{"id":31524,"date":"2025-06-22T13:29:03","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T13:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=31524"},"modified":"2025-06-22T13:29:03","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T13:29:03","slug":"israel-weighs-next-phase-of-iran-campaign-after-us-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=31524","title":{"rendered":"Israel weighs next phase of Iran campaign after US strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=2a96aa5a-1113-4c0f-931d-4e60d494af08\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Israel has signalled it will press on with its bombing raids against Iran, while leaving open the possibility that the military campaign will end if US strikes are shown to have destroyed the Islamic republic\u2019s nuclear capabilities. <\/p>\n<p>Defence minister Israel Katz said on Sunday that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were still assessing the impact of US strikes on Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities, and that he had \u201cvalidated\u201d his country\u2019s offensive to continue in coming days. <\/p>\n<p>Military spokesperson Effie Defrin also said that the IDF was still operating according to its original \u201cplan and goals\u201d and preparing \u201cfor the extension of this campaign\u201d if necessary. Israel, which launched its war on Iran last week, continued to strike dozens of military targets across the Islamic republic.<\/p>\n<p>Some Israeli officials are privately leaning towards wrapping up the offensive in the wake of the US strikes on the Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow.<\/p>\n<p>A person familiar with the situation said what Israel did next would depend on how Iran responded to the US attack, but the preference was to move towards diplomacy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIsrael will respond according to the developments,\u201d the person said, adding that if the fighting were to end now, Israel would have achieved most of its military objectives.<\/p>\n<p>At the start of the Israeli assault on Iran 10 days ago, officials said the primary objective was to \u201celiminate the threat\u201d from Tehran\u2019s missile and nuclear programmes. Israel also killed some two dozen of Iran\u2019s top military commanders and nuclear scientists. <\/p>\n<p>Benjamin Netanyahu suggested the war could ultimately lead to a change of regime in Iran, with an uprising to oust the Islamic republic, or even the assassination of its supreme leader. <\/p>\n<p>But shortly after the US strikes on Saturday night, the Israeli premier issued a statement praising the \u201cRising Lion\u201d military campaign in the past tense, saying: \u201ctogether we achieved unprecedented achievements in Israeli history\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou remember, from the beginning of the operation, I promised you that Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities would be destroyed, one way or another. That promise was kept,\u201d Netanyahu added.<\/p>\n<p>Israel\u2019s continuation of air strikes could indicate it wants to keep military pressure on the Islamic republic, including by striking military targets and ballistic missile sites, as Tehran weighs its response to the raid on nuclear sites.<\/p>\n<p>According to an Israeli military official, by Saturday the IDF assessed that \u201cover 50 per cent\u201d of Iran\u2019s ballistic missile launchers had been \u201cneutralised\u201d. Other estimates indicated even larger damage to the missiles themselves and their indigenous production capabilities. Iran has not commented on the impact of the strikes. <\/p>\n<p>Israeli officials had also said that the campaign would not end until all of Iran\u2019s nuclear sites, but in particular the Fordow enrichment facility buried deep beneath a mountain, were destroyed. <\/p>\n<p>Fordow was believed to be impervious to Israeli strike capabilities, requiring the US to deploy 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs, known as Massive Ordnance Penetrators, delivered by B-2 stealth strategic bombers.<\/p>\n<p>Trumps said all three sites had been \u201ccompletely and totally obliterated\u201d but no evidence of the damage has yet been made public. <\/p>\n<p>While Israeli jets continued to pound Iran, Iran fired two barrages of over 20 ballistic missiles at Israel on Sunday morning. Strikes in the central cities of Tel Aviv and Ness Ziona, as well as the northern city of Haifa, injured 20 people, according to local health officials.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/2a96aa5a-1113-4c0f-931d-4e60d494af08\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":31525,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}