Israel carried out strikes against Iran on Thursday evening, according to multiple reports.
The Israel Defense Forces “launched a preemptive, precise, combined offensive to strike Iran’s nuclear program,” the IDF wrote on X.
“Dozens of IAF jets completed the first stage that included strikes on dozens of military targets, including nuclear targets in different areas of Iran,” the IDF said just before 4 a.m. Friday morning in Jerusalem. “Today, Iran is closer than ever to obtaining a nuclear weapon. Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the Iranian regime are an existential threat to the State of Israel and to the wider world.”
The IDF added that Israel “has no choice but to fulfill the obligation to act in defense of its citizens and will continue to do so everywhere it is required to do so, as we have done in the past.”
Videos shared across social media Thursday evening showed explosions in Tehran.
“This is a fight for our survival,” Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video message shortly after the strikes began. “If we don’t act now, we won’t be here.”
The strike campaign is called Operation Rising Lion and “will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat,” Netanyahu pledged.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday night that the U.S. is “not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region.”
“Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense,” Rubio said. “President [Donald] Trump and the administration have taken all necessary steps to protect our forces and remain in close contact with our regional partners. Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel.”
The Daily Signal’s Tony Kinnett was on the air at the time of the strike and broke the news live nationally. Watch below.
Israel carried out strikes on at least six military bases in Iran, according to reporting from The New York Times. Israel is also reported to have struck homes that may belong to two Iranian military commanders along with residential building in Tehran “in what appears to be targeted assassinations,” the Times reports.
Israel also struck Iran’s Natanz nuclear site, according to multiple reports.
Gen. Hossein Salami, the commander in chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, was killed in the strike, the Times reports, citing Iranian state television reports.
Gen. Gholamali Rashid, the deputy commander of Iran’s armed forces, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of staff for Iran’s Armed Forces, and Fereydoun Abbasi, a nuclear scientist, have reportedly also been killed.
Some lawmakers reacted to the news of the strikes on X, with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., writing, “Game on. Pray for Israel.” Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., wrote, “Bombs away.”
“Iran said they would not dismantle their advanced centrifuges,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said. “That was a giant middle finger to President Trump. Tonight, we saw the consequences of Iran’s defiance.”
“Our commitment to Israel must be absolute and I fully support this attack,” Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., said after the strikes began. “Keep wiping out Iranian leadership and the nuclear personnel. We must provide whatever is necessary—military, intelligence, weaponry—to fully back Israel in striking Iran.”
The strikes came one day after news broke that the U.S. was evacuating nonessential personnel from its Iraqi embassy along with family members of military personnel at multiple bases in the Gulf.
The State Department also ordered embassies within striking distance of Iran “to convene emergency action committees (EACs) and send cables back to Washington about measures to mitigate risks,” The Washington Post reported ahead of the strikes.
The U.S. has been engaged in ongoing negotiation with Iran over its nuclear program. Trump repeatedly said in recent weeks that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, and following reports of a deal that would allow for some uranium enrichment to continue in Iran, Trump said any deal with Iran will ban all enrichment. But Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said there would be no deal if Iran was not allowed to continue enrichment.
Iran has been enriching uranium far beyond levels needed for civilian use.
While Iran is likely to respond to the preemptive strike from Israel, war is not necessarily imminent, according to Heritage Foundation national security experts Victoria Coates and Robert Greenway.
A broader conflict in the region in response to a strike is a “legitimate concern,” Coates and Greenway wrote in a recent report, but “it is by no means the inevitable outcome of an action targeted at Iran’s nuclear facilities. In fact, history indicates that limited strikes on rogue nuclear programs do not result in war: in 1981 and 2007, for example, Israel executed successful targeted strikes on both Iraq’s and Syria’s nuclear programs without igniting regional conflicts.”
Under Trump’s first administration, Coates served as deputy national security advisor to and Greenway as deputy assistant to the president and senior director on the National Security Council.
“The administration maintains its position that Iran cannot enrich uranium, while the regime plays for time,” Coates and Greenway said Thursday.
“Following a National Security Council meeting over the weekend, the administration took pre-emptive steps to prepare for a potential kinetic action against Iran,” the experts said, adding the “planned sixth round of talks are still scheduled for this weekend in Oman.”
Thursday marked the end of the deadline Trump set for negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.
“Iran has rebuffed President Trump’s pursuit of a diplomatic solution and raced to complete its reckless pursuit of a nuclear weapon threatening regional stability, our vital interests and forces responsible for safeguarding them, our partners and allies and explicitly Israel,” Greenway told The Daily Signal.
Recent International Atomic Energy Agency reports confirm that “Iran was at nuclear threshold and was activating its newest underground enrichment facility complicating potential options to prevent their acquisition of a bomb,” Greenway said. “The US stands with Israel and our partners and allies who have long lived under the shadow of Iran’s regional terrorism, ballistic missiles, drones, and malign influence.”
This story was updated after publication to include additional information.
