Israel’s strike on Iran came less than a day after the world’s nuclear watchdog declared that Tehran is violating its nuclear obligations. In theory, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made a revelation. In practice, it was confirmation of what Israel had long alleged. And for Jerusalem, it was the perfect juncture to act against what it considers a looming tool of genocide.
Israeli officials have been warning for years that Iran’s nuclear ambitions could potentially do in one fell swoop what the Six Day War and other seemingly all-or-nothing moments failed to do — wipe out the Jewish state. And with it a large part of the world’s Jewish population (as well as a large slice of Israel’s non-Jewish population).
Since the 1990s, Israeli intelligence has tracked Tehran’s progress. “Never Again,” once the preserve of Holocaust memory, has increasingly been invoked to frame the stakes.
Recent developments accelerated Israel’s urgency. First, the IAEA Board of Governors passed a formal resolution stating that Iran was not complying with its legal responsibilities. Then, in a speech to the board, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi publicly detailed the reasons. He confirmed that Iran had failed to declare nuclear material at three undeclared sites — Varamin, Marivan, and Turquzabad — and that it had obstructed inspectors and sanitised the locations. “We found man-made uranium particles,” Grossi said, warning that the agency could no longer guarantee Iran’s nuclear programme was peaceful.
Grossi also said that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium had gone over the threshold of 400 kilograms at 60 per cent purity. Technically speaking, this is just short of weapons-grade but sufficient, if further refined, to make nine bombs. Grossi declared: “The Agency cannot ignore the stockpiling of over 400 kg of highly enriched uranium.” Security analysts in Israel believed that the timeline for action had been narrowed to days.
Viewed from Jerusalem, none of this was surprising. Since the early 1990s, its intelligence services have tracked Iran’s activities and warned that they extended beyond energy production. In 2018, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed a secret Iranian nuclear archive captured by the Mossad from a warehouse in Tehran, which he said proved Iran had lied about the scale of its programme.
Still, this week’s IAEA moves mattered. They gave formal international backing to a charge Israel has made for years. They also came just days before a fresh round of Iran-US nuclear talks, prompting fears in Jerusalem that any diplomacy might legitimise a threat.
These catalysts were in the public sphere. What is now clear is that there was also growing intelligence in Israel that pushed the military towards action. Top brass had obtained intelligence showing that Iran had begun assembling bomb components in hardened underground sites. In the IDF’s view, this was the red line. “We began this operation because the time has come, we are at the point of no return,” said Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir. “We cannot afford to wait for another time to operate, we have no other choice.”
The strike reflects a longstanding Israeli doctrine: hostile regimes nearing the nuclear threshold must be stopped before activation, not after. That logic underpinned the 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor and the 2007 raid on Syria’s Deir ez-Zor site. Both were initially denied but later confirmed. Iran is far harder — with deep-buried facilities, long-range missiles and a sprawling proxy web — but the principle holds. Israeli officials view the nuclear archive stolen in 2018, and years of Iranian threats, as clear proof of intent. For Jerusalem, the IAEA’s latest findings leave little doubt.
Various turning points have shaped this trajectory. Most memorably in 2018, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed the Mossad’s seizure of a trove of nuclear documents from a warehouse in Tehran. He said the archive proved Iran’s intent to develop nuclear weapons, despite its claims of peaceful energy use. The files became the cornerstone of Israel’s international campaign to isolate Iran and press the UN’s nuclear watchdog to toughen inspections.
Oddly, all of this is happening in relation to a country that Israel once regarded relatively warmly and vice versa. After the 1953 coup that reinstalled the pro-Western Shah, ties between the two states blossomed. Israel sold Iran arms, built infrastructure, and flew El Al flights to Tehran. It viewed Iran as a strategic regional ally — one of the few Muslim-majority states to recognise Israel at the time.
The Islamic Revolution in 1979 ended that. The ayatollahs reversed recognition and denounced Israel as illegitimate, but even then, discreet contacts and arms dealings continued through the Iran-Iraq War. Iran’s leaders have long since called for Israel’s destruction. But beneath the hostility, many Israelis — including Netanyahu — speak of a future where the two nations might reconcile.
The current regime, however, remains deeply unpopular within Iran. There have been waves of protests since 2009, with many citizens denouncing corruption and repression. Ultimately, Israel hopes for regime change via internal uprising, which would destroy both the terror networks funded by Iran such as Hezbollah and its nuclear ambitions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that he hopes for a day when Israel could once again have good relations with the Iranian people, and unlike much he says that polarises Israel, much of the population agrees with this.
