Israel strikes Iran’s nuclear program as U.S. denies involvement

Israel Strikes Iran’s Nuclear and Mis­sile Sites With­out U.S. Sup­port

On Thurs­day, the Israeli Air Force launched dozens of airstrikes across Iran, tar­get­ing nuclear and mis­sile facil­i­ties as well as senior Iran­ian offi­cials. This oper­a­tion was con­duct­ed uni­lat­er­al­ly, with­out back­ing from the U.S. gov­ern­ment. The Biden admin­is­tra­tion quick­ly dis­tanced itself, empha­siz­ing pro­tec­tion of Amer­i­can forces in the region.

Ear­li­er that day, for­mer Pres­i­dent Trump opposed any Israeli strike, hop­ing for a diplo­mat­ic nuclear agree­ment with Iran. Despite this, Israel pro­ceed­ed with the attacks, which Defense Min­is­ter Israel Katz said would like­ly pro­voke mis­sile and drone retal­i­a­tion. Israel declared a nation­wide state of emer­gency, closed air­space, and sus­pend­ed pub­lic activ­i­ties.

The strikes aim to dis­man­tle Iran’s nuclear and mis­sile pro­grams amid intel­li­gence that Iran is accel­er­at­ing its nuclear weapon devel­op­ment. Israel’s Prime Min­is­ter Netanyahu said the oper­a­tion would con­tin­ue as long as nec­es­sary.

Though Iran denies pur­su­ing nuclear weapons, ten­sions have esca­lat­ed, with warn­ings from Iran to tar­get U.S. assets if attacked. In response, the U.S. is with­draw­ing diplo­mats and fam­i­lies from key Gulf loca­tions and strength­en­ing defens­es.