Israels attack on Iran prompts widespread support and alarm at home

Senior Israeli military officials have hailed an “historic event”, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that overnight attacks launched on Iran were intended to “roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival”.

Israeli security forces carried out dozens of attacks on targets across Iran as part of an operation named “Rising Lion”, which has received support from across the political spectrum in Israel.

Iranian civilians, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the army’s chief of staff, senior members of Iran’s security forces and six nuclear scientists were among those killed in the strikes.

“We targeted Iran's main enrichment facility in Natanz. We targeted Iran's leading nuclear scientists working on the Iranian bomb. We also struck at the heart of Iran's ballistic missile programme,” Netanyahu said.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has vowed to respond with force. "With this crime, the Zionist regime has prepared for itself a bitter, painful fate, which it will definitely see,“ Khamenei wrote on social media.

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Israel’s military says that it has successfully intercepted the 100 Iranian drones that have been launched at Israel thus far. "We are in a historic event. The air force has launched a historic pre-emptive attack, and we will remove this existential threat to the State of Israel,” senior Israeli military officials told the news outlet Ynet.

“This is not an operation, this is a planned war in the form of a dangerous move 1,500kms from home. We don't go to war without the entire State of Israel together,” the officials said.

'Draw attention from Gaza'

But Ori Goldberg, an expert on Iran at the Forum for Regional Thinking, an Israeli think tank at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, said the Israeli attack was carried out without a clear objective.

"The main goal is to draw attention from what is happening in Gaza, where a complete internet blackout has been imposed, and from the West Bank, where Israel has imposed a complete siege,” Goldberg told Middle East Eye.

“The Israeli attack is an attempt to declare that we can do whatever we want, whenever we want. Israel is testing the world's reaction."

'The Israeli attack is an attempt to declare that we can do whatever we want, whenever we want. Israel is testing the world's reaction'

- Ori Goldberg, Israeli expert on Iran

Goldberg said he thought the wide-ranging assault on Iran was “intended to test whether Israel still holds total international immunity for its actions. This total immunity may disappear.”

According to Yedioth Ahronoth's senior military correspondent, Ron Ben-Yishai, who receives briefings from the Israeli army: “The intention of the operation is not only to hit the nuclear facilities.”

The veteran correspondent wrote that the attacks were designed to “hit the Iranian regime to the point of toppling it. Israel claims that only if the regime falls, Israel will be free of an Iranian nuclear weapon."

But, according to Goldberg, the "attack on Iran cannot topple the regime, where there is no sufficiently organised opposition. The attack could have the opposite effect, in which the reformist forces would stand behind the regime in light of the Israeli attack."

Raz Zimmt, an Iran expert at the INSS, an Israeli research institute, who works closely with former army officials, echoed Goldberg's words.

"The desire to topple the Iranian regime by hitting some of the security and military leadership, as severe as it may be, is unrealistic," Zimmt wrote on the Channel 12 news site.

Widespread support in Israel for attacks

The attacks on Iran have been praised across the political spectrum in Israel. 

Yair Golan, a former army officer and leader of the centre-left Democrats party, wrote on his X account: ”A strong people, a determined army and a strong home front. That's how we've always won, and that's how we'll win today.

"I reinforce the hands of the pilots, fighters, commanders and all IDF [Israeli army] soldiers who are working with determination and dedication for our security."

'There are lines and madness. People are afraid to stay away from home'

- CEO of Israeli supermarket chain

Yair Lapid, head of the Israeli opposition, also expressed support for the operation. "Iran declared war on Israel a long time ago, and now it is facing the consequences,“ Lapid wrote on X.

"I fully support the objectives of the operation and our security forces. The opposition will provide whatever assistance is needed to ensure the success of the mission."

The attacks have also been greeted with alarm, though. In their wake, the Israeli Home Front Command instructed citizens to remain near a protected area, due to fears of an Iranian response. This directive was lifted only towards Friday afternoon, local time.

The Home Front Command also ordered the cancellation of school throughout the country, a ban on gathering in public spaces, restrictions on workplace activity, and a complete closure of Israel's airspace.

"Rockets weighing half a tonne or even a tonne will fall here, but this is the price we must pay so that our children can continue to live here," a senior army official told Ynet. 

Shops stocking up

There have been huge lines at supermarkets across Israel and convenience stores are trying to stock up before a possible Iranian response.

"There are lines and madness. People are afraid to stay away from home," said one CEO of a large supermarket chain in Israel, adding that there has been an increase of many hundreds of percent in purchases at the chain's branches since Friday morning.

"While there is support and euphoria in Israel following the attack on Iran, there is also a very great fear of the Iranian response," Goldberg told Middle East Eye. "There is also a lack of trust in the government."

The former deputy head of the National Security Council, Eran Etzion, wrote that Netanyahu "was looking for an excuse to go to this war, for personal and political reasons that every Israeli and every international player understands very well.

"There is a grave concern that a 'historic operational opportunity,' and the need to forget 7 October and the failed war in Gaza have set the tone for the senior professional ranks as well," Etzion posted on social media, referring to concerns that Israeli security forces have aligned with Netanyahu's demands.

Goldberg said that “for Netanyahu, there is no longer a difference between holding his grip on power and Israel's foreign policy interests. He thinks they are synonymous.

“The army is also benefiting from the attack on Iran, after experiencing a sharp decline in support in Israel,” he said. “Moving the military conflict away from Israel's borders, as was done in Yemen, helps the army regain support in its capabilities.”

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