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Middle East Eye
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Israel's attack on Iran could spark a region-wide explosion
Israel's decision to strike Iran marks a profound escalation in regional tensions, launching a new and volatile phase of the geopolitics of the Middle East. The Israeli military operation, codenamed Rising Lion, signals a shift to a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran. The Iranian retaliation, involving a barrage of drones and ballistic missiles, was not just expected, but politically necessary for Tehran to preserve its deterrence and national pride. The situation now threatens to entrench both countries in an unpredictable cycle of violent escalation. Although Israel has justified its strikes as a preventive measure aimed at dismantling Iran's nuclear capabilities, many analysts question its ability to achieve this without US support. A deeply buried facility like Fordow cannot be hit without advanced American bunker-busting munitions. Rather than halting Iran's nuclear ambitions, these strikes may provoke its full withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, pushing Tehran to pursue nuclear weapons openly in a scenario reminiscent of North Korea's defiance. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Iran has already enriched uranium to 60 percent purity and announced new enrichment facilities, heightening fears of an irreversible nuclear trajectory. The Israeli attacks have also placed fragile US-Iran nuclear negotiations in jeopardy. Talks were due to resume just days after the strikes. While Washington officially denies involvement, widespread belief in American complicity could push Tehran to treat the US as a co-belligerent, complicating diplomatic efforts and risking the involvement of American forces if Iran targets US assets in the region. New alliances Gulf states, many of which seek economic diversification and regional stability, have expressed alarm over Israel's actions. These governments fear being dragged into a wider war and are advocating for de-escalation and diplomacy. But the perception of Israel as the dominant regional power is growing. This shift could lead to new, albeit fragile, alliances centred around Israel's deterrence power - complicating Arab foreign policy strategies, as public opinion remains vehemently opposed to Israeli aggression. By allowing Israel to bomb Iran, Trump is pushing Tehran to go nuclear Read More » Israel's military strategy apparently aims to decapitate Iran's military and nuclear leadership. While Tehran has proven resilient, ongoing economic sanctions and domestic unrest could fuel greater internal instability. On the other hand, Israel faces its own crises: more than 600 days of war in Gaza, soaring military expenditures, deep political divisions, and a government accused of prolonging conflicts for personal political gain. The result is growing disillusionment among Israelis, including over stalled hostage negotiations and the state's deteriorating international standing. Rather than short-lived skirmishes, Israel's broader strategic ambition is to reshape the Middle East, dismantle the 'axis of resistance', and entrench its hegemony. Although Hamas and Hezbollah have been weakened, they remain active. The likelihood of a broader war is high, especially if the US decided to join forces with Israel. The economic ramifications are also severe: soaring oil prices and potential disruptions to critical shipping lanes like the Strait of Hormuz. Israel's strikes on Iran, and its genocide in Gaza have ignited widespread public outrage across the Arab world. Support for normalisation with Israel has sharply declined, even in countries that signed the Abraham Accords, while public trust in western powers has plummeted since October 2023. While the protests that have erupted across Arab countries in recent months may not topple authoritarian regimes, they constrain political decision-making and force governments to recalibrate their foreign policies to appease public sentiments. Prolonged instability Iranians may escalate their responses to restore credibility; this could include cyberattacks, targeting western military bases, or disrupting maritime trade. Such a chain reaction could draw in major global powers, including Russia and China. The re-militarisation of the region, collapsing trust in diplomacy, and increasing polarisation now raise the spectre of prolonged instability Efforts to isolate or collapse Tehran may also backfire. If Iran were to fragment along ethnic lines (Kurdish, Arab, Baloch, Azerbaijani, etc), the result could resemble post-Gaddafi Libya or post-Saleh Yemen: ungoverned spaces prone to terrorist entrenchment. Such a scenario would invite transnational groups like al-Qaeda to expand. The region is already boiling over Israel's genocide in Gaza. Israeli military actions have weakened already vulnerable states, eroding central authority and opening power vacuums ripe for exploitation by non-state actors. The war on Iran might be framed as a targeted mission to neutralise nuclear threats, but its broader goal appears to be reshaping the Middle Eastern power structure in favour of Israeli dominance. This comes at the cost of rising public outrage, weakened Arab regimes, and emboldened extremist actors. The re-militarisation of the region, collapsing trust in diplomacy, and increasing polarisation now raise the spectre of prolonged instability. This undermines development agendas, shattering alliances and risking a larger war that could quickly spiral out of control. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Middle East Eye
a day ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Israel's attack on Iran: The violent new world being born is going to horrify you
Western politicians and media are tying themselves up in knots trying to spin the impossible: presenting Israel's unmistakable war of aggression against Iran as some kind of "defensive" move. This time there was no rationalising pretext, as there was for Israel to inflict a genocide in Gaza following Hamas' one-day attack on 7 October 2023. There was not a serious attempt beforehand to concoct a bogus doomsday scenario – as there was in the months leading up to the US and UK's illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. Then we were lied to about Baghdad having 'weapons of mass destruction' that could be launched at Europe in 45 minutes. Rather, Iran was deep in negotiations with the United States on its nuclear enrichment programme when Israel launched its unprovoked attack last Friday. The West has happily regurgitated claims by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel was forced to act because Iran was on the cusp of producing a nuclear bomb - an entirely evidence-free claim he has been making since 1992. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters None of his dire warnings has ever been borne out by events. In fact, Israel struck Iran shortly after President Donald Trump had expressed hope of reaching a nuclear agreement with Tehran, and two days before the two countries' negotiators were due to meet again. In late March Trump's head of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had expressly stated as part of the US intelligence community's annual assessment: "Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader [Ali] Khameini has not authorised a nuclear weapons programme he suspended in 2003." This week four sources said to be familiar with that assessment told CNN that Iran was not trying to build a bomb but, if it changed tack, it would be "up to three years away from being able to produce and deliver one [a nuclear warhead] to a target of its choosing". Nonetheless, by Tuesday this week Trump appeared to be readying to join Israel's attack. He publicly rebuked his own intelligence chief's verdict, sent US warplanes to the Middle East via the UK and Spain, demanded Iran's "unconditional surrender", and made barely veiled threats to kill Khameini. 'Samson option' Israel's engineering of a pretext to attack Iran - defined by the Nuremberg tribunal in 1945 as the "supreme international crime" - has been many years in the making. The current talks between the US and Iran were only needed because, under intense Israeli pressure during his first term as president, Trump tore up an existing agreement with Tehran. Israel's war on Iran is crime of aggression, not legal self-defence, say experts Read More » That deal, negotiated by his predecessor, Barack Obama, had been intended to quieten Israel's relentless calls for a strike on Iran. It tightly limited Tehran's enrichment of uranium to far below the level where it could "break out" from its civilian energy programme to build a bomb. Israel, by contrast, has been allowed to maintain a nuclear arsenal of at least 100 warheads, while refusing - unlike Iran - to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and - again unlike Iran - denying access to monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The West's collusion in the pretence that Israel's nuclear weapons are secret - a policy formally known in Israel as "ambiguity" - has been necessary only because the US is not allowed to provide military aid to a state with undeclared nuclear weapons. Israel is by far the largest recipient of such aid. No one - apart from incorrigible racists – believes Iran would take the suicidal step of firing a nuclear missile at Israel, even if it had one. That is not the real grounds for Israeli or US concern. Rather, the double standards are enforced to keep Israel as the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East so that it can project unrestrained military power across an oil-rich region the West is determined to control. Israel's bomb has left it untouchable and unaccountable, and ready to intimidate its neighbours with the "Samson option" – the threat that Israel will use its nuclear arsenal rather than risk an existential threat. Israel's national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, appeared to imply just such a scenario against Iran this week in a reported comment: "There will be other difficult days ahead, but always remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki." Bear in mind that Israeli governments count as "existential" any threat to Israel's current status as a settler-colonial state, one occupying and forcibly uprooting the Palestinian people from their homeland. Israel's nuclear weapons ensure it can do as it pleases in the region - including commit genocide in Gaza - without significant fear of reprisals. War propaganda The claim that Israel is "defending itself" in attacking Iran - promoted by France, Germany, Britain, the European Union, the G7 and the US - should be understood as a further assault on the foundational principles of international law. The assertion is premised on the idea that Israel's attack was "pre-emptive" - potentially justified if Israel could show there was an imminent, credible and severe threat of an attack or invasion by Iran that could not be averted by other means. And yet, even assuming there is evidence to support Israel's claim it was in imminent danger - there isn't - the very fact that Iran was in the midst of talks with the US about its nuclear programme voided that justification. Rather, Israel's contention that Iran posed a threat at some point in the future that needed to be neutralised counts as a "preventive" war – and is indisputably illegal under international law. Israel's contention that Iran posed a threat at some point in the future that needed to be neutralised is indisputably illegal under international law Note the striking contrast with the West's reaction to Russia's so-called "unprovoked" attack on Ukraine just three years ago. Western capitals and their media were only too clear then that Moscow's actions were unconscionable - and that severe economic sanctions on Russia, and military support for Ukraine, were the only possible responses. So much so that early efforts to negotiate a ceasefire deal between Moscow and Kyiv, premised on a Russian withdrawal, were stymied by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, presumably on Washington's orders. Ukraine was instructed to fight on. Israel's attack on Iran is even more flagrantly in violation of international law. Netanyahu, who is already a fugitive from the International Criminal Court, which wants to try him for committing crimes against humanity in Gaza by starving the population there, is now guilty of the "supreme international crime" too. Not that one would not know any of this from listening to western politicians or the billionaire-owned media. There, the narrative is once again of a plucky Israel, forced to act unilaterally; of Israel facing down an existential threat; of Israel being menaced by barbaric terrorists; of the unique suffering - and humanity - of Israel's population; of Netanyahu as a strong leader rather than an out-and-out war criminal. It is the same, well-worn script, trotted out on every occasion, whatever the facts or circumstances. Which is clue enough that western audiences are not being informed; they are being subjected to yet more war propaganda. Regime change But Israel's pretexts for its war of aggression are a moving target - hard to grapple with because they keep changing. If Netanyahu started by touting an implausible claim that Iran's nuclear programme was an imminent threat, he soon shifted to arguing that Israel's war of aggression was also justified to remove a supposed threat from Iran's ballistic missile programme. Why Israel's attacks are backfiring as Iranians rally around the flag Read More » In the ultimate example of chutzpah, Israel cited as its evidence the fact that it was being hit by Iranian missiles - missiles fired by Tehran in direct response to Israel's rain of missiles on Iran. Israel's protestations at the rising death toll among Israeli civilians overlooked two inconvenient facts that should have underscored Israel's hypocrisy, were the western media not working so hard to obscure it. First, Israel has turned its own civilian population into human shields by placing key military installations - such as its spy agency and its defence ministry - in the centre of densely populated Tel Aviv, as well as firing its interception rockets from inside the city. Recall that Israel has blamed Hamas for the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza over the past 20 months based on the largely unevidenced claim that its fighters have been hiding among the population. Now that same argument can, and should, be turned against Israel. And second, Israel is all too obviously itself hitting residential areas in Iran - just as, of course, it did earlier by destroying almost all of Gaza's buildings, including homes, hospitals, schools, universities and bakeries. Both Netanyahu and Trump have called on Iranians to "evacuate immediately" the city of Tehran - something impossible for most of its 10 million inhabitants to do in the time allowed. But their demand raises too the question of why, if Israel is trying to stop the development of an Iranian nuclear warhead, it is focusing so many of its attacks on residential areas of Iran's capital. Israel has turned its own civilian population into human shields by placing key military installations in the centre of densely populated Tel Aviv More generally, Israel's argument that Tehran must be stripped of its ballistic missiles assumes that only Israel - and those allied with it - are allowed any kind of military deterrence capability. It seems not only is Iran not allowed a nuclear arsenal as a counter-weight to Israel's nukes, but it is not even allowed to strike back when Israel decides to launch its US-supplied missiles at Tehran. What Israel is effectively demanding is that Iran be turned into a larger equivalent of the Palestinian Authority - a compliant, lightly armed regime completely under Israel's thumb. Which gets to the heart of what Israel's current attack on Iran is really designed to achieve. It is about instituting regime change in Tehran. Trained in torture Again, the western media are assisting with this new narrative. Extraordinarily, TV politics shows such as the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg invited on as a guest Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Iranian shah ousted by the ayatollahs in 1979 to create an Islamic republic. He used the slot to call on Iranians to "rise up" against their leaders. Why Netanyahu is frantically trying to pull the US into Israel's war on Iran Read More » The framing - an entirely Israeli confected one - is that Iranian society is desperate to throw off the yoke of Islamic dictatorship and return to the halcyon days of monarchical rule under the Pahlavis. It is a beyond-absurd analysis of modern Iran. Asking Pahlavi to discuss how Iran might be freed from clerical rule is the equivalent of inviting Josef Stalin's grandson into the studio to discuss how he plans to lead a pro-democracy movement in Russia. In fact, the much-feared Pahlavis were only in power in 1979 – and in a position to be overthrown – because Israel, Britain and the US meddled deeply in Iran to keep them in place for so long. When Iranians elected the secular reformist Mohammed Mossadegh, a lawyer and intellectual, as prime minister in 1951, Britain and the US worked tirelessly to topple him. His chief crime was that he took back control of Iran's oil industry - and its profits - from the UK. Within two years, Mossadegh was overthrown in US-led Operation Ajax, and the Shah re-installed as dictator. Israel was drafted in to train Iran's Savak secret police in torture techniques to use on Iranian dissidents, learnt from torturing Palestinians. Predictably, the West's crushing of all efforts to democratically reform Iran opened up a space for resistance to the Shah that was quickly occupied by Islamist parties instead. In 1979, these revolutionary forces overthrew the western-backed dictator Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in Paris to found the Islamic Republic of Iran. Crescent of resistance Notably Khomeini's successor as supreme leader, Ali Khameini, issued a religious edict in 2003 banning Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. He considered it a violation of Islamic law. Which is why Iran has been so reluctant to develop a bomb, despite Israel's endless provocations and claims to the contrary. By allowing Israel to bomb Iran, Trump is pushing Tehran to go nuclear Read More » What Iran has done instead is two things that are the real trigger for Israel's war of aggression. First, it developed the best alternative military strategy it could muster to protect itself from Israeli and western belligerence - a belligerence related to Iran's refusal to serve as a client of the West, as the Shah once had, rather than the issue of human rights under clerical rule. Iran's leaders understood they were a target. Iran has huge reserves of oil and gas, but unlike the neighbouring Gulf regimes it is not a puppet of the West. It can also shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the main gateway for the flow of oil and gas to the West and Asia. And as a Shia-led state (in contrast to the Sunni Islam that dominates much of the rest of the Middle East), Iran has a series of co-religionist communities across the region - in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere - with which it has developed strong ties. For example, with Iran's help, Hezbollah in Lebanon built up a large stockpile of rockets and missiles close to Israel's border. That was supposed to deter Israel from trying to attack and occupy Lebanon again, as it did for two decades from the early 1980s through to 2000. But it also meant that any longer-range attack by Israel on Iran would prove risky, exposing it to a barrage of missiles on its northern border. Ideologues in Washington, known as the neoconservatives, who are keenly supportive of Israeli hegemony in the Middle East, deeply opposed what came to be seen as "the axis of resistance". The neocons, seeking a way to crush Iran, quickly exploited the 9-11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York in 2001 as an opportunity to erode Iranian power. A woman carries her child following the Israeli strikes on Iran, in Tehran, Iran on 15 June, 2025 (AFP) General Wesley Clark was told at the Pentagon in the days after the attack that the US had come up with a plan to "take out seven countries in five years". Notably, even though most of the hijackers who crashed planes into the Twin Towers were from Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon's list of targets centrally featured members of the so-called "Shia crescent". All have been attacked since. As Clark noted, the seventh and final state on that list - the hardest to take on - is Iran. Show of strength Israel's other concern was that Iran and its allies, unlike the Arab regimes, had proved steadfast in their support for the Palestinian people against decades of Israeli occupation and oppression. Iran's defiance on the Palestinian cause was underscored during Trump's first presidency, when Arab states began actively normalising with Israel through the US-brokered Abraham accords, even as the plight of the Palestinians worsened under Israeli rule. Israel and the US are jointly remaking the Middle East through extreme violence and the eradication of international law Infuriatingly for Israel, Iran and the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasarallah became the main flagbearers of popular support for the Palestinians - among Muslims across the board. With the Palestinian Authority largely quiescent by the mid-2000s, Iran channelled its assistance to Hamas in besieged Gaza, the main Palestinian group still ready to struggle against Israeli apartheid rule and ethnic cleansing. The result was a tense stability of sorts, with each side restraining itself in a Middle Eastern version of "mutually assured destruction". Neither side had an incentive to risk an all-out attack for fear of the severe consequences. That model came to an abrupt end on 7 October 2023, when Hamas decided its previous calculations needed reassessing. With the Palestinians feeling increasingly isolated, choked by Israel's siege and abandoned by the Arab regimes, Hamas staged a show of force, breaking out for one day from the concentration camp of Gaza. Israel seized the opportunity to complete two related tasks: destroying the Palestinians as a people once and for all, and with it their ambitions for a state in their homeland; and rolling back the Shia crescent, just as the Pentagon had planned more than 20 years earlier. Israel started by levelling Gaza - slaughtering and starving its people. Then it moved to destroy Hezbollah's southern heartlands in Lebanon. And with the collapse of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, Israel was able to occupy parts of Syria, smash what remained of its military infastructure, and clear a flight path to Iran. These were the preconditions for launching the current war of aggression on Iran. 'Birth pangs' Back in 2006, as Israel was bombing swaths of Lebanon in an earlier attempt to realise the Pentagon's plan, Condoleezza Rice, the then US secretary of state, prematurely labelled Israel's violence as the "birth pangs of a new Middle East". What we have been witnessing over the past 20 months of Israel's slow rampage towards Iran is precisely a revival of those birth pangs. Israel and the US are jointly remaking the Middle East through extreme violence and the eradication of international law. Success for Israel can come in one of two ways. Either it installs a new authoritarian ruler in Tehran, like the Shah's son, who will do the bidding of Israel and the US. Or Israel leaves the country so wrecked that it devolves into violent factionalism, too taken up with civil war to expend its limited energies on developing a nuclear bomb or organising a "Shia crescent" of resistance. The more Israel kills, the more the West portrays it as a victim Read More » But ultimately this is about more than redrawing the map of the Middle East. And it is about more than toppling the rulers in Tehran. Just as Israel needed to take out Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria before it could consider clearing a path to Iran's destruction, the US and its western allies needs the axis of resistance eradicated, as well as Russia bogged down in an interminable war in Ukraine, before it can consider taking on China. Or as the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz noted this week, in one of those quiet-part-out-loud moments: "This [the attack on Iran] is the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us." This is a key moment in the Pentagon's 20-year plan for 'global full-spectrum dominance': a unipolar world in which the US is unconstrained by military rivals or the imposition of international law. A world in which a tiny, unaccountable elite, enriched by wars, dictate terms to the rest of us. If all this sounds like a sociopath's approach to foreign relations, that is because it is. Years of impunity for Israel and the US have brought us to this point. Both feel entitled to destroy what remains of an international order that does not let them get precisely what they want. The current birth pangs will grow. If you believe in human rights, in limits on the power of government, in the use of diplomacy before military aggression, in the freedoms you grew up with, the new world being born is going to horrify you. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Middle East Eye
a day ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Iran: Jailed women activists issue letter condemning Israeli attacks
Four jailed women activists in Iran have issued a letter from prison condemning Israel's attacks on the country and warning against relying on "foreign powers" for regime change. Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, Verisheh Moradi, Sakineh Parvaneh and Reyhaneh Ansarinejad issued the letter, published by the pro-Kurdish Firat News Agency, from Evin prison in Tehran. They accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and said its goal was to create a "weak and submissive" Middle East. "Our the dictatorship ruling the country is possible through the struggle of the masses and by resorting to social forces - not by clinging to foreign powers or placing hopes in them," they wrote. "The powers that have always brought destruction to the countries of the region through exploitation and colonisation, by inciting wars and killing in pursuit of greater benefits, will have no way out for us except for new destruction and exploitation." New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters The authors of the letter are currently serving jail sentences over their involvement in a range of causes including pro-Kurdish campaigning and union organising. Moradi, a campaigner with the Community of Free Women of Eastern Kurdistan (KJAR) who fought against the Islamic State group in Syria, is facing a death sentence for "armed rebellion" over her support of the Woman, Life, Freedom demonstrations that broke out in 2022 over the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini. 'Future generations will remember with shame those who stand on the corpses of defenceless people and trample them' - letter from Iranian women prisoners The other three are currently serving sentences of between four and six years in prison. Much of the Iranian opposition has been split over Israel's attack on Iran, which began earlier this week and has seen hundreds killed. Some such as Reza Pahlavi, son of the former ruler of the country prior to 1979, have actively supported the air strikes and branded them the "best opportunity" to be rid of the Islamic Republic. Others, such as former political prisoner Narges Mohammadi and filmmaker Jafar Panahi have condemned the air strikes on Iran while also advocating an end to Iran's nuclear ambitions and the "resignation of the current leaders" of the country. In their letter, the four activists made apparent reference to those supporting Israel's attacks on the country, branding them "traitors" to Iran. "Traitors to Iran and traitors to the peoples of the Middle East and traitors to the people's years of freedom-seeking struggles against oppression will know that their betrayal and disdain will be recorded in the memory of the Iranian people and in history," they wrote. "Future generations will remember with shame those who stand on the corpses of defenceless people and trample them."
Middle East Eye
a day ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Iranian missiles rain down on Tel Aviv after Israel attacks Arak nuclear reactor
Iranian ballistic missile struck several areas of Israel on Thursday, with extensive damage reported at the Israeli stock exchange building in Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv, as well as a major hospital in the south of the country. Images seen by Middle East Eye showed shattered glass and debris strewn onto the streets outside the stock exchange, the heart of the country's economy, with damage also reported at several nearby offices and residential buildings. Meanwhile, unverified footage posted on social media showed people running through corridors of the Soroko hospital in Beer Sheva as doctors stood outside the wrecked building. "BREAKING: A direct hit has been reported at Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva, southern Israel. More details to follow," the foreign ministry said in a post on X. A spokesperson for the hospital reported "damage to the hospital and extensive damage in various areas." New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters "We are currently assessing the damage, including injuries. We ask the public not to come to the hospital at this time," they said. Iran denied claims that it directly attacked the hospital, saying it launched a "precise and direct" on a nearby Israeli military target. "The target of attack was the large [Israeli army] Command and Intelligence headquarters and the military intelligence camp in the Gav-Yam Technology Park," the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported. Following the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to make Iran's leadership "pay a heavy price." The strikes across Israel came hours after Israel's latest attack on Iran's sprawling nuclear programme, striking Iran's Arak heavy water reactor. Iranian state television reported that there was "no radiation danger whatsoever" and that the facility had been evacuated before the attack. Since Friday, when Israel launched its assault on Iran, Israel has repeated targeted the country's military and nuclear facilities, as well as assassinated high-profile security, intelligence and military commanders as well as scientists. The attacks, which have also targeted residential areas, have killed more 500 people and wounded at least 1,300, many of them civilians. In response, Iran has fired barrages of missiles towards Haifa, Tel Aviv and other major Israeli cities, killing dozens. Hundreds of missiles have been launched since Friday, and whilst Israel's air defence systems are robust, they have been unable to stop all of them. Israel's military censor, as a matter of policy, has barred local and international media outlets from publishing the details of the exact locations targeted. Earlier this week, the Israeli army said in a statement that the country's air defences were not fully secure against missile attacks. Meanwhile, a senior US official familiar told MEE that Israel, along with the US, were exhausting supplies of ballistic missile interceptors, just days into the hostilities with Iran. US President Donald Trump, who initially distanced himself from the conflict, has increased US military presence in the region and is weighing up ordering attacks on Iran. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, warned on Wednesday that the US would face "irreparable damage" if it shifted from supporting Israel's defence to an active role in attacking the Islamic Republic.
Middle East Eye
a day ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
'No war on Iran': New Yorkers rally against US and Israeli regime change plans
On a sweltering summer evening in New York City on Wednesday, hundreds of protesters assembled on the steps of the New York Public Library in Manhattan to convey what they said was a clear message to the city and country's elected officials: 'No War on Iran'. The emergency protest, organised by a coalition of advocacy groups in New York and in several cities across the country, came as rumours swirled of a possible announcement of direct US military intervention in Israel's attacks on Iran. More than 585 Iranians have been killed since Israel launched its aerial strikes on 13 June over claims Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Though Israel said it would exclusively targeting Iran's nuclear programme and military sites, Israel has struck residential buildings, hospitals, civilian infrastructure and the Iranian state television headquarters, killing hundreds of civilians in what is largely being seen as a operation geared towards regime change in Iran. Hospitals in Iran are reportedly overwhelmed with the injured and thousands have been searching for ways to evacuate the capital city, Tehran. Protesters held up Palestinian flags, as well as signs urging for the bombardment to end. Several people waved placards that read: 'Money for people's needs. Not War with Iran'. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Ahmad Shirazi, an Iranian-American film-maker based in New York City, told Middle East Eye that it would be a major catastrophe for the U.S and its allies if it attacked Iran. "They tried in 1980. They were not successful. They cannot, and will not be able to get rid of one of the oldest countries in the world, like Iran," Shirazi said. He said that both Israel and the U.S have been peddling lies for as long as he could remember. Another protester, Philip, said that he had family currently in Iran and he was terrified for their safety. "They are targetting civilians, water infrastructure. These are not precision [strikes]. I have family in Iran. They are afraid every night, he said. Protesters carried placards calling for the U.S to deescalate tensions in the region (Azad Essa/MEE) Spectre of US involvement Though the US has denied direct involvement in Israel's strikes on Gaza, several reports indicated that not only has the US assisted Israel, it has also encouraged Israel to continue bombarding Tehran. On Wednesday, three officials at the Arms Control Association, said American involvement in Israel's "illegal attacks" on Iran would "set back efforts to reach an effective nuclear agreement to block Iran's pathways to the Bomb". The statement, released on Wednesday, said that a "consensus view among US intelligence agencies before Israel's bombing campaign was that Iran had not made a decision to move forward on building a bomb, and was several months away, if not longer, from being able to assemble a crude device. "There was no imminent threat that Iran was weaponising its nuclear program before Israel's attack began." For more than 20 months, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers have taken to the streets to protest the ongoing war in Gaza. Many at the protest on Tuesday said the impunity had allowed Israel to expand the war to Iran. More than 55,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's war on Gaza;, which both human rights groups and genocide scholars have labelled a genocide. On Friday, the UN Security Council will convene for a meeting to discuss the hostilities between Israel and Iran.
