Israel awakes to a new reality after US strikes Iranian sites

Trump said the US military struck three sites in Iran on Saturday, marking the first American involvement in direct attacks against Iranian nuclear assets in its conflict with Israel
| Photo Credit:
Carlos Barria

Israelis woke up to a new reality Sunday after President Donald Trump confirmed that the US bombed Iran’s three main nuclear sites, diminishing a threat they’ve considered existential for decades.

The US attack was embraced across the Israeli political spectrum, lauded on hastily assembled TV panels as a historic symbol of unprecedented US-Israeli cooperation at a time when the Jewish state has been shunned by others for its war in Gaza.

But commentators and officials were quick to acknowledge that what comes next is far from clear, including Iran’s potential responses. They expressed concern that Iran might attack US bases in the region or Israel’s own nuclear research center near the desert town of Dimona, or escalate its own nuclear program.

Iran’s atomic energy agency described the US strikes as a “savage assault” but pledged not to abandon its nuclear industry. The agency did not confirm whether the sites of Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan had been “completely and totally obliterated,” as Trump said they were in a speech. Iranian lawmaker Mannan Raisi was cited by the semi-official Tasnim News Agency as saying that any material at Fordow that could pose a potential risk to the public “had already been removed.”

The Israeli home command returned the country to a state of emergency, telling citizens to stay close to bomb shelters and safe rooms; banning gatherings; and keeping schools, workplaces and the airport shut. It had eased some of those restrictions in recent days.

Still, a sense of victory was palpable. The US strike is something Israelis have been seeking for years and it grants them the sense of being under US protection. It’s also a personal victory for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose political fortunes have fallen since the October 2023 assault on Israel by Hamas that triggered the Gaza war.

Netanyahu, 75, took a victory lap early Sunday, saying in a televised address: “I have been promising you that — one way or another — the Iranian nuclear facilities would be destroyed. That promise has been fulfilled.”

After the Hamas attack, many predicted that Netanyahu’s career was over, that he’d be forced to resign. But those close to him said he took as his model US President Franklin D. Roosevelt who endured Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Rather than allow himself to be defined by that failure, he turned it into an historic victory.

Israel has been engaged in a series of successful military actions in the past year. The US attack came just days after Israel launched a surprise assault on Iran on June 13, hitting nuclear sites, killing top military commanders and nuclear scientists and eliminating a portion of Iran’s missile arsenal and launchers.

As Israelis awoke and absorbed the news, some examined the possibilities ahead.

“This is either the beginning of a larger war or the end of the current war,” said Yoel Esteron, publisher of the business daily Calcalist, speaking by phone from a safe room. “The big question for me is whether Israel will use this opportunity to create a new regional alignment to end the war in Gaza, bring the hostages back and reconcile with those Palestinians who want to live side by side with Israel.”

Whether the US bombing will lead to such diplomatic achievements, there can be little doubt the Middle East’s military balance has been altered dramatically in the past year as Israel systematically diminished Iran’s proxy militias across the region.

Israel crippled Lebanon’s Hezbollah last year and benefited from the collapse of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. It has largely destroyed Hamas’ ability to pose a serious threat. And now, between it and what the US has just done, Iran is considerably weaker.

Weakness doesn’t necessarily lead to surrender, however, and little is clear about what happens next. The Israel Defense Forces said early Sunday that it had identified missiles launched from Iran toward the nation, sending Israelis back into their shelters with the booms of interception fully audible in Tel Aviv.