectives regarding Iran”.

Richard Nephew, a professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, agreed, saying it was Trump’s consistent march towards a deal that troubled Israel.

“I think it is that consistency that’s actually been the thing that’s the problem,” said Nephew, who served as director for Iran at the US National Security Council from 2011 to 2013 under then-President Barack Obama.

But Ali Ansari, a professor of Iranian history at St Andrews University in Scotland, disagreed.

“The US was aware. … Even if the specific timing did surprise them, they must have been aware, so a wink is about right,” he told Al Jazeera.

“At the same time, the US view is that Israel must take the lead and should really do this on their own,” he said.

Could Trump get sucked into the conflict?

Israel is believed to have destroyed the above-ground section of Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. The facility has enriched uranium to 60 percent purity – far above the 3.67 percent needed for nuclear power but below the 90 percent purity needed for an atomic bomb. Power loss at Natanz as a result of the Israeli strike may have also damaged the underground enrichment section at Natanz, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

But in the IAEA’s assessment, Israel did not damage Iran’s other uranium enrichment plant at Fordow, which is buried inside a mountain and also enriches uranium to 60 percent purity.

“It’s likely that Israel would need US support if it actually wanted to penetrate some of these underground facilities,” Davenport said, pointing to the largest US conventional bomb, the 13,600kg (30,000lb) Massive Ordnance Penetrator.

“[With] repeated strikes with that munition, you could likely damage or destroy some of these facilities,” Davenport said, noting that Washington “has not transferred that bomb to Israel”.

Barbara Slavin, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center, a US-based think tank, also told Al Jazeera that Israel would need US weapons to complete its stated mission of destroying Iran’s nuclear programme.

Nephew, for one, did not discount the chances of that happening.

“We know that [Trump] likes to be on the side of winners. To the extent that he perceives the Israelis as winners right now, that is the reason why he is maintaining his position and why I think we have a wink [to Israel],” he said.

On Friday, the US flew a large number of midair-refuelling planes to the Middle East and ordered the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz to sail there. On Tuesday, it announced it was sending more warplanes to the region.

Ansari agreed that the initial success of Israel’s attacks could mean that “Trump is tempted to join in just to get some of the glory,” but he thinks this could force Iran to stand down.

“It may well be that the US does join in on an attack on Fordow although I think even the genuine threat of an American attack will bring the Iranians to the table,” Ansari said. “They can concede – with honour – to the United States; they can’t to Israel, though they may have no choice.”

Wary of American involvement, US Senator Tim Kaine introduced a war powers resolution on Monday that would require the US Congress to authorise any military action against Iran.

“It is not in our national security interest to get into a war with Iran unless that war is absolutely necessary to defend the United States,” Kaine said.

Diplomacy vs force

Obama did not believe a military solution was attractive or feasible for Iran’s nuclear programme, and he opted for a diplomatic process that resulted in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. That agreement called for the IAEA to monitor all of Iran’s nuclear activities to ensure that uranium enrichment only reached the levels required for energy production.

According to Nephew and Davenport, Trump indirectly fanned the flames of the military option when he pulled the US out of the JCPOA as president in 2018 at Israel’s behest.

Two years later, Iran said it would enrich uranium to 4.5 percent purity, and in 2021, it refined it to 20 percent purity. In 2023, the IAEA said it had found uranium particles at Fordow enriched to 83.7 percent purity.

Trump offered no alternative to the JCPOA during his first presidential term, nor did President Joe Biden after him.

“Setting [the JCPOA] on fire was a direct contribution to where we are today,” Nephew said. Seeking a military path instead of a diplomatic one to curtail a nuclear programme “contributes to a proliferation path”, he said, “because countries say, ‘The only way I can protect myself is if I go down this path.’”

Davenport, an expert on the nuclear and missile programmes of Iran and North Korea, said even the regime change in Tehran that Netanyahu has called for wouldn’t solve the problem.

“Regime change is not an assured nonproliferation strategy,” she said. “We don’t know what would come next in Iran if this regime were to fall. If it were the military seizing control, nuclear weapons might be more likely. But even if it were a more open democratic government, democracies choose to build nuclear weapons too.”

Israel’s attacks on Tehran have not only targeted military bases and nuclear sites, but they also have penetrated the bedrooms, kitchens and living rooms of ordinary citizens. Children have been killed. Teachers have fallen silent. Athletes have been buried in the rubble. All of them were as far removed from politics as possible.

The attacks between Israel and Iran started on Friday, when Israel launched what it called preemptive air strikes targeting more than a dozen Iranian sites — including key nuclear facilities, nuclear scientists and military leaders — in an operation it said was aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

According to the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, at least 224 people have been killed and 1,481 wounded.

Iran has retaliated with a wave of ballistic missile strikes against Israel, claiming the lives of at least 24 people and wounding 380, in an escalation that has raised fears of a broader regional conflict.

In Tehran, the full scale of the destruction remains to be seen. But in the streets, evidence of the lives lost emerges from the wreckage of bombed-out buildings. A child’s lifeless body in the rubble. A dirt-covered doll abandoned in the street. A sketchbook lost among the concrete and dust.

For many Iranians, these scenes evoke memories of the Iran-Iraq War. But this time, the war is not at the borders; it’s in the heart of the capital. Residents say the night sky in Tehran — now dotted with missiles and fires — is not the one they know.

In a mass panic, people are fleeing the city in droves. Petrol stations are overrun. Highways are jammed. Homes that once promised safety stand vulnerable with no emergency shelters or warning sirens.

Here are some of the victims who died in the recent attacks on Tehran.

The Pilates instructor

On Saturday morning, Tehran reeked of dust and smoke. Israeli missiles had landed on homes that were filled with laughter just hours before. One of the silenced voices belonged to Niloufar Ghalehvand, whose friend Ghazal* recalled the last time she saw her at a cafe sipping coffee, just one night before the bombs fell.

Ghalehvand, a 32-year-old Pilates instructor, was killed along with her father, Kamran Ghalehvand, and her mother, Fatemeh Sedighi, in their home on Ozgol Street in northern Tehran.

“We were at the cafe, having coffee, and she said, ‘Iran is so beautiful. I just wish we could live in peace, like people in other countries,’” Ghazal told Al Jazeera. “I still can’t believe she’s gone. We were making plans to celebrate her 32nd birthday on June 28. She was so full of hope.”

Ghazal said Ghalehvand lived near the residence of Iran’s highest-ranking military commander, General Mohammad Bagheri, the target of the strike.

“They were ordinary people,” Ghazal said of Ghalehvand’s family. “They didn’t engage in political activity.”

Ghalehvand dreamed of becoming a famous Pilates instructor.

“The last time we met, she asked me to help her launch an Instagram page to post her workout videos. She never imagined she would become famous for her death.”

Ghalehvand had been a professional instructor for eight years, but Ghazal said her income was never enough. She worked on commission at local gyms and was always seeking more private clients.

The athlete

On Friday morning, Parsa Mansour, a 27-year-old professional paddle tennis player, was asleep at home in Shahrara, a densely packed district in northern Tehran, when an Israeli missile struck nearby.

The blast shattered the windows, and debris collapsed on top of him, killing him instantly. His parents, who were in the next room, miraculously survived.

“Parsa was full of laughter and always joking,” said Saman*, his best friend. He noted that Parsa was a self-made athlete who trained alone without a coach.

“When I saw the Tennis Federation’s announcement of his death, I was in shock. I didn’t believe it at first. Then I went to his home. It was in ruins,” Saman said.

“Parsa’s father is in a terrible state. He still can’t believe his son is gone.”

The son who lost his father

On Sunday afternoon, Amin Ahmad, a 30-year-old taekwondo athlete, witnessed his father’s horrific death in eastern Tehran.

“I saw it with my own eyes,” said Ahmad. “My father was blasted out of the house. His face was burned, and his ears were torn off.”

Ahmad’s voice trembled as he recalled his father’s final moments.

“We were trapped inside. I had to force the window bars open and call out for help. Someone brought a ladder, and my mother and I escaped,” he said.

“My father was a teacher. He bought this home after a lifetime of hard work, so he could retire in peace. Now he’s dead, and the house is destroyed. What was his crime? I don’t know what to do.”

The photographer

On Sunday at midday, after two nights of Israeli fighter jets buzzing Iranian airspace, an explosion struck the relatively wealthy neighbourhood of Tajrish in northern Tehran. Water pipes burst, flooding the streets.

Ehsan Bayrami, a 35-year-old freelance photographer and graphic designer who was walking nearby, was killed instantly.

Ali*, a colleague, said Bayrami had just left a work meeting and was on his way home.

“He used to film videos for sports clubs and photograph sporting events,” Ali explained.

On Sunday morning, he recalled telling Bayrami to be careful.

“He told me not to worry because it’s safe during the day. ‘Israel only attacks at night when people are asleep,’ he said.”

Ali paused before adding, “Ehsan was incredibly talented and hardworking. He never let anything stop him from working.”

*Ghazal, Saman and Ali preferred not to use their full names while speaking with Al Jazeera to protect their identities.

This article is published in collaboration with the news consortium Egab.

Many Israelis are in shock after the country’s air defence system failed to intercept Iranian missiles, shattering their sense of security. But Palestinian citizens of Israel say they never felt safe to begin with.

New Delhi, India — India has distanced itself from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) condemnation of Israel’s ongoing attacks on Iran, signalling a potential rift in the influential Eurasian political bloc over the conflict.

World leaders have repeatedly called for de-escalation amid Israel’s unprecedented attacks on its regional rival, Iran, which threaten to destabilise the region. Last Friday, the latest round of fighting began after Israel launched attacks on Iran’s military and nuclear sites.

This follows two rounds of direct military conflict between Iran and Israel in 2024, which were triggered by Israeli strikes on Iranian targets and subsequent Iranian retaliation.

Iranian authorities say Israeli attacks since Friday have targeted residential and military areas in Tehran as well as many cities across the country, killing at least 80 people, including civilians. Several Iranian nuclear scientists and university professors were killed along with several top-ranking commanders of the Iranian armed forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Israeli attacks on Saturday hit refineries, power stations and oil reserves across Iran. Tehran has retaliated by launching hundreds of missiles and drones at the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa, killing at least 13 people and injuring dozens. Meanwhile, Tehran has also paused nuclear negotiations with the United States.

So, why did India refuse to take part in the discussions or endorse the SCO’s position on Israel’s attacks? Is India backing Israel? And what is at stake for these countries?

What did the SCO say?

The SCO, a political and security bloc founded in 2001, includes China, Belarus, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran is the most recent entrant, having joined the SCO under India’s chairmanship in 2023.

On Saturday, the SCO, currently chaired by China, said its member states “express serious concern” over the escalating Iran-Israel tensions and “strongly condemn the military strikes carried out by Israel” on the territory of Iran.

The SCO statement further noted that Israel’s “aggressive actions against civilian targets, including energy and transport infrastructure, which have resulted in civilian casualties, are a gross violation of international law and the United Nations Charter”.

“[Israeli attacks] constitute an infringement on Iran’s sovereignty, cause damage to regional and international security, and pose serious risks to global peace and stability,” the statement added, extending condolences to Iran’s government and people.

“The SCO member states firmly advocate for the resolution of the situation surrounding Iran’s nuclear program exclusively through peaceful, political, and diplomatic means,” the statement noted.

India’s ‘delicate balancing act’

After Israel’s initial strikes on Tehran, Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar held a phone conversation with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, in which he “conveyed the deep concern of the international community at the turn of events”.

Jaishankar “urged avoidance of any escalatory steps and an early return to diplomacy,” according to India’s Ministry of External Affairs. The ministry also underlined its concerns in a separate statement on Friday.

“We are closely monitoring the evolving situation, including reports related to attacks on nuclear sites,” the Indian Foreign Ministry said, urging both sides to use existing channels of dialogue and diplomacy to “work towards a de-escalation of the situation”.

“India enjoys close and friendly relations with both the countries and stands ready to extend all possible support,” the statement noted.

Shanthie D’Souza, a senior research fellow at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, told Al Jazeera, “Unlike other SCO nations, India is in a unique position given that it has to maintain defence ties with Israel and its economic ties with Iran.”

India is Israel’s largest weapons buyer, and in 2024, Indian weapons firms also sold Israel rockets and explosives amid the war in Gaza, an Al Jazeera investigation revealed. At the same time, India has been developing Iran’s Chabahar Port as a gateway for its exports to Central Asia and Afghanistan.

“India has maintained a delicate balancing act [in the latest round of fighting between Israel and Iran],” D’Souza said.

After the SCO statement condemning the Israeli strikes on Iran, New Delhi said it did not participate in discussions about the statement.

“The overall position of India as stated above was communicated to other SCO members,” the Foreign Ministry said, referring to its earlier statement for India’s official position.

Is India backing Israel?

Not explicitly. But by distancing itself from the bloc’s stance, New Delhi has weakened the force of the SCO’s condemnation of Israel’s attacks on Iran.

A day before distancing itself from the SCO statement, India abstained from voting in the United Nations General Assembly on a draft resolution that demanded an “immediate, unconditional and permanent” ceasefire in Gaza.

To Kabir Taneja, the deputy director of the strategic studies programme at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, India’s abstention at the UN was perplexing. He suggested that it may have been influenced by India’s desire to maintain good relations with the US, noting how India is close to a trade agreement with Washington – a deal it is trying to clinch before US President Donald Trump’s threatened 27 percent tariff on Indian goods is lifted in early July.

National interests aside, Taneja noted that New Delhi’s distancing from the SCO on the Israel-Iran tensions also “reflects on the construct of the SCO, where India is sort of an outlier inside”.

While China and Russia are close to Iran, Taneja said, given India’s relationships with the US and Israel, “it would have been very difficult [for India] to subscribe to SCO’s particular wording and statement”.

Is US pressure on Iran threatening India’s regional ambitions?

Before Trump imposed sanctions following the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2017, Iran was India’s third-largest oil supplier.

In February, after Trump returned for a second term in office, he doubled down on economic pressure tactics to corner Iran by suspending sanction waivers “that provide Iran any degree of economic or financial relief, including those related to Iran’s Chabahar port project”.

The port would allow India to bypass its rival, Pakistan, by trading with landlocked Afghanistan and Central Asia via Iran. India had secured a sanctions waiver from the US during the first Trump administration for work related to Chabahar.

Now, Trump’s sanctions put New Delhi’s multimillion-dollar investment in the strategically located maritime facility at risk.

But India’s interest in maintaining strong ties with Iran goes beyond just the port project. Taneja noted that India values Iran’s geographic position because it provides it with access to Afghanistan and Central Asia – regions important for India’s trade, security, and influence.

Tehran, Iran – Iran has promoted several commanders to the top of its military leadership after Israel killed their predecessors in a series of air attacks.

The leadership of Iran’s General Staff of the Armed Forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) has shifted significantly as the country defends against Israeli attacks and launches retaliatory strikes.

Let’s take a look at which commanders were killed, who replaced them, and what this means for the deadly conflict going forward.

How senior were the killed commanders?

Some of Iran’s top military leaders were killed during Israel’s multipronged assault, which started early Friday.

Iran’s highest-ranking military commander, General Mohammad Bagheri, was among the casualties. The veteran of the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s was chief of staff of the armed forces and only answered to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Other members of the General Staff of the Armed Forces were also among the dead, including Deputy for Operations Mehdi Rabani and Deputy for Intelligence Gholamreza Mehrabi.

The IRGC also lost a considerable number of top figures in its command chain, chief among them being Hossein Salami, the leader of the force.

The elite aerospace division of the IRGC, which is tasked with developing Iran’s sprawling missile programme, confirmed the killing of eight senior commanders who were convening in an underground bunker in Tehran.

Longtime aerospace chief Ali Akbar Hajizadeh was among those killed, as were commanders leading the missile defence and drone wings of the force.

Who are the new commanders?

Khamenei tapped Abdolrahim Mousavi, the commander-in-chief of Iran’s army, to become the new chief of staff of the armed forces.

The 65-year-old brigadier general has now become the first army commander to assume the position – previous figures who held the post came from within the IRGC.

Mousavi is also a war veteran and completed his military training and studies at the Supreme National Defense University in the aftermath of Iran’s Islamic revolution of 1979.

To lead the IRGC, Khamenei selected Mohammad Pakpour, a veteran commander who started and made his career within the elite force. He led the IRGC’s armoured units and then a combat division during the war with Iraq in the 1980s.

Pakpour led the IRGC ground forces for 16 years before he was appointed commander-in-chief. He was also a deputy for operations at the IRGC and used to lead two major headquarters of the force.

Iran’s supreme leader also promoted Amir Hatami to the rank of major-general, appointing him as commander of the army.

The 59-year-old is another career military man who rose through the ranks during the Iraq invasion, particularly after Operation Mersad. That was when the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), who had helped win the revolution but later fell out with the theocratic establishment, led a ground assault on Iranian soil with Iraqi forces – and were dealt a resounding defeat.

Brigadier General Majid Mousavi is also the new aerospace chief of the IRGC. He is believed to have been a prominent figure working to develop Iran’s ballistic missiles, drone systems, and Western-criticised space launches. He also worked closely with Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, known as the “father of Iran’s missile programme”, who died in an explosion at a missile depot in 2011 that Iran ruled as accidental.

All newly promoted commanders have proclaimed their commitment to the retaliation against Israel, with slogans on banners across the country reading: “You started the war, we will finish it”.

Hatami said in a statement that, under his command, the army will “deal decisive and effective blows to the fake and child-killing Zionist regime”, referring to Israel.

Continuation

The new commanders have overseen the launch of hundreds of explosives-laden drones and ballistic and cruise missiles fired at Israel over the past three nights, and signalled readiness for a prolonged campaign.

Iran’s projectiles have so far hit military bases and residential buildings, killing at least 14 people and wounding dozens more.

Commanders in Tehran also started hitting Israel’s energy infrastructure overnight into Sunday after Israeli warplanes targeted Iran’s oil and gas facilities, petrochemical, steel and automotive plants, as well as many residential buildings.

Iranian authorities have said more than 220 people, including at least 25 children, were among the victims of Israeli strikes across Iran.

Sounds of explosions continuously rang out across Tehran on Sunday as the Israeli military bombed Niavaran to the north, Saadat Abad to the west, and the Valiasr and Hafte Tir neighbourhoods in downtown Tehran.

According to Oxfam, nearly 150,000 people in the Netherlands called for the government to do more against the war in Gaza.

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators gathered in the Netherlands to oppose Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and to call on the government to take a stronger stance, as nearly 55,300 Palestinians have now been killed in the more than 20-month-long war.

On Saturday, huge crowds of people marched through the streets of The Hague for the second time in four weeks towards the International Court of Justice.

Rights groups, who were among the organisers of the rally, including Amnesty International and Oxfam, said the demonstration aimed to create a symbolic “red line” that they say the government has failed to set to halt Israel’s war on Gaza and its Palestinian population.

Demonstrators sang, delivered speeches and marched past the courthouse, which is hearing a case by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide during its war on the besieged enclave.

Michiel Servaes, director of Oxfam Novib, said “more than 150,000 people” attended the protest calling for “concrete sanctions to stop the genocide in Gaza”.

Reporting from The Hague, Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen said that the large turnout was proof that more people in the Netherlands reject their government’s support for Israel.

“While there is much frustration about the lack of action, protesters here say the focus should remain on the continuing genocide in Gaza despite Israel’s efforts to distract attention,” Vaessen said, adding that protesters also called for Israel to stop its attacks on Iran.

Prime Minister Dick Schoof said that the “unprecedented” thousands of people in The Hague raised their voices with “concerns, anger and frustration”.

“The Netherlands remains committed to stopping the violence and ending the humanitarian blockade. We are constantly looking at how we can be most effective with our efforts, both in front of and behind the scenes, to improve the situation on the ground,” Schoof wrote on X.

“To all those people in The Hague, I say: ‘We see you and we hear you.’ Our goal is ultimately the same: to end the suffering in Gaza as soon as possible,” he added.

Salih el Saddy, a medical doctor protesting, told Al Jazeera that as a doctor, it’s “very painful to watch” the scenes from Gaza.

Pro-Palestine protests also were taking place in Belgium, Turkiye, Brazil, and Greece, all calling for an immediate end to the war in Gaza.

Tehran, Iran – Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Israel’s attacks on his country could not have materialised without the agreement and support of the United States.

“We have well-documented and solid evidence of the support provided by American forces in the region and their bases for the military attacks of the Zionist regime,” Iran’s top diplomat told reporters during a news conference in the capital, Tehran, on Sunday.

He said, more importantly, US President Donald Trump has publicly and explicitly confirmed he knew about the attacks, that they could not have happened without US weapons and equipment, and that more attacks are coming.

“Therefore, the US, in our opinion, is a partner in these attacks and must accept its responsibility.”

Araghchi said Tehran has received messages from Washington through various intermediaries that it was not involved with Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities in Isfahan’s Natanz, but it “does not believe this claim” due to evidence to the contrary.

“It is necessary for the US government to clearly state its position and explicitly condemn the attack on nuclear facilities,” he said. “This act is condemned under international law, and our expectation is that the US government, in order to prove its good faith regarding nuclear weapons, will condemn the attack on a peaceful nuclear facility and distance itself from this conflict.”

Pointing out that the Israeli attacks came as Iran and the US were slated to hold a sixth round of nuclear negotiations mediated by Oman on Sunday, Araghchi emphasised that Israel “will do anything” to stop the talks and diplomacy, as it has done in the past.

‘Major strategic mistake’

Iranian authorities said the Israeli attacks, which have targeted residential and military areas in Tehran as well as many cities across the country since Friday, have killed at least 80 people, including civilians.

Multiple top-ranking commanders of the Iranian armed forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were also assassinated, as were a number of nuclear scientists and university professors.

Iran has so far launched two nights of retaliatory attacks on Israel’s Tel Aviv and Haifa, using hundreds of missiles and drones, which have led to at least 10 deaths and dozens of injuries.

Araghchi told reporters that Iran’s attacks overnight into Sunday started targeting Israel’s energy infrastructure after the Israeli army hit refineries, power stations and oil reserves across Iran.

As sounds of explosions and air defences rang across Tehran in the early hours of Sunday, Israel hit a fuel reserve in western Tehran’s Shahran neighbourhood that caused a massive fire. Authorities said the fire was contained after several hours and that most of the fuel in the reserve was taken out before the air raids.

On Saturday, the Israeli military hit Asaluyeh on Iran’s southern shores in the province of Bushehr, hitting Phase 14 of South Pars, the largest gasfield in the world.

Araghchi said the attack was a “major strategic mistake” that was likely carried out deliberately with the intention of dragging other nations into the war.

“The Persian Gulf region is extremely sensitive and complex, and any military development there could involve the entire region, and even the whole world,” he said, using the name of the Gulf, which is also commonly known as the Arabian Gulf.

Iran and Israel have said their attacks will continue for now, and the Israeli military on Sunday issued a threat to Iranians to stay away from what it called “military weapons production factories and their support institutions”, or risk being killed.

But Araghchi said Tehran is willing to stop if Israel halts its attacks, and urged the international community to intervene and condemn Israel.

‘National battle’

Iranian newspapers on Sunday dedicated their front pages to the war, with more hardline outlets manoeuvring on Iran’s attacks while others focusing on a sense of national unity.

Keyhan, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, published the headline: “We will finish the war and Israel together”, and wrote about “unprecedented damages in occupied territories” caused by the Iranian missiles.

“National battle”, read a headline from the reformist Ham-Mihan, with Etemad newspaper writing about “Israel’s gamble on a minefield” and Sazandegi highlighting “Slap for Tel Aviv” in its headline story.

For the first time in nearly four decades, Iranian state television on Saturday broadcast a victory march. It was last heard in the 1980s during Iran’s eight-year invasion by neighbouring Iraq, which was backed and armed by major powers.

Mehdi Chamran, chairman of the City Council of Tehran, said the capital will soon be forced to use the same shelters used during that war, as well as metro stations and some car parks, as no new dedicated shelters have been built.

Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Sunday that all flights are cancelled until further notice and tried to assure people that measures are under way to ensure the state can provide basic necessities, including fuel, in case of a prolonged conflict.

The Tehran Chamber of Guilds announced that all business associations, grand bazaars and malls were open in the capital, but government workers were told to work remotely until at least Wednesday, in an indication that Tehran is expected to be hit again.

The Tehran Stock Exchange was also closed on Sunday, with its director saying the decision to keep it closed or open it for Monday will be taken on the day, considering Sunday night’s developments.

Iran’s currency, the rial, has taken another nosedive since the start of the latest conflict, having depreciated from about 840,000 against the US dollar before the Israeli attacks to about 955,000 on Sunday.

Israel has launched an unprovoked assault on Iran, including strikes on nuclear facilities and assassinations of several senior military commanders and scientists. In front of the world’s media, however, the Netanyahu government is spinning the attack as “preemptive”.

Contributor:
Negar Mortazavi – Host, The Iran Podcast

On our radar:

This past week, phone and internet services virtually collapsed across Gaza, as Israel repeatedly bombed transmission stations and communication towers.

Meenakshi Ravi explains how Gaza now risks digital isolation.

Showdown in LA: A very Trumpian spectacle

President Trump has turned Los Angeles into an ideological battleground amid protests against anti-immigration raids. His mobilisation of the National Guard and marines – without the approval of California’s state government – has produced made-for-TV images of the kind likely to appeal to the MAGA faithful.

For many others, it is yet another sign of a dangerous turn away from civil liberties under his presidency.

Featuring:
Branko Marcetic – Staff writer, Jacobin
Sarah Mehta – Senior policy counsel, ACLU
Jose Olivares – Investigative journalist
Will Swaim – Podcast host, Radio Free California

Israel’s decision to launch a wide-scale military operation against Iran may have come as a shock to many, but it’s something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been itching to do for more than decade. The question now is whether President Trump will end up sustaining an Israeli bombing campaign that could last for days, if not weeks.

The fact that Israel conducted the operation several days before Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, was scheduled to meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi for a sixth round of nuclear talks in Oman wasn’t lost on most observers.

Netanyahu hasn’t been particularly supportive of the Trump administration’s diplomatic outreach to the Iranians and reportedly pressed the White House to green-light joint U.S.-Israeli strikes against Tehran’s nuclear facilities last month. Trump demurred, choosing diplomacy instead, but Netanyahu seems never to have believed the talks would result in anything substantial.

Israel’s negotiating position has long been entirely maximalist: Every nuclear complex on Iranian soil must be destroyed, and under no circumstances could Iran be left with even a rudimentary uranium enrichment capability. Trump’s position isn’t as definitive as Netanyahu’s. At times, U.S. officials have talked about striking a deal that would allow the Iranians to continue enriching at a low level with strict, comprehensive international oversight. At other times, Trump has declared that Washington wouldn’t sign any deal that allowed Iran to enrich at all.

Various proposals have been floated in the months since those negotiations began, including a regional nuclear consortium involving Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other powers, which could prevent an indigenous Iranian enrichment program but still supply the region with peaceful nuclear energy, and also stem the possibility of an arms race in the Middle East. The Iranians, however, didn’t buy into the idea that no enrichment would be permitted on Iranian soil.

Israel’s military attack upends the diplomatic chessboard, such as it is, turning the last few months of U.S.-Iran discussions into empty theater. Trump claims he knew what Israel was up to all along and congratulated Netanyahu on the attack. That alone makes it difficult to imagine Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei authorizing his subordinates to continue discussions with the Americans. Doing so would be a very public act of weakness on Tehran’s part.

Even so, the White House still expects Iranian officials to show up for the next round of talks. As Trump argued after the initial Israeli salvo, Iran is in no position to refuse anymore. “I couldn’t get them to a deal in 60 days,” Trump said, referring to the Iranians. “They were close, they should have done it. Maybe now it will happen.”

In reality, what we are likely to see instead is a collapse of the current diplomatic process and a situation that will be far messier to handle.

Israeli political and military officials have made it abundantly clear that military operations will persist well into next week and perhaps go on even longer than that. The Iranians, in turn, will feel pressure to continue to retaliate with each passing day, whether it’s in the form of drones and missiles aimed at Israel’s air defenses, terrorist attacks on Western targets or sabotaging cargo vessels in the Persian Gulf. In any case, the Middle East is as close to a full-scale war as it has ever been.

This is a critical moment for the Trump administration, and how it chooses to act in the hours and days ahead will be the determining factor in whether the United States gets dragged into another regional conflagration or not.

Israel will do what it believes it needs to do to maintain its security. Even assuming Trump would try to pressure Netanyahu into stopping the bombings — the evidence for that scenario is slim — it’s hardly guaranteed the Israeli premier would listen. For better or worse, Israel’s strategic calculus has changed after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. Netanyahu is now far less risk-adverse than during his previous stints in office.

The United States can only control what it can control. As much as Trump might like to see the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism hammered, he also doesn’t want to aid a conflict that could expose tens of thousands of U.S. troops based in the Middle East to imminent risk. Besides, any U.S. involvement in offensive Israeli military operations would be a betrayal of Trump’s core supporters and his campaign promises to avoid the fruitless, unending wars. In addition, U.S. offensive involvement would kill any grand diplomatic ambitions Trump may have in the Middle East and nip in the bud the administration’s pivot to the Indo-Pacific as China tries to consolidate its power in Asia.

Sometimes, the best response to a dangerous situation is to do nothing. It won’t satisfy the more hawkish elements in Washington, but let’s hope Trump holds his fire.

Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities.

Israel has begun its long-signalled attacks on Iran with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying they would continue “as long as necessary”.

The attacks, which began early on Friday, appear to have been carefully planned, hitting military and government targets and killing several senior military leaders – including the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hossein Salami, and the chief of staff of the armed forces, Mohammad Bagheri. Prominent Iranian nuclear scientists are also among the dead.

The strikes took place despite negotiations between Iran and Israel’s principal ally, the United States, over the future of Tehran’s nuclear programme, leading many to suspect that the threat of Israeli action was a coordinated ploy to bring additional pressure onto Iran.

Moments ago, Israel launched Operation “Rising Lion”, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival.

This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.

——

Statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: pic.twitter.com/XgUTy90g1S

— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) June 13, 2025

US support remains vital to Israel. As well as serving as the country’s principal armourer, Washington also acts as a permanent shield against criticism of Israel in the United Nations, frequently using its veto in the UN Security Council to halt any official censure of its ally despite allegations of Israel’s repeated breaches of international law.

And an attack against Iran – a powerful regional force with allied groups across the Middle East – is ultimately a risky move for Israel, which is expecting an Iranian response, and the US, which has soldiers deployed across the region.

So, given the stakes, why would Israel attack Iran and why now? Here’s what we know:

Did Iran pose an imminent nuclear threat to Israel?

Israel’s military superiority in the Middle East comes not just through its conventional arsenal or the backing of the US, but from the advantage it has that no other country in the region does: nuclear weapons.

Israel is widely acknowledged to have nuclear weapons although it has never publicly admitted it.

An Iranian nuclear weapon would take away that advantage and is, therefore, a red line for Israel. For years, Israel – and particularly Netanyahu – has insisted that Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons, even as Tehran has insisted that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes.

Justifying the Israeli attack, Netanyahu said Iran could have produced “a nuclear weapon in a very short time – it could be a year, or it could be a few months”. An unnamed Israeli military official was also quoted as saying Iran had “enough fission material for 15 nuclear bombs within days”.

What is the non-Israeli assessment of Iran’s nuclear capabilities?

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported on Thursday that Iran had failed to uphold the obligations it had signed on to as part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, an accusation Iran quickly rejected.

The IAEA also noted what it believed was a long history of noncooperation between Iran and its inspectors. However, it didn’t say that Iran had developed nuclear weapons.

As part of a 2015 deal with the US, other Western countries, China and Russia, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear programme and allow the IAEA to regularly inspect its facilities in return for relief from the crippling sanctions that it was under.

However, in 2018, US President Donald Trump – then in his first presidential term – unilaterally withdrew from the deal and reimposed sanctions.

The US has, however, not found that Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons or attempting to do so. In March, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said the US “continues to assess that Iran is not building nuclear weapons and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not authorised the nuclear weapons programme he suspended in 2003”.

Why else would Israel attack Iran?

Netanyahu has previously described Iran as “the head of the octopus” with “tentacles all around from the Houthis to Hezbollah to Hamas”. The idea is that Iran is at the head of a network of anti-Israeli groups across the region known as the “axis of resistance”.

Since starting the war in Gaza in October 2023, Israel has been able to severely weaken both Hamas and Hezbollah, limiting their abilities to attack Israel. The top leaders of both organisations have been almost entirely taken out, including important figures, such as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh.

The attacks on Hezbollah in particular were not met with the kind of blowback that many in Israel feared, allowing hawks in Israel to argue that their country has an unprecedented opportunity to continue to target its enemies, including Iran, and reshape the entire Middle East. Some may think the opportunity is even there for regime change in Iran – although that would likely require a far longer war than Israel has the capability to conduct.

That is despite there being no direct confrontation since last year between Israel, Iran or any of its allies before Friday’s strikes by Israel. Neither had there been any threat of action, other than that of counterstrikes if Israel did attack.

Was there a domestic political component to Israel’s strikes on Iran?

Many in Israel accuse Netanyahu of making military decisions – including in the war on Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 55,000 Palestinians – on the basis of his own political considerations.

In the eyes of his critics, Netanyahu has become dependent upon conflict, both with Iran and in Gaza, to maintain his coalition. The alternative is to risk the collapse of his government and a public reckoning with his own failings ahead of the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on Israel, which killed 1,139 people, as well as a potential prison sentence as a result of the multiple corruption charges he faces.

“For Netanyahu, the difference between foreign and domestic politics cannot be distinguished,” Israeli political analyst Ori Goldberg said. “There was no imminent threat to Israel. This was not inevitable. The [IAEA] report did not contain anything suggesting Iran posed an existential threat to Israel.”

Most politicians in Israel have rallied around the military since the strikes on Iran. On Thursday, Netanyahu’s coalition had only survived a vote to dissolve the parliament and trigger elections after reaching an 11th-hour compromise over the contentious exemption of ultra-Orthodox youth from the draft.

But now, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid has praised the attacks on Iran, and left-wing politician Yair Golan has also backed the strikes.

Netanyahu’s decision to strike at Iran had been borne of the “stress” of his political position and his addiction to blood and force, left-wing Israeli member of parliament Ofer Cassif told Al Jazeera.

To Cassif’s regret, however, the move appeared to have won the support of the parliamentary opposition.

Has Israel again broken international law in striking Iran?

According to some legal experts, yes.

Israel has already been accused of breaching countless international laws through its 20-month-long war on Gaza.

And the strikes on Iran may mark a new chapter in the country’s breaches of international law, Michael Becker, a professor of international human rights law at Trinity College in Dublin, told Al Jazeera. “Based on publicly available information, Israel’s use of force against Iran does not fit within the inherent right of self-defence enshrined in the UN Charter.”

“Self-defence requires Israel’s actions to be directed at an ongoing or imminent armed attack by Iran,” added Becker, who has previously worked at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. “There is no indication that an attack by Iran against Israel was imminent, nor is it sufficient under international law for Israel to justify the attack based on its assessment that Iran will soon have a nuclear capability,  especially given the ongoing negotiations between the US and Iran.”