By Crispian Balmer, Parisa Hafezi and Hereward Holland
Friday June 13, 2025
[1/10] Firefighters work at the scene of a damaged building in the aftermath of Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 13, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights
Israel launched widescale strikes against Iran on Friday, saying it
targeted nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories and military
commanders and that this was start of a prolonged operation to prevent
Tehran from building an atomic weapon.
Iranian media and witnesses
reported explosions including at the country's main uranium enrichment
facility at Natanz, while Israel declared a state of emergency in
anticipation of retaliatory missile and drone strikes.
Iran's
elite Revolutionary Guards corps said its top commander, Hossein
Salami, was killed and state media reported the unit's headquarters in
Tehran had been hit. Several children had been killed in a strike on a
residential area in the capital, it said."We are at a decisive moment in Israel's history," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a recorded video message.
"Moments
ago Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military
operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival.
This operation will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this
threat."
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a
statement that Israel had "unleashed its wicked and bloody" hand in a
crime against Iran and that it would receive "a bitter fate for itself".
An
Israeli military official said Israel was striking "dozens" of nuclear
and military targets including the facility at Natanz in central Iran.
The official said Iran had enough material to make 15 nuclear bombs
within days.
The United States said it had no part in the
operation, which raises the risk of a fresh escalation in tensions in
the Middle East, a major oil producing region.
Alongside extensive
air strikes, Israel's Mossad spy agency led a series of covert sabotage
operations inside Iran, Axios reported, citing a senior Israeli
official. These operations were aimed at damaging Iran’s strategic
missile sites and its air defence capabilities.
Iranian state
media reported that at least two nuclear scientists, Fereydoun Abbasi
and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi were killed in Israeli strikes in Tehran.
Tel
Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport was closed until further notice, and Israel's
air defence units stood at high alert for possible retaliatory strikes
from Iran.
"Following the pre-emptive strike by the State of
Israel against Iran, a missile and UAV (drone) attack against the State
of Israel and its civilian population is expected in the immediate time
frame," Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
Israeli
military Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said tens of thousands of soldiers
had been called up and "prepared across all borders".
"We are
amidst a historic campaign unlike any other. This is a critical
operation to prevent an existential threat, by an enemy who is intent on
destroying us," he said.
Israeli Minister Gideon Saar was holding
"marathon of calls" with counterparts around the world regarding
Israel's attack on Iran, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
U.S. "NOT INVOLVED"
U.S.
President Donald Trump said that Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb and
that the United States was hoping to get back to the negotiating table,
in an interview with Fox News after the start of the Israeli air strikes
on Iran.
"We will see," Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin quoted Trump as saying in a post on X.
Trump
would convene a meeting of the National Security Council on Friday
morning, the White House said. He had said on Thursday an Israeli strike
on Iran "could very well happen" but reiterated his hopes for a
peaceful resolution.
The U.S. military is planning for the full
range of contingencies in the Middle East, including the possibility
that it might have to help evacuate American civilians, a U.S. official
told Reuters.
Iran's armed forces spokesperson said Israel and its
chief ally the United States would pay a "heavy price" for the attack,
accusing Washington of providing support for the operation.
While
the U.S. tried to distance itself from Israel's military operation, an
Israeli official told public broadcaster Kan that Israel had coordinated
with Washington on Iran.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said
the United States was not involved in the strikes and Tel Aviv had
acted unilaterally for self-defence.
"We are not involved in
strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces
in the region," Rubio said in a statement.
"Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel," he added.
The
State Department issued an advisory saying that all U.S. government
employees in Israel and their family members should "shelter in place
until further notice".
The attacks triggered sharp falls in stock
prices in Asian trade on Friday, led by a selloff in U.S. futures, while
oil prices jumped as investors scurried to safe havens such as gold and
the Swiss franc.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
condemned any military escalation in the Middle East, said deputy U.N.
spokesperson Farhan Haq.
"The Secretary-General asks both sides to
show maximum restraint, avoiding at all costs a descent into deeper
conflict, a situation that the region can hardly afford," Haq said.
NUCLEAR TALKS
U.S.
and Iranian officials were scheduled to hold a sixth round of talks on
Tehran's escalating uranium enrichment programme in Oman on Sunday,
according to officials from both countries and their Omani mediators.
A U.S. official said those talks were still scheduled to proceed despite the Israeli attack.
The
Israeli military said on Friday that it was forced to act based on new
intelligence information showing that Iran was "approaching the point of
no return" in the development of a nuclear weapon.
"In recent
months, this program has accelerated significantly, bringing the regime
significantly closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon," it said in a
statement, without disclosing the purported evidence.
A source familiar with U.S. intelligence reports said there had been no recent change in the U.S.
intelligence
assessment that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and that
Khamenei had not authorised the restarting of the nuclear weapons
programme that was shuttered in 2003.
Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Stephen Coates; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan