On a scale yet unprecedented, Israel, Friday, 13 February, by about 3 a.m., Israeli time, launched a blitz of air assaults on the Islamic Republic of Iran, killing scores and destroying military assets worth billions of dollars.
In an operation dubbed in Hebrew, “Am KeLavi” (Rising Lion), Israel sent virtually its entire air force fighter planes into Iran, a distance of some 2000 kilometres between the two countries.
According to Yair Pinto, an Israeli podcaster on TBN TV, “more than 200 IAF jets carried out 300 precision strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, eliminating top IRGC commanders and crippling Natanz, Arak, Parchin, and Tabriz airport. Iran’s 100-drone retaliation was fully intercepted.” IAF is Israeli Air Force, and IRGC, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In a three-wave strike, Israeli jet fighters reportedly destroyed several Iranian nuclear sites, even as more attacks were being expected, going by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s broadcast on the air strikes.
Addressing the nation, Prime Minister Netanyahu said the the strikes were aimed at removing existential threat Iran posed to Israel, but not at activating regime change.
He vowed to defend the State of Israel no matter what it would take to do so, calling the assault a preemptive response to prevent an alleged planned Iranian attack on Israel.
Iran has repeatedly said that it was committed to annihilating Israel, which it often refers to as “the little Satan” or “Zionist entity”, and the US, “the big Satan”.
Iran must have found itself in an awkward situation to respond immediately or prevent the strikes, by deploying its air defence systems.
However, the Israeli secret intelligence agency, Mossad, is said to have deployed its agents in Iran and sabotaged its defence system and enabled the Israeli jets to take control of the Iranian skies facilitating the Israeli bombardments without losses of their planes.
“Another reason an attack may not have occurred is that we successfully decapitated the leadership of the Iranian army, the Iranian Air Force, and other key figures. In a story that has yet to be fully revealed, it appears that we induced the top leaders of the Iranian Air Force to convene in a meeting at their underground headquarters. Then, we were able to bomb that meeting, killing the commander-in-chief of the Iranian Air Force, the commander of their drone fleet, and the commander of their anti-aircraft division, as well as more than a dozen other senior Air Force officials.
“Separately, we killed the chief of staff, the assistant chief of staff, the chief nuclear scientist, the head of the Revolutionary Guard, the head of their intelligence bureau, and many other leading Iranian military figures. Some of this was done from the air and some of it was done by agents on the ground.”
In spite of all this, Iran has vowed to punish Israel severely for the attacks.
US President Donald Trump said that Iran should have heeded his 60-day ultimatum to it to stop its race to own a nuclear bomb, but the Ayatollah Khomeini Islamic regime rebuffed that.
Trump added that Iran still had a chance to avoid being destroyed by signing a deal to stop its uranium-enriched programme, which it says it is developing for non-military purposes, a claim the Jewish State and the US do not believe.
Israel has stood down virtually every social activity in the country, called up its reserve forces, shut down schools, and placed the country on extra red alert, asking citizens to stay close to bomb shelters, as it is bracing up for Iranian retaliation.
Israel has consistently accused Iran of sponsoring jihadi groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, among others, to wipe it off the map, an accusation Iran has not denied.
Since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, there has been no love lost between the two once friendly nations.
