Iran–Israel war

The Iran–Israel war (13 – 24 June 2025), also known as the Twelve-Day War, was an armed conflict in the Middle East. The war began when Israel bombed military and nuclear facilities in Iran in a surprise attack, assassinating prominent military leaders, nuclear scientists, and politicians, killing civilians, and damaging or destroying air defenses. Iran retaliated with over 550 ballistic missiles and over 1,000 suicide drones, hitting civilian population centers, one hospital and at least twelve military, energy, and government sites. The United States intercepted Iranian attacks, and bombed three Iranian nuclear sites on 22 June. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at a US base in Qatar. On 24 June, Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire under US pressure.

The war followed a decades-long proxy war. Iran has called for Israel's destruction, and armed Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Furthermore, Iran's nuclear program has caused international concern for over a decade and Israel considers it an existential threat. In 2015, under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), six countries lifted sanctions on Iran, which froze its nuclear program. In 2018, US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the plan. Iran began stockpiling enriched uranium and largely suspended International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring. The day before Israel attacked, the IAEA declared Iran non-compliant with its nuclear obligations in a resolution put forward by the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Following the October 7 attacks in 2023, both Hamas and Hezbollah entered into open conflict with Israel. In April 2024, Israel bombed Iran's consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing senior Iranian military officials. Direct conflict continued in April and October.

Israel's attacks, which reportedly involved commando units and Mossad operatives in Iran, killed several of Iran's military leaders, leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and at least 10 leading nuclear scientists. The war saw Internet blackouts by the Iranian government. Israeli and US airstrikes damaged the nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow. Iran's nuclear facilities were extensively damaged. Iran suspended cooperation with the IAEA, which it said had passed information about nuclear facilities and scientists to Israel. Iran's total death toll has been estimated at between 1,060 and 1,190; thousands were wounded, tens of thousands were displaced, and the government ordered Internet blackouts. Israel struck a hospital, and high-rise buildings, including apartments. Iranian missiles struck military and government sites, apartments, a research center, and a hospital. Tightened censorship in Israel made the extent of physical damage unclear.

The United Nations and most countries expressed deep concern over Israel's strikes and called for a diplomatic solution. The strikes were condemned by many countries, including most Muslim-majority and Arab states, including Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and Turkey. Israel's strikes were also condemned by Armenia, Brazil, Cuba, Japan, Russia, and South Africa. The International Commission of Jurists and some other legal scholars saw the Israeli strikes as a violation of international law. Meanwhile, Argentina, Germany, Ukraine, and the United States said the strikes on Iran were justified to prevent nuclear proliferation and said Iran should agree to a nuclear deal promptly.

Background

Iran–Israel conflict

In 2024, Israel and Iran attacked each other openly and directly for the first time following decades of proxy war. In April 2024, an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus killed Iranian officers. Iran retaliated with strikes on Israel in April 2024, to which Israel then retaliated with strikes on Iran. In July 2024, Israel assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran's capital Tehran, and then assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and prominent IRGC commander Abbas Nilforoushan in Lebanon in September 2024. In October 2024, Iran struck Israel, and Israel struck Iran. The latter Israeli strikes destroyed nearly all of Iran's Russian-supplied defensive S-300 missile systems, paving the way for potential future Israeli strikes.

Iranian nuclear program

Iran had consistently said that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes and that it has never intended to develop nuclear weapons. However, since 2019, it had repeatedly violated the terms of the previous nuclear deal of 2015, and in June 2025 the IAEA reported that Iran had acquired enough enriched uranium to produce nine nuclear warheads.

In 2015, six countries negotiated with Iran the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal to lift sanctions on Iran and freeze Iran's nuclear program. In 2018, after being briefed on evidence that Iran sought to resume its nuclear weapons development, U.S. president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from and voided the deal – despite the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran was keeping to the deal. After the withdrawal Iran began stockpiling enriched uranium, and the IAEA lost the ability to monitor Iran's nuclear facilities.

In a letter addressed to the president of the UN Security Council, the foreign ministers of France, Britain and Germany (E3) stated that since 2019, Iran had "increasingly and deliberately ceased performing its JCPOA commitments", including "the accumulation of a highly enriched uranium stockpile which lacks any credible civiliian justification and is unprecedented for a state without a nuclear weapons program," a statement confirmed by the IAEA. The letter detailed additional Iranian violations of the agreement despite the fact that the E3 "have consistently upheld their agreements under the terms of the JCPOA".

In March 2025, US Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified that the US intelligence community asseded that "Iran is not building a nuclear weapon". A month later, Trump announced negotiations between the United States and Iran regarding Iran's nuclear program. The White House declared that Iran had two months to secure a deal, which expired the day before Israel's strikes.

On 31 May 2025, The IAEA issued a report in which it stated that Iran had enough Uranium enriched up to 60% for the production of nine nuclear weapons, and enough for additional weapons at lower enrichment levels.

On 12 June 2025, the IAEA board of governors passed a resolution, drafted by the US, UK, France and Germany, that declared that Iran was non-compliant with its nuclear obligations for the first time since September 2005. IAEA director general Rafael Grossi stated in an interview that the IAEA did "not have any proof of a systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon", on the other hand, in his statement to the board of governors on June 9 he stated that "Unless and until Iran assists the agency in resolving the outstanding safeguards issues, the Agency will not be in a position to provide assurance that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful".

Axis of Resistance

Israel has fought wars with Iranian proxies including against Hezbollah since the 1982 Lebanon War. In the October 7 attacks in 2023, Hamas, an Iranian proxy in Gaza, started the Gaza war, following which Israel severely weakened both Hamas and fellow Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, while also attacking the Houthis in Yemen. This is said to have weakened Iranian deterrence and increased Iranian isolation.

Gaza war

Israel's strikes on Iran came against the backdrop of its ongoing war with Iran-aligned Hamas in Gaza and a broader escalation of its military actions across the region, including Israeli military activity in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and the occupied West Bank. They also came in the context of a risk of famine and humanitarian crisis in the Israeli blockaded Gaza Strip that a growing number of scholars and human rights organizations have described as a genocide.

Announcement

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Operation Rising Lion, targeting Iran's main enrichment facility in Natanz, its nuclear scientists, and parts of its ballistic missile program. He described Iran's nuclear efforts as "a clear and present danger to Israel's very survival", and said the operation would continue "for as many days as it takes".

In a speech announcing the attack, Netanyahu stated that for decades, Iran's leaders had openly called for Israel's destruction and warned that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon "in a very short time. It could be a year. It could be within a few months, less than a year." He convened the security cabinet as the situation unfolded.