Why Israel Attacked Iran - Explaining Operation ‘Rising Lion’

You may be hearing about the ongoing attacks between Israel and Iran. In practice, it’s been Israel attacking Iran since whatever Iran has been throwing at Israel has been largely ineffective. So, what’s going on?

Israel’s security doctrine has always been governed by the specter of the Holocaust. “Never again” is the state’s informal first law of defense. In 1981, Israeli jets destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor. In 2007, they eliminated Syria’s secret reactor.

The unifying logic is that if a sworn enemy could build a nuclear bomb, it must be stopped before it becomes real. So, Israel couched the attack as a preemptive attack. But why now?

In early 2025, the International Atomic Energy Agency revealed that Iran had enough enriched uranium for three nuclear warheads and was spinning IR-9 centrifuges that could triple production speed. Mossad intelligence indicated these weapons could be operational within weeks.

It was in 2005 that Iran’s new president created a sense of outrage in the west by describing Israel as a “disgraceful blot” that should be “wiped off the face of the earth”. Recalling the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of Iran’s Islamic revolution, he said: “As the imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu, long obsessed with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, believed time was up. How best is Iran planning to alienate Israel than through nuclear means?

If this had happened during Joe Biden’s presidency, the response from Washington might have been tempered by diplomatic caution. This is considering the fact that Iran currently insists that the weapons were for civilian use, not military. But in January 2025, Donald Trump was sworn in for a second term, bringing back a familiar cast of national security hawks. One former official reportedly joked that the “band was getting back together.”

For Netanyahu, Trump’s re-election was a green light. He said on live TV that Trump is the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House. In Trump’s first term, the U.S. had withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal, imposed maximum pressure sanctions, and killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. In his second, he offered unqualified support to Israeli security actions, sometimes even ahead of congressional consultation.

Netanyahu and Trump spoke privately on June 5, just days before the strike. While the White House has denied it authorized any operation, sources close to the administration say Trump “understood what needed to be done.” Iran’s Revolutionary Guards say Israeli attack has been carried out with full knowledge and support of ‘wicked rulers in White House and terrorist US regime’.

What tipped the scales was certainly uranium, but it was also fire from Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, and Yemen.

Since late 2024, Israel had been bombarded by drones and missiles from all directions. Hamas, once weakened after the 2021 war, had been quietly rearmed with Iranian funds and technology.

Worse still, Hezbollah began striking from the north. In January 2025, two IDF soldiers were killed in a drone strike near the Lebanon border. Then, from the south, a new and unexpected front opened.

The Houthi rebels in Yemen, armed with Iranian drones and ballistic missiles, began targeting Eilat, Israel’s southern port. On March 2, a precision drone strike destroyed a naval radar station in Eilat. It marked the first time Yemen-based forces had inflicted strategic damage on Israeli soil.

This was no coincidence. This was a pincer movement; Hamas from Gaza, Hezbollah from Lebanon, Iraqi militias in Syria, and Houthis from Yemen. All are part of what Iran proudly calls its “Axis of Resistance,” and all had escalated simultaneously.

For Israeli intelligence, the conclusion was chilling: Iran was not just a sponsor of terror. It was the conductor of an orchestrated siege.

Thus, Operation “Rising Lion” was launched. Some would say it was to neutralize uranium, but others would see that it is indeed to decapitate a network. On the night of June 12, over 90 Israeli aircraft, including stealth F-35s and drones, penetrated Iranian airspace using routes coordinated with silent Gulf partners.

The strikes were surgical but devastating: enrichment facilities in Natanz and Fordow; missile research labs near Shiraz; command centers used by the IRGC to coordinate proxy forces. Israeli cyber teams paralyzed Iran’s air defenses and communications in the first two hours of the operation.

Notably, Israeli commandos also targeted IRGC intelligence hubs reportedly used to relay instructions to Hezbollah and the Houthis. Ali Shamikhani, a senior advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader and who was involved in nuclear talks with the US, has been killed. Iranian state television confirms that top nuclear scientists Abbasi and Tehranchi were killed. Israel’s defense minister says that most of Iran’s air force leadership was killed while gathered in underground headquarters.

In Tehran, electricity flickered and internet access has been affected. In Damascus, Hezbollah commanders went into hiding. And in Sanaa, Houthi broadcasts fell silent for six hours.

Iran launched a retaliatory barrage, including cruise missiles from Khuzestan and Basra. Most were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome and Arrow 3 defense systems. The few that landed caused minor damage and injuries.

Arab governments issued formal protests. Turkey’s foreign ministry has condemned Israeli strikes on Iran, warning it could ‘lead to greater conflicts’. Saudi Arabia has also condemned the strikes. Off the record, some Gulf diplomats expressed relief: “Iran was pushing too far. This was inevitable,” one said.

In the markets, oil soared 15% overnight. In aviation, air traffic over the Gulf have been rerouted indefinitely.

Whether Operation Rising Lion was a preventive strike or the opening salvo of a broader conflict remains unclear. Iran has vowed retaliation, likely through its proxies. Hezbollah has already increased cross-border attacks. The Houthis have warned of a “second phase of resistance.”

Yet Israel insists it acted to prevent a far more devastating war. “We struck because we had to,” Netanyahu has inferred. “We did not wait for Tel Aviv to glow in the dark.”

Now, the region waits; suspended between two possibilities: a forced return to diplomacy or a plunge into wider war.

For Israel, the calculation is unchanged: better to act decisively now than to weep helplessly later.

And so, in the early hours of June 12, fire rained from the sky, not out of rage, but out of a nation’s belief that its very survival was on the line.

Iran says that starting a war with it is like ‘playing with a lion’s tail’ and that ‘revenge is near’.

Bluff or real threat? The next few days or weeks will reveal.