Israel eliminated over 30 senior security officials and 11 top nuclear scientists to significantly undermine Iran’s nuclear ambitions, a senior Israeli military official said on Friday, summarising the country’s 12-day air war against Iran.
In the United States, an independent expert said a review of commercial satellite imagery showed only a small number of the approximately 30 Iranian missiles that penetrated Israel’s air defences managed to hit any militarily significant targets.
“Iran has yet to produce missiles that demonstrate great accuracy,” Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at the CNA Corporation specialising in satellite imagery, told Reuters.
In Israel, the senior military official said Israel’s June 13 opening strike on Iran severely damaged its aerial defences and destabilised its ability to respond in the critical early hours of the conflict.
Over 900 Sites Targeted
Israel’s air force struck over 900 targets, and the military deeply damaged Iran’s missile production during the war that ended with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, the official said.
“The Iranian nuclear project suffered a major blow: The regime’s ability to enrich uranium to 90% was neutralised for a prolonged period. Its current ability to produce a nuclear weapon core has been neutralised,” the official said.
Iran, which denies trying to build nuclear weapons, retaliated against the strikes with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites and cities. Iran said it forced the end of the war by penetrating Israeli defences.
Iranian authorities said 627 people were killed in Iran, where the extent of the damage could not be independently confirmed because of tight restrictions on the media. Israeli authorities said 28 people were killed in Israel.
Iran’s Missiles ‘Lack Precision’
Eveleth, the independent U.S. expert, said Iran’s missile forces were not accurate enough to destroy small military targets like U.S.-made F-35 jet fighters in their shelters.
“Because of this, the only targets they can hit with regularity are large cities or industrial targets like the refinery at Haifa,” he told Reuters.
Iranian missile salvos – which were limited by Israeli airstrikes in Iran – did not have the density to achieve high rates of destruction, he wrote on X.
“At the current level of performance, there is effectively nothing stopping Israel from conducting the same operation in the future with similar results,” he wrote.
In a statement on Friday, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he had directed the military to draft plans to safeguard air superiority over Iran, prevent nuclear development and missile production, and address Iran’s support for militant operations against Israel.
Israel’s military Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, said on Friday that the outcome in Iran could help advance Israeli objectives against the Iranian-backed Palestinian militant Hamas group in the Gaza Strip.
Zamir told troops in Gaza that an Israeli ground operation, known as “Gideon’s Chariots,” would in the near future achieve its goal of greater control of the Palestinian enclave and present options to Israel’s government for further action.
(With inputs from Reuters)
