Deep, Wide, Targeted: How Israel’s Strikes On Iran Echo Its Pager Attack Against Hezbollah

*Updated June 13, 2025 at 7:20 p.m.*

-Analysis-

TEL AVIV — U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff was due to meet Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi in Oman on Sunday to negotiate a new nuclear agreement.

But now, suddenly, all bets are off. Israel’s overnight launching of a series of airstrikes on Iran targeted nuclear sites and military bases, killing senior commanders, politicians and scientists tied to the nuclear effort. After the initial round of strikes, new attacks were reported late Friday local time.

According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), 200 air force planes carried out five waves of attacks in the pre-dawn hours. These were reportedly backed by multiple “covert anti-terror operations deep inside Iran” conducted by Mossad secret services. Israel had reached “a point of no return,” IDF chief Eyal Zamir said on Thursday night.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the strikes merely an “opening blow” warning of more to come.

The Israeli assault, the most extensive to date, unfolded with surprising speed, even though it had been anticipated. The U.S. had already begun pulling personnel from the Middle East by Wednesday. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, U.S. President Donald Trump did not give the go-ahead for a joint attack. Still, he used Israel’s willingness to strike as leverage, repeatedly warning of “extremely dangerous consequences” if Tehran refused to negotiate.

In his first interview since the attack, broadcast by Fox News, Trump said he hoped talks would resume. “We’ll see. Some members of the leadership won’t be coming back,” he added.

Test for Tehran’s regime

With this high-stakes strategy, Israel is not only inflicting material damage but also hitting the regime’s leadership. The assault is testing how much power Tehran’s rulers have left. On Thursday, Iranian officials threatened major retaliation, including strikes on Israel’s nuclear facilities. Even before the first reports of burning buildings in Tehran, air raid sirens began wailing in Israel, rousing residents from sleep.

Israel knows it cannot fend off a much larger attack on its own.

Just minutes later, Israel’s Homeland Security sent out alerts to phones, warning that the security situation had shifted and urging people to seek shelter. This showed Israel had braced for an immediate response. Last October, Iran fired some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted.

Early Friday morning, the IDF confirmed that Iran had launched 100 drones toward Israel. Given Tehran’s warnings, this retaliation was no surprise. Israel knows it cannot fend off a much larger attack on its own. It remains to be seen whether the United States will intervene again if Iran escalates further. Washington has made it clear that it played no part in the offensive. This was a “unilateral action,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

Echoes of past strikes in Lebanon

Iran and Israel lie nearly 2,000 kilometers apart. As journalist Yoav Zitun explained this week on the Ynet news site, Israel would need U.S. support for a full-scale assault on Iranian nuclear sites. “Israeli pilots would have to cross 2,000 kilometers of hostile airspace, strike hardened and deeply buried targets, and return safely” — something Israel simply cannot pull off alone. Yet here it is, going ahead with a wide-reaching attack without American backing.

According to Haaretz, citing intelligence sources, Mossad had secretly set up a drone base in Iran in advance of the airstrikes. Drones from that base attacked Iranian rocket sites, softening up the country’s defenses. Mossad agents reportedly also planted precision-guided weapons near Iranian missile systems, which were then used during the assault.

These operations call to mind last autumn’s so-called pager attacks on the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. That strike, which injured more than 300 people and killed 37, was reportedly years in the making and marked a new kind of warfare. Hezbollah, long seen as Iran’s most powerful regional ally, was badly shaken. Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed weeks later when his bunker was hit.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that this week’s strikes on Iran also directly targeted the regime’s leadership and nuclear infrastructure. IDF spokesperson Effie Defrin stated Friday morning that Israeli intelligence had recently detected “a significant acceleration in Iran’s nuclear activities.” According to him, the regime had launched “a covert program in which top nuclear scientists were secretly advancing all the components needed for a nuclear weapon.”

This week, The New York Times and other outlets reported that Iran is now close to producing enough fissile material for 10 nuclear warheads. Even though Tehran is trying to project strength and has backed out of the talks, Israel has managed to both damage the nuclear program and draw global attention to the danger it represents. Whether this will force Iran back to the negotiating table is still uncertain.

In Israel, schools and businesses will remain shut on Friday, and the country’s airspace will stay closed.

*Originally published June 13, 2025 at 12:00 p.m., it was updated at 7:20 p.m. with new information about new Israeli strikes, and with enriched media