Israel-Iran Twelve-Day War (Operation Rising Lion)
Israel began a large-scale air campaign against Iran on 13 June 2025, striking nuclear facilities, missile sites, air defences and senior military and scientific personnel, and Iran answered with ballistic missile and drone salvos against Israeli cities. The exchange ran for twelve days. It was the culmination of a confrontation that had become direct in 2024, when Iran and Israel struck each other's territory openly for the first time after decades of proxy conflict, and after Israel had degraded Hezbollah and Hamas and Syria's government had fallen. Israel's stated objective was to prevent Iran from reaching a nuclear weapon, its enrichment having reached 60 per cent after the collapse of the 2015 agreement and IAEA monitoring having been progressively curtailed. The strikes killed a number of senior Revolutionary Guards commanders and nuclear scientists in the opening hours, and Israel established a degree of air superiority over western Iran. The United States struck three nuclear sites — Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan — on 22 June, using heavy penetrating munitions at Fordow, which is built under a mountain. Iran fired a telegraphed and intercepted salvo at an American base in Qatar in response. A ceasefire took effect on 24 June. Assessments of the damage to the nuclear programme diverged sharply, from months to years of delay, and the location of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile was not established publicly. Iran suspended cooperation with the IAEA afterwards, leaving the programme less visible than before the strikes. Both governments declared victory. The confrontation established that direct war between the two states is now a live possibility rather than a theoretical one, which is the durable change.
- Year: 2025 CE
- Category: Military
