Israel and Israel in the midst of the worst night of the Israeli-Iranian assault on Tel Aviv: a military expert says

Israel seems to be using each strike that Iran is able to get through Israeli defenses in stride, and it seems like they are trying to keep the conflict going for another day or week, according to an Iran military expert. “It doesn’t seem to be really changing Israel’s calculus.”

On social media, President Trump said the U.S. had “nothing to do with the attack on Iran, tonight,” but warned that if the U.S. was attacked by Iran in any way, that “the full strength of U.S. Armed forces will come down on [Iran] at levels never seen before.”

It marked the hardest night for Israelis since the start of the fighting, with at least ten casualties — including children — and hundreds injured, according to Israeli emergency services organization, Magen David Adom.

There are at least six people who have died, including a boy and girl, in the suburb of Bat Yam, which is south of Tel Aviv. Another 180 people were wounded and seven still missing, according to local police.

Four people were killed in Petah Tikvah after an Iranian missile hit a building. The men and women were all in their 70s. Israel’s emergency services shared pictures of babies being saved from the rubble.

At least 42 people were injured and several campus buildings at The Weizmann Institute of Science were struck when a bomb went off in the central city of Rehovot. The center said no one on campus was hurt, despite the extensive damage.

“Constructive Dialogue and Diplomacy are the only path to lasting peace” after the September 11 attack on Iran by the Lebanese rebel group

According to the rebels, they had assisted Iran by launching missiles at Israel. Iran’s direct response to Israeli strikes coincides with the group also launching missiles at Israel on Friday.

Iran’s nuclear headquarters and two fuel sites were among the targets that the Israel’s Defense Force attacked, according to an official.

More than two hundred people have been killed and more than one thousand have been injured since Israel’s offensive began, says Iran’s Health Ministry.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on both sides to “show maximum restraint” and Pope Leo XIV called for “sincere dialogue” after stating the situation between Israel and Iran had “deteriorated drastically.”

In a video statement on Friday evening, Prime Minister Netanyahu said the attack on Iran was in the works for months since September, following Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, in Beirut.

The strikes came a day after the U.N. nuclear watchdog declared that Iran wasn’t complying with nuclear nonproliferation agreements aimed at halting the spread of nuclear weapons. Iran reacted saying it would create a new uranium enrichment facility. Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes.

On Saturday, the Omani foreign minister said on social media that the meeting was canceled. “Constructive dialogue and diplomacy remain the only path to lasting peace,” he said.

A quick deal to give up enrichment would be seen as a surrender, said a professor who had served in the State Department. That could make the Iranian government more vulnerable. “They won’t give up enrichment, not this easily,” he said. “They’re not going to surrender.”

Mr. Trump has said that he knew about the attack in advance but nothing has been done in public to stop the Israelis. When Washington announced last week that the talks would continue on Sunday, it is not clear whether it knew when Israel would attack, but the Iranians are convinced that Washington was complicit in trying to fool them into believing that any Israeli attack would come afterward.

Israel may not be able to destroy Iran’s nuclear program without American help, according to Mr. Trump.

The war is viewed by Mr. Trump as a form of diplomacy. Two months ago he gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum to make a deal. They should have done it! Today is day 61. I told them what to do but they couldn’t get there. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!”

The president continues to say that he wants negotiations to succeed. He believes that the attack will bring Iran back to the table in a less combative position and that they will accept his demands to stop all enrichment. But Iran insists that it has the right to enrich for civilian uses under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Mr. Netanyahu believes that a deal that would allow Iran to enrich uranium would mean a nuclear-armed Iran in the future, and he has been bent on preventing that outcome. He thinks that a U.S.-Iran deal will bring about the downfall of the Islamic Republic because he thought it would keep him from destroying Iran’s nuclear program.

The humanitarian crisis in the Middle East — a diplomatic perspective on Israel’s nuclear capabilities, missile defenses, and missile defense system — kicked by Israel

Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel said on his Facebook page that the consulate would remain closed on Monday after one missile hit it in Tel Aviv. No U.S. personnel were reported injured in the strike. There was no indication that either side was prepared to enter talks.

The problem is not the ceasefire, but stopping things that threaten our survival and I think that we can achieve it.

On Monday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard warned more rounds of strikes against Israel would be “more forceful, severe, precise and destructive than previous ones.”

The Israeli military has a spokesman. The Air Force has achieved “full aerial superiority” over the skies of Tehran, Gen. defrin said on Monday. He said that the military destroyed more than one third of Iran’s missile launchers.

“The irony in all of this is that Iran could still emerge from this conflict with a bomb,” Mr. Ostovar said. Iran has no deterrence left and there is now an explicit need for a nuclear weapon.

Many Iranians who already abhorred their theocratic and authoritarian rulers blame them for the sharp escalation of the conflict. As the civilian death toll rises, however, some may come to soften toward their leaders, or at least harden their attitudes toward Israel, Ms. Geranmayeh said. Patriotic posts are being posted on Iranian social media.

Iran could still go after ships in the Strait of Hormuz, which it controls, using drones, submarines or limpet mines. That could have limited effect on the conflict and could even lead to drawing in the United States.

Israel says it has eliminated about a third of Iran’s mobile missile launchers. They are designed to hide so as not to be caught and are considered a challenge because of that. Iran is a mountainous country. Freilich says it’s not easy to find them.

Israel is using freedom of movement to go after Iranian missiles, and the production facilities that would allow Iran to replenish its missile stocks.

Missile defenses in Israel are designed to respond to a wide range of threats. Iron Dome is an air defense system that protects against incoming rockets, such as those that have frequently been fired by Hamas in the Gaza war. The system has taken down all but a few missiles fired by Iran and its regional proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Israel was able to kill some of the most senior military figures in Iran with its drones because of the way Israeli intelligence penetrated the country.

According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Berlin, the power of Hezbollah has been weakened so dramatically it no longer holds the power it once did. He said that Iran does not have a lot of options left.

Israel’s main targets include Iran’s two most important nuclear sites that are used for processing, or “enriching” radioactive uranium into the purity needed to produce atomic weapons. The first is the Natanz uranium enrichment site, which is largely underground and the second is the Fordow enrichment site built deep inside a mountain. They are particularly challenging to destroy and it isn’t clear if that can be done without additional help from the U.S., which could provide Israel with special bunker-busting bombs to penetrate the underground facilities.

Iran has shown that it was outsmarted by Israel again, according to an Iran expert at the European Council of Foreign Relations.

Those humiliations accelerated on Friday with the start of an Israeli campaign that has gone after targets across Iran, crippled its air defenses and killed several of its top military commanders and a number of prominent nuclear scientists. Hundreds of people are dead in Iran and at least 24 in Israel due to the new round of conflict.

There was the airstrike on an Iranian Embassy building in Syria last year that killed several senior Iranian commanders. The assassination three months later of one of Iran’s top militant partners while he was visiting Tehran. The Iranian air defenses were bombed by the Israeli in April and October. The decimation or defeat of Iran’s allies in the Middle East include Hamas, Hezbollah, and the president of Syria.

Iran is often cast as one of the world’s most dangerous villains, a rogue state whose growing nuclear program and shadowy military capabilities threaten Israel, the United States and beyond.

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

President Trump supports Israel but has made it clear that the US is not involved in the current operation which has included the deaths of top Iranian commanders.

As incoming Iranian missiles are hit by Israel’s defenses, they break up into large fragments that are still dangerous. Freilich says Iron Dome is now being used to shoot down falling fragments.