Israelis are “bracing for a bumpy ride” after the country launched a series of strikes on sites in Iran, according to a former spokesperson for the Israeli government.
The Israel Defence Force (IDF) said a "pre-emptive, precise, combined offensive based on high-quality intelligence" had been launched, amidst rising international fears over Iran’s nuclear programme.
A UN watchdog warned earlier this week that the country was breaking safeguarding obligations laid out by the International Atomic Energy Agency for the first time in 20-years.
“Israel sees the Iranian nuclear threat as existential,” former Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy told The Hard Shoulder.
“The Iranian regime is openly sworn to Israel’s destruction, the Supreme Leader called Israel a ‘cancer that must be eradicated’ just last month.
“Israel sees this as a window of opportunity where it’s now or never; it’s the point of no return.
“With diplomacy failing, if Israel doesn’t stop Iran now, then Iran will have nuclear weapons and Iran would be unstoppable.”
Rescuers work at the scene of an explosion after an Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 13, 2025. (Iranian Red Crescent Society via AP)According to Mr Levy, while “diplomacy is obviously preferable”, Iranian officials “haven’t been negotiating in good faith”.
“President Trump said we gave the Iranians a chance to negotiate a deal, they didn’t take it,” he said.
“So, it looks like Israel and the United States have been playing a good cop, bad cop game; Israel waving the threat of military action, the United States using that as leverage to try to get a deal.
“I think the United States now, understanding that the Iranian regime had no intention of dismantling its nuclear programme and continued building ballistic missiles, that it was just taking the US for a fool.”
Six Iranian nuclear scientists were reportedly killed in the attack, alongside several senior military commanders.
Main image: A firefighter calls out his colleagues at the scene of an explosion in a residence compound in northern Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
