By Dr Marwan Asmar
Today, the Middle East has just passed a historical watershed never seen before in at least 100 years of development. It represents a major turning point for the Arab region that has long been characterized by its western hegemony, imperialism and domination.
One external power outside the Arab fold has managed to turn the tables around and thrust the Middle East region into the forefront of modernity and civilization through its military prowess and technical ingenuity.
That country is Iran: A regional actor that has been forced to come out of its self-imposed shell and hit Israel as hard as it can in a 12-day war-spree brought on by the political masters of Tel Aviv who had long insisted that Iran, its economy, military capability and nuclearization must be destroyed.
These words were uttered time and again by Israel’s radical Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist ministers and who made it their business to start a war on Iran and seek to destroy the country through a third super-power actor, that of the United States of America.
And so, with its supposed military superiority backed by Washington, Israel started a deadly war on Iran on 13 June, going after its cities, military infrastructure and top military generals, including its nuclear military experts.
It was a surprising, devastating, early Friday morning attack that shocked Iran and the rest of the region. Netanyahu’s wish was coming true. He had destroyed Gaza but not Hamas, reduced Hezbollah to a shadow of its former self, awkwardly standing up to the Houthis and now is going after the big Iranian bear.
But that became a dream come true not only for Iran but the Palestinians of Gaza and the people of the region because until then – 23 months into the Israeli genocide, not a single Arab state, dared to move its head and stand up to Israel. It was mind-boggling.
However, unease was manifesting in the region. Here was a “super-Israel” that was standing up to anyone who dared to question its superiority and transcendence. But not for long; things started to change very quickly on the night of the very same day with ballistic missiles and drones started to rain down on Tel Aviv and the other Israeli cities in an incessant unexpected manner.
And therefore, it became the turn of Israelis, their politicians, ministers, lawmakers, generals and soldiers to experience the shock, horror and devastation of what they had been doing to Gaza since 7 October, 2023.
Since 13 June, the Israeli skyline, especially in the night and early morning hours became littered by incoming missiles with their top defense systems like the prestigious Iron Dome, American Thud and the David Sling were powerless to deflect. Here was a new invasion sparkling in its skies, of the dangerous variety.
For the first time in Israel’s ungodly creation since 1948, Israel was under attack. June 13 was the first in a 12-day series in which Israeli cities were torn to pieces and destroyed. Direct hits were being made to their skyscrapers, high-rise buildings, military installation, ports, electricity grid and its famous Ben Gurion International Airport.
Overnight everything in sight became fair game with the US gleefully watching but unable or unwilling to do anything.
Despite the tough military clobbering Iran was getting, for the first-time Israel’s nose was being rubbed in the mud on a daily, nightly basis with its military standing powerless. What they were doing to Gaza was being done to them with missiles fired 1,724 kilometers away, the distance from Iran to Israel.
Its prestigious city Tel Aviv and its Jewish neighborhoods, other towns and settlements reaching all the way to Jerusalem where getting knocked, bombed and struck with debris and mortar falling on cars and other vehicles.
These previously top places of living were falling down, with Israelis, ordinary, and experts were licking their wounds. Very quickly the economy, public life, day-to-day ordinary living was brought to a standstill. Tel Aviv, the economic and technological center of the country, was being hammered.
The Israeli state quickly found itself in a war-situation with deadly, eerie, screaming sirens blasting all over – from the far-north of the country till its furthest south – carrying almost non-stop. Israel was no longer able to protect its Jews many of whom were trying to escape through tugboats to Cyprus and/or through Sina’s Egypt.
The city was being attacked, there was no way to stop it. Missiles were seen nightly beaming into the skies in flicks and flares. Some came crashing down, others also fell heavily just the same because of being fired upon by Israeli counter-missiles that were just as destructive..
For 12 days, seven or eight million Israelis were spending their days and nights in the shelters and bunkers, seeking to get away from the Iranian missiles but without much success. As soon as the so-called Israeli Home Front would give permission to leave the underground holes, people would get back as ordered for their own safety. Of course these were unlike the top-notch bunker Netanyahu. was hiding in, but they had to do.
The social media was becoming filled with “ruined Israel”. Videos posted on different platforms showed the destruction of the blasts. These were just a fraction of the mayhem that was being inflicted in the Star Wars blasts Israel was being subjected to through Netanyahu who continued to promise to inflict “hell and damnation” on Iran.
For a so-called democratic state like Israel the military censors had worked hard in the war to smack-gob the media and prevent them from publishing images and stories of the impact of these Iranian missiles on military bases, intelligence centers and Mossad headquarters but it was to no avail. The cracks penetrated. Big brother Israel might be superior to Hamas and Islamic Jihad but definitely not to Iran.
[https://twitter.com/SilentlySirs/status/1934895049537364075]
Despite this however, and all in the name of Israeli public accountability, the censors were forced to relent. They couldn’t prevent but show the complete destruction of the Weizmann Institute of Science that had close relations with the Israeli army. The censors couldn’t prevent the publishing of the bombing of the Mossad headquarters in Tel Aviv either but there were many sensitive sites and bases that were struck by Iranian missile barrages.
First to be hit in the beginning of the conflict was the Kirya – the Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv and which the Israelis proudly called their “Pentagon” that housed the Israeli Ministry of Defense/or the Ministry of War depending on your own point of view.
This was just the start for in the subsequent days, and contrary to claims the Iranian missiles target Israeli residential houses, the ballistics – over 550 missiles and 1000 drones according to the Israeli army – struck the so-called Moshe Dyan Camp which is a complex of training and operations center for intelligence officers.
Then missiles fell on the Tel Nof Airbase, Navatim Airbase, Hatzerim Airbase, Ovada Airbase, the Herzliya Mossad headquarters and the Gav-Yam Negav Advanced Technologies Park in southern Israel. The last was a research and cyberwarfare hub for the Israeli army and the Mossad gathering intelligence for the Israeli slaughter of Gaza.
The missiles which Tehran had been developing in so-called underground “missile cities” as branded by Iranian watchers targeted the Bazan oil refinery deemed as Israel’s largest processing centers, the Haifa power station, Hedera Power Station and the Ashdod Power Station with numerous other targets.
By the end of the war as brokered by US President Donald Trump, making it clear his objective was complete when he bombed the three Iranian nuclear plants – Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan – he ordered a ceasefire which Netanyahu submitted to after much arms-twisting for the latter wanted to continuing bombing Iranian sites despite the mayhem that was being done to Israel.
The Iranian missiles – 22 barrages over 12 days and the last on 23 June, minutes before the ceasefire between Israel and Iran took effect. At the end of the war over 30,000 buildings were destroyed and damaged with around 4000 vehicles ruined through falling debris.
Many said and with relish that Israelis were getting some of the medicine they had been dishing out to Gazans with 28 killed and over 3000 injured and needed to go to hospital, not to say of the numbers buried under the rubble. Up to this war, the great majority of Israelis had been “cushioned” against the destructive actions perpetrated by their government but no longer for the deep cracks and fissures have set in.
Although Israelis and American politicians say they set back the Iran nuclear program years back, this is doubtful. Despite its boastful echoes, Israel has been struck really hard this time around – a wake up call to what can happen time and again from now on and exposing its own fragility. Israel is not invincible and it knows it.
Dr Marwan Asmar is a writer based in Amman and blogs at https://crossfirearabia.com/
28 June 2025
Source: countercurrents.org