Israel Update: Day 623 – Operation Rising Lion (Day 7)

• 25 Israelis have been killed by rockets fired from Iran since the beginning of Operation Rising Lion (a body was pulled earlier today from the rubble in Bat Yam)
• There have been 43 reported or confirmed Iranian ballistic missile or Israeli interceptor impacts on Israel since June 12th

• Earlier this morning, a ballistic missile hit Soroka Hospital in Be’er Sheva, the largest medical facility in the south. 200 people were wounded. This was the largest and most destructive missile barrage in recent days.
  • The rocket struck the unprotected surgical ward of the hospital that had been evacuated of all patients yesterday.
• According to JINSA: For the first time, Iran launched a Sejjil (2,000 km range) ballistic missile at Israel. Iran likely used this weapon because Israel has degraded the regime’s ability to fire from western Iran, forcing it to fire from central Iran and use longer range munitions

[WATCH] Israeli journalist Amit Segal shows us: Just how well do bomb shelters in Israelis’ homes protect them? Have a look at this apartment in central Israel. In a video published by IDF Home Front Command, two residents whose building was destroyed by an Iranian missile took a film crew through their homes to compare their destroyed apartments to the state of their bomb shelters, which are specifically built rooms inside their homes. The difference between what’s left on either side of the door is astounding.

Initial forensic examination of the remains of the missiles indicates that they carried cluster warheads that split into smaller bombs upon impact, causing much more damage in a wider radius. The munitions do not have their own propulsion or guidance and simply fall to the ground, where they are designed to explode on impact.

• The IDF has continued to strike Iranian nuclear, military, and energy infrastructure. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on June 19 that “preventing [Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s] existence” is one of the Israeli air campaign’s objectives.
  • According to FDD: The IDF bombed Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor. A heavy water nuclear reactor produces plutonium as a byproduct that can be separated and used to fuel a nuclear weapon. Iran began construction on Arak in secret in 1997, with the intention of producing weapons-grade plutonium. As part of its obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran agreed to convert the reactor to a less proliferation-sensitive design, but the IDF reports that Iran ordered the reactor not to be fully converted so as to maintain an option to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. Concerns had remained that Tehran could revert to Arak’s original design if desired and that Iran had taken steps to ensure it could build a heavy water reactor elsewhere.
• Many targets are more than 1,000 miles from Israel, requiring mid-air refueling for many jets. The air force’s aerial refueling aircraft support these fighter jets, and have performed over 600 aerial refuelings in the skies of the Middle East thus far
• Israeli preemption continues to limit Iran’s ability to launch ballistic missiles. An Israeli military official told Reuters on June 19 that Israel haseliminated an estimated two-thirds of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers

  

  • Iranian missile barrages have decreased in size since the beginning of the Israel-Iran conflict on June 12 from approximately 40 missiles per barrage to only a handful of missiles per barrage, according to an Israeli military correspondent.
• Yesterday, Israel reportedly hacked into Iranian television transmissions. It disrupted a news program, replacing it with video footage of an anti-regime demonstration from a few years ago and a logo showing the Israeli name for the war, Rising Lion.
• Ben Gurion International Airport remains closed, but rescue flights have begun through Operation Safe Return as there are 100,000 and 150,000 Israelis stuck abroad.

• FDD writes: U.S. President Donald Trump “will make [his] decision whether or not” to intervene in the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict “within the next two weeks,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on June 19. Leavitt’s statement came amid reports that while Trump has approved U.S. attack plans against Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear facility — which would likely involve the use of GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs, or bunker busters) — he has not made a final decision on whether to involve the U.S. military in the conflict. The GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) is a 30,000-pound class weapon designed to strike hardened, deeply buried targets.

[WOW!!] Operation Narnia: Iran’s nuclear scientists reportedly killed simultaneously using special weapon in the Times of Israel

• Dubbed Operation Narnia, Israel’s opening attack against Iran last week saw the simultaneous killing of nine of the Islamic Republic’s top ten nuclear scientists, Channel 12 reports.
• The 10th nuclear scientist was killed shortly after the other nine, as part of the overnight Thursday-Friday Israeli operation
• The nuclear scientists were all killed while they were sleeping in their beds, with Israel deciding to carry out the assassinations simultaneously so that there wouldn’t be time to tip off those being targeted.
• The scientists apparently believed they were safe from such targeting in their homes, a senior Israeli official tells Channel 12, noting that previously assassinated nuclear scientists were killed while heading to their cars after work.
• Israeli intelligence officials felt that the killing of the nuclear scientists was the most important part of Operation Narnia because the military leadership and equipment killed would be more easily replaceable, while the knowledge held by the nuclear scientists would take much longer to ascertain, the network said, citing an unnamed senior Israeli official.

Opinions/Analysis

• Seth Mandel in Commentary: Fact is, Israel’s focus on Iran, beginning three decades ago, initiated a long period of diplomacy, buttressed by Israel’s credible threat of force. (That’s how diplomacy works.) After 30 years, we have learned that Israel was right about two things: that Iran was trying to obtain a nuclear weapon to supercharge its killing machine, and that Israel would take action if all else failed…Notice a pattern? Israeli leaders take steps for peace and then ask one thing of the West: to help prevent Iran from sabotaging the process before it can go any further.
• Edward Luttwak in UnHerd: Iran was adding more and more centrifuges in increasingly vast facilities at enormous expense, which made no sense at all if the aim was to generate energy. . . . It might be hoped that Israel’s own nuclear weapons could deter an Iranian nuclear attack against its own territory. But a nuclear Iran would dominate the entire Middle East, including Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, with which Israel has full diplomatic relations, as well as Saudi Arabia with which Israel hopes to have full relations in the near future.
• Andrea Stricker with FDD: President Trump may be providing time for Israel to continue eliminating key Iranian nuclear, missile, and military assets before considering U.S. military involvement. Yet unless Tehran says now that it is prepared to fully, verifiably, and permanently dismantle its remaining nuclear weapons assets — including the Fordow enrichment site, enriched uranium stocks, and centrifuges — Trump should help Israel finish off what remains and block an Iranian nuclear weapons option for years to come.
• Eyal Tsir Cohen and Jesse R. Weinberg with INSS: Israel’s attack on Iran was not just a military action. It was a declaration of intent. It signaled that, while diplomacy and deterrence are always preferable, Israel will not outsource its security—especially when faced with existential threats. The operation underscored the value of surprise, strategic patience, and careful sequencing. It demonstrated that in today’s evolving threat environment, deterrence is only credible when backed by visible, decisive action. For defense professionals, policymakers, and observers alike, the lesson is clear: Ignoring clear and present dangers may delay war, but it makes eventual conflict more costly. Israel chose to act—not because it wanted war, but because the alternative was far worse.

Israel/Middle East Related Articles

Iran’s Target Isn’t Just Israel. It’s Us. By Mathias Döpfner in Politico

• When a society can no longer distinguish between good and evil, between victim and perpetrator, it gives up.
• Israel has struck a blow to prevent Iran from developing nuclear bombs — weapons it might credibly use to remove Israel from the planet.
• Iran is the most aggressive and dangerous totalitarian force of our time.
• According to official state doctrine, the primary goal of the mullahs in Tehran is the annihilation of the State of Israel.
• But Israel is only the first target. Once Israel falls, Europe and America will be the focus.
• It is surprising that Israel is not being celebrated for its precise and necessary strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.
• If this reversal of victim and perpetrator applies even to Iran, then we are losing the culture war — a war of civilizations.
• If Israel does not achieve its goals, the world will quickly look very different. That is why America and Europe must stand united with Israel.
• Link: Iran’s Target Isn’t Just Israel. It’s Us.

Can Israel End Iran’s Nuclear Program? By Armin Rosen in Tablet Magazine

• The United States is the only country in the world with the ability to destroy the Fordow nuclear facility quickly from the air, something we could accomplish by dropping a couple 15-ton Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs.
• A successful U.S. attack on Fordow would establish a precedent that a would-be atomic scofflaw couldn’t ignore, with Washington acting as the final bulwark against the spread of nuclear weapons in cases where the NPT regime failed.
• Almost no one on earth is more qualified to talk about Israel’s progress against the Iranian bomb than the physicist and former IAEA inspector David Albright.
• I think it’s been set back significantly, but it’s hard for me to quantify that.
• Fordow is the workhorse, and putting that out of operation is really important.
• It would still be very hard for Iran to move to build a bomb right now.
• Israel is deliberately trying to increase the time frame, I would say by at least a half a year or more, for Iran to be able to make even a non-missile-deliverable nuclear weapon.
• On the fissile material, it really all hinges on Fordow and how many more centrifuges Iran has made that it hasn’t deployed.
• A centrifuge has a rotor that spins at a very high speed. If you cut off electricity, it’ll spin more slowly and finally stop.
• They could make it inoperative and if Iran moves to fix it, they can bomb it again.
• Can Israel destroy Fordow without American help? Yeah, I think so.
• Israel destroyed an advanced centrifuge manufacturing facility in Iran in 2020.
• I think Fordow could be kept inoperable for quite a while.
• They can’t just walk away and leave the world with Iran having a pathway to weapon-grade uranium production.
• You need time to find out where the centrifuges are, where the [uranium] stocks are.
• Isfahan is where the Iranians convert uranium.
• They want to create a three-step line to go from 20 percent enriched uranium hexafluoride to 20 percent enriched uranium metal.
• They claim it’s for fuel, but they have no reactor to put it in.
• Only one part was done and Israel bombed it.
• It really looked like a line to take weapon-grade uranium hexafluoride and turn it into weapon-grade uranium metal.
• If you knock out one step, you’ve disrupted the ability to make the weapon-grade uranium component needed for a weapon.
• It would take “months” for Iran to rebuild the Isfahan facility.
• There are over 12,000 advanced centrifuges in the underground hall at Natanz along with 5,000 IR1s.
• Around 42 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium are needed to produce enough 90 percent enriched uranium for a single warhead.
• If Iran had to start with natural uranium at Fordow, breakout timelines would be months.
• If they had all the 60 percent enriched uranium at Fordow that’s suspected to be there, just using the advanced centrifuges there, they could have enough for nine bombs in three weeks.
• Even now.
• These attacks certainly incentivize Iran to build nuclear weapons.
• But I think what you’re seeing as this plays out is that Israel is building in many disincentives for Iran to make that decision, along with many roadblocks.
• But it needs to finish the job. It needs time or it needs help.
• They’re significantly setting back Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons. And they’re doing it in many ways that weren’t expected. And more is to come.
• Link: Can Israel End Iran’s Nuclear Program?

Iran’s False Calm Shattered by Aidin Panahi in The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune

• Iran until recently was a deeply unpopular regime that appeared superficially stable.
• This illusion of calm was shattered on June 13 when Israel launched precision strikes across Iran, destroying key IRGC bases, command centers, and nuclear facilities.
• For many Iranians, this was the first time the regime’s invincibility had been visibly called into question.
• Iran’s fate rests with the “gray zone” population—citizens who neither oppose nor support the regime but whose silence reflects self-preservation.
• Sources inside Iran suggest caution rather than indifference; many privately favor regime change but seek sustained external pressure.
• Reports from Tehran, Shiraz, and Isfahan suggest that a sense of irreversible change is growing.
• Social media shows ordinary Iranians view Israel’s actions as strikes against the regime, not the nation.
• Breaking the regime’s coercive machinery—especially the IRGC and Artesh—is critical.
• A targeted psychological campaign could erode the regime’s ability to suppress unrest.
• Empowering the silent majority will hasten the regime’s collapse.
• Iran’s apparent calm has been shattered.
• The Israelis have opened a crack. The world must decide whether to widen it or let the regime seal it shut.
• Link: Iran’s False Calm Shattered

Why Israel’s attack on Iran has been a success by Matthew Levitt in the Boston Globe

• Israel is now carrying out a similar campaign against Iran as it did against Hezbollah last year.
• Israeli forces eliminated senior Iranian military, security, and intelligence officials.
• Strikes targeted nuclear sites at Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow, knocking out power and damaging uranium facilities.
• At least 14 Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed, including Fereydoon Abbasi.
• Israel disrupted command and control, missile production, and air defenses.
• Israeli aircraft struck targets as far as Mashhad, over 1,400 miles from Israel.
• Israel claims Iran was “advancing a secret plan” to fast-track its nuclear program.
• The strikes aim to show Iranians that the regime is vulnerable.
• Operation Rising Lion reflects a shift: Israel will no longer wait while enemies arm for its destruction.
• Link: Why Israel’s attack on Iran has been a success

As the IDF deepens its hold in Gaza, what exactly is meant to happen next? by David Horovitz in The Times of Israel

• What exactly is the Israeli government, and by extension the IDF, seeking to achieve in Gaza?
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated goals: war until complete victory — comprising the destruction of Hamas, the return of all the hostages, the elimination of any future threat to Israel from Gaza, and (recently added) the implementation of US President Donald Trump’s plan for the relocation of the Gaza populace.
• Far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, without whom Netanyahu would lose power, specifically advocate the morally untenable and unworkable departure of Gaza’s population to places unknown, the permanent Israeli occupation of the Strip, and the renewal of Jewish settlement there.
• Trump reportedly told Netanyahu to just sign a deal already — to try and get back all the hostages and end the war, potentially reviving regional normalization efforts and isolating Iran.
• As ordered by the political echelon, the military is deepening its physical control of Gaza. It controlled 40% of the Strip when the last hostage-truce framework collapsed in March. It now holds some 50%, and its declared goal is to take control of 75%, with the two million-plus Gazans largely concentrated in three mainly coastal mini-enclaves.
• And then what?
• As far as repeated questioning of military sources can establish, the IDF actually doesn’t know.
• Expanding its areas of control involves the IDF ordering civilian evacuations and then cleaning out the evacuated areas — blowing up tunnels and booby-trapped buildings, confronting those Hamas gunmen who have not slipped away with the noncombatants to the ostensibly safe zones, and then staying put to await further orders.
• Netanyahu used to speak about a “day after” in Gaza in which Hamas would be eliminated, Gaza would be demilitarized, the populace deradicalized, and an alternate governing mechanism enabled. But he has since adopted Trump’s “relocate Gazans” plan, even as the US president has moved away from it.
• Some military sources speculate that the IDF may eventually be asked to oversee a controlled return of the Gaza populace to their largely ruined home areas. However nice in theory, the idea is impractical. The IDF is not capable of controlling, much less screening, large masses of civilians.
• Dozens upon dozens of Gazans reported killed in the areas surrounding the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid distribution hubs. Military sources have insisted, as regards most of these incidents, that IDF troops have not fired inside, at or immediately outside the distribution points, but acknowledge firing “warning shots” when facing large crowds of Gazans heading toward the aid hubs outside the designated routes and outside the designated opening hours.
• The IDF has taken responsibility for safeguarding the GHF operation — in a framework that supersedes the UN, and thus renders Israel the prime responsible address for the feeding of Gazans. But it is not trained or equipped to fully do so.
• Hamas must not be allowed to reconstitute itself. Even now, it maintains a rule of fear in parts of Gaza, is able to loose off the occasional rocket, and can drop the occasional explosive drone on troops. Its “destroy Israel” ambition is undimmed.
• Domestic and global criticism of the war is growing — especially since the government chose in March not to move ahead with the second and third phases of the January deal it had unanimously endorsed, which was intended to secure the release of all hostages and end the war, and instead resumed the military campaign.
• The prime minister is dependent on the “war must not end” far-right and, his particular preoccupation this Wednesday, on the “we’d rather die than serve in the IDF” Haredi leadership.
• What exactly is the Israeli government, and by extension the IDF, seeking to achieve in Gaza? Not such an absurd question, after all.
• Link: As the IDF deepens its hold in Gaza, what exactly is meant to happen next?

Antisemitism

[MUST READ] Antisemitism Is an Urgent Problem. Too Many People Are Making Excuses by The New York Times Editorial Board

• The list of horrific antisemitic attacks in the United States keeps growing. Two weeks ago in Boulder, Colo., a man set fire to peaceful marchers who were calling for the release of Israeli hostages. Less than two weeks earlier, a young couple was shot to death while leaving an event at the Jewish Museum in Washington.
• The United States is experiencing its worst surge of anti-Jewish hate in many decades. Antisemitic hate crimes more than doubled between 2021 and 2023, according to the F.B.I., and appear to have risen further in 2024. On a per capita basis, Jews face far greater risks of being victims of hate crimes than members of any other demographic groups.

• The response from much of the rest of American society has been insufficient. The upswing in antisemitism deserves outright condemnation. It has already killed people and maimed others, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor who was burned in Boulder.
• Antisemitism is sometimes described as the oldest hate. A common trope is that Jews secretly control society and are to blame for its ills.
• It also has a home on the progressive left, and the bipartisan nature of the problem has helped make it distinct. Progressives reject many other forms of hate even as some tolerate antisemitism. College campuses, where Jewish students can face social ostracization, have become the clearest example.
• They have engaged in whataboutism regarding anti-Jewish hate. They have failed to denounce antisemitism in the unequivocal ways that they properly denounce other bigotry.
• Consider how often left-leaning groups suggest that the world’s one Jewish state should not exist and express admiration for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — Iran-backed terrorist groups that brag about murdering Jews. Consider how often people use Zionist as a slur — an echo of Soviet propaganda from the Cold War — and call for the exclusion of Zionists from public spaces.
• The man who burned marchers in Colorado shouted Free Palestine and End Zionist. The man charged with killing the young Israeli Embassy workers in Washington last month is suspected of having posted an online manifesto titled Escalate for Gaza, Bring the War Home. His supporters have since published a petition that includes Globalize the Intifada.
• Antisemitism has not produced shocking gaps in income, wealth and life expectancy in today’s America. Yet the new antisemitism has left Jewish Americans at a greater risk of being victimized by a hate crime than any other group.
• Link: Antisemitism Is an Urgent Problem. Too Many People Are Making Excuses.

Hostage Update (no change)

There are now currently 52 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza (there are 53 hostages remaining in total)

• Of the 53 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
  • 31 hostages have been confirmed dead and are currently being held in Gaza
  • Thus, at most, 22 living hostages could still be in Gaza. It has been reported that only 20 are actually alive.
  • Hamas is now holding the body of 1 IDF soldier who was killed in 2014 (Lt. Hadar Goldin’s body remains held in the Gaza Strip)
• 20 hostages remain in captivity and have not been declared dead.
  • 2 hostages are Americans: Meet the Two American Hostages Still Held By Hamas:
    • Itay Chen died on October 7 defending civilians living in an agricultural area near the Gaza borde
    • Omer Neutra was killed when his team drove two miles to the border, where Hamas militants ambushed his tank with rocket-propelled grenades.

• On October 7^th, a total of 251 Israelis were taken hostage.
• During the ceasefire deal in November of 2023, 112 hostages were released.
• 38 hostages were released in the first phase of the 2025 cease fire agreement (including 5 Thai nationals)
• 199 hostages in total have been released or rescued
  • The bodies of 44 hostages have been recovered, including 3 mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
  • 8 hostages have been heroically rescued by troops alive

Casualties (+1)

Staff Sergeant Stav Halfon, 20, was killed by sniper fire in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis

1,915 Israelis have been killed including 871 IDF soldiers and police since October 7th

• The South: 433 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza have been killed. The toll includes three police officers (two of which were killed in a hostage rescue mission) and two Defense Ministry civilian contractors.
• The North: 133 Israelis (85 IDF soldiers) have been killed during the war in Northern Israel
• The West Bank: 66 Israelis (27 IDF and Israeli security forces)
• Additional Information (according to the IDF):
  • 5,998 (+27 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 891 (+4 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
  • 2,735 (+16 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 526 (+4 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.

• The Gaza Casualty Count: According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 55,707 total deaths have been reported, with a civilian/combatant ratio: 1:1.
  • [MUST READ] Report: Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza by Andrew Fox with The Henry Jackson Society

Regular sources include JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, algemeimer, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Institute for the Study of War, Tablet Magazine, Mosaic Magazine, Commentary, The Free Press, The Jewish Institute for Strategy and Security, and the Times of Israel