(CENTCOM) U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and partner forces began striking targets on Feb. 28 to dismantle the Iranian regime's security apparatus, prioritizing locations that posed an imminent threat. Targets included Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and military airfields. Following the initial wave of strikes, CENTCOM forces successfully defended against hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks. There have been no reports of U.S. casualties or combat-related injuries. Damage to U.S. installations was minimal and has not impacted operations. The operation involves the largest regional concentration of American military firepower in a generation.

(New York Times) Alan Cowell - Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who in more than three decades brutally crushed dissent at home and maintained unswerving hostility to the U.S. and Israel, died on Saturday during U.S. and Israeli military strikes on his country. Iranian state media confirmed he had been killed. Many Iranians viewed him as the dictator of a corrupt and repressive regime whose policies had killed thousands of Iranians and forced countless others into exile.

(Iran International) An Israeli military spokesman said on Saturday the following senior Iranian officials were among those targeted: Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Defense Council, was a close personal adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on security affairs. Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps since June 2025, was one of the key architects of Iran's "plan to destroy Israel" and played a leading role in the violent suppression of Iranian protesters in January. Salah Asadi was head of intelligence for Iran's emergency command and a senior intelligence officer within the General Staff. Mohammad Shirazi headed the military office of Khamenei since 1989. Aziz Nasirzadeh was Iran's defense minister and a former air force commander, responsible for long-range missile production facilities and weapons systems transferred to Iran's proxy forces. Hossein Jabal Amelian was head of SPND, which advances projects in the fields of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Reza Mozaffari-Nia was former head of SPND and played a role in advancing efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

(U.S. Mission to the UN) Amb. Mike Waltz - U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz told the UN Security Council on Saturday: "The most fundamental duty of any sovereign government is the protection of its people. Operation Epic Fury is directed toward specific and strategic objectives: to dismantle missile capabilities that threaten allies, to degrade naval assets used to destabilize international waters, to disrupt the machinery that arms proxy militias, and to ensure the Iranian regime never ever can threaten the world with a nuclear weapon." "For decades, the Iranian regime has willfully destabilized the world. It has killed American forces and citizens, threatened regional allies, and jeopardized the security of international shipping upon which the world depends. Its massive support for violent proxies, declared terrorist organizations - the Houthis, Hizbullah, Hamas, and others - has brought bloodshed and disorder across the Middle East for far too long....Our men and women have paid for the actions of this regime and the IRGC with their lives. No responsible nation can ignore persistent aggression and violence." "Where the UN lacks moral clarity, the United States of America will maintain it. Indiscriminate and unprovoked attacks by the Iranian regime today against our regional partners - Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and others - reinforce precisely why such actions are necessary. The regime has not only struck military assets but civilian infrastructure as well. Those who stand with us must know that their security is not negotiable. The safety of our allies is not conditional. It is assured. The bottom line is this: our allies and partners can count on the United States." "Peace is not preserved by appeasing those who threaten it. Peace is preserved through strength in the face of terror. History has taught us that the cost of inaction is far greater than the burden of decisive action." "The United States strongly rejects this ridiculous and frankly farcical assertion that U.S. actions are inconsistent with international law....The Iranian regime...has waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder. It is responsible for a series of unprovoked armed attacks targeting the United States and Israel, violations of the UN Charter, and threats to international peace and security across the Middle East. It has even attempted to assassinate the U.S. President." "The United States has made every effort to negotiate a peaceful resolution of this conflict with Iran, but Iran has failed to take that opportunity. So in close coordination with the Government of Israel, the United States has taken lawful actions to address these threats, in line with Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations."

(JTA) Grace Gilson - Major American Jewish groups quickly backed the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran Saturday, while urging heightened security at Jewish institutions. The American Jewish Committee said the "responsibility for this crisis lies entirely with Tehran. The world will be a safer place when the threat of the Iranian regime's illicit nuclear and missile programs, along with the IRGC, is dismantled once and for all." The Anti-Defamation League said it "stands with the United States, Israel and the Iranian people, who deserve dignity and freedom from a regime that murders its own citizens." The World Jewish Congress called on the international community to "stand behind this historic effort and support further measures that end the ability of theocratic tyrants to inflict harm on the Iranian people and the world at large." The Jewish Federations of North America said it will "pray for the success of the joint United States and Israeli actions in Iran."

(Prime Minister's Office) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday evening: "Israel and the United States launched a combined operation to remove the existential threat posed to Israel by the regime of the Ayatollahs in Iran....This fateful operation will continue as long as necessary." "For 47 years, the Ayatollah regime has chanted 'Death to Israel' and 'Death to America.' It has spilled our blood, murdered many Americans, and slaughtered its own people. Today, everyone understands that this murderous terrorist regime must never be allowed to arm itself with nuclear weapons that would enable it to threaten our existence and the peace of all humanity. We have gone to battle to change this situation fundamentally, to put an end to the threat."

(Ha'aretz) Noa Shpigel - The majority of Israel's opposition parties lauded the joint U.S.-Israeli strike in Iran on Saturday, displaying near-unanimous support for the offensive against Tehran. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said, "Thank you, President Trump, for time after time displaying exceptional courage and determination. All of Israel thanks you." Opposition leader Yair Lapid thanked President Trump "for the courage and determination to change history." He added, "Thank you to the United States security forces and to the men and women in uniform who are operating today to make the world safer."

(Jerusalem Post) Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said Saturday that refraining from action in Iran would have been "far more dangerous" than moving forward despite the risks. Sa'ar said time was critical, warning that delay could have allowed Iran to reach a "zone of immunity" for its nuclear program and accelerate the mass production of long-range ballistic missiles. Israeli opposition politician Benny Gantz said Israelis should be prepared for a long campaign. "There is a historic opportunity here. It would be a shame to miss it," Gantz said.

(Times of Israel) Jacob Magid - President Trump authorized Operation Epic Fury against Iran after Washington received intelligence indicating that the Islamic Republic would deploy its ballistic missiles either preemptively or simultaneously with any American action against Tehran, a senior U.S. official said Saturday. "The president decided he was not going to sit back and allow American forces in the region to absorb attacks from conventional missiles," he said. "We had analysis that basically told us if we sat back and waited to get hit first, the amount of casualties and damage would be substantially higher than if we acted in a preemptive, defensive way to prevent those launches from occurring." "We cannot continue to live in a world where these people not only possess missiles but the ability to make 100 of them a month in perpetuity, to overwhelm any potential defenses. We are not going to be held hostage by them, and we are not going to let them hit us first because it would have substantially increased the risk to our troops in the region and to our allies." The official asserted that Tehran demonstrated "no seriousness" to achieve a real deal in the last three rounds of nuclear talks, accusing Iran of trying to "buy time," rather than negotiating in good faith. "They were in the throes of rebuilding everything that had been destroyed" in the U.S. and Israeli strikes last June. "Israel did not drag the U.S. into Operation Epic Fury. President Trump acted out of the national interest of the United States. Any claim to the contrary by a desperate and floundering Iran is false."

(Ynet News) Itamar Eichner - Israel managed to surprise Iran for the second time in less than a year in the opening phase of the current campaign. Security officials said the surprise was the result of months of intensive intelligence work aimed at mapping patterns of activity among Iran's senior leadership, identifying routine gatherings, and determining when key officials would be least prepared for an attack. They assessed that Iran was expecting a strike overnight. Instead, the operation began in the morning, seen as an unexpected window of vulnerability. A security official said, "All the conduct in recent weeks was designed to mislead them. Everything was planned in advance." In the opening hours of the war, 200 Israeli jets struck 500 targets - the largest strike formation in the history of the Israeli Air Force.

(Wall Street Journal) Gordon Lubold - Roughly 50% of the ballistic missiles fired by Iran failed to launch or crashed before reaching their target, three U.S. officials said.

(Jerusalem Post) Dr. Itay Gal - A large-scale Israeli cyberattack paralyzed the Islamic Republic from within on Saturday. Critical infrastructure, official news sites, and security communications systems reportedly stopped functioning, leaving the leadership in a communications blackout. Internet connectivity in Iran plunged to 4% of normal traffic. The regime's IRNA website was taken offline for an extended period, and Tasnim, which is identified with the IRGC, experienced severe disruptions and hacks that reportedly displayed subversive messages against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Western intelligence sources said the damage to the IRGC's communications infrastructure was meant to prevent coordination of counterattacks and disrupt the ability to launch drones and ballistic missiles by Iranian cyber and electronic units.

(New York Times) Julian E. Barnes - The CIA had been tracking Ayatollah Khamenei for months, gaining more confidence about his locations and his patterns, according to people familiar with the operation. Then the agency learned that a meeting of top Iranian officials including Khamenei would take place on Saturday morning at a leadership compound in Tehran. The CIA passed its intelligence to Israel. The information provided a window of opportunity for the U.S. and Israel to achieve a critical and early victory: the elimination of top Iranian officials including Khamenei. The strike required relatively few Israeli aircraft armed with long-range and highly accurate munitions. An Israeli defense official said that despite Iranian preparations for war, Israel managed to achieve "tactical surprise" with its attack. The U.S. and Israel also gathered specifics about the locations of key Iranian intelligence officers which were hit in follow-on strikes on Saturday. Iran's top intelligence officer escaped, but the senior ranks of Iran's intelligence agencies were decimated.

(New York Times) Farnaz Fassihi - Large crowds of Iranians poured into the streets of Tehran and other cities Saturday night, celebrating the news that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been killed. Many Iranians, inside and outside the country, rejoiced. In video calls with the New York Times, three residents of Tehran showed the scenes unfolding in their neighborhoods: Large crowds of men and women dancing and cheering. Drivers passing by honked their car horns. Fireworks lit up the sky and loud Persian dance music filled the streets. Many residents, from their windows and balconies, joined in a chant of "freedom, freedom."

(AFP) The Gulf monarchies, staunch U.S. allies, have carefully courted Iran, their powerful Shia neighbor. Saudi Arabia mended ties with Tehran after a seven-year rupture in 2023. Iran's sudden attacks Saturday on U.S. military bases in Manama, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Qatar caused widespread shock. In Bahrain's capital Manama, the base housing the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet was hit.

(New York Times) Gen. (ret.) Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. - For decades, Iran managed to bluff American presidents. Our strikes on Iran on Saturday are evidence that this long-term strategy of negotiating in bad faith is bankrupt. The military campaign underway is the direct result of Iranian leaders' foot-dragging, obfuscation and delay tactics. Our forces will continue to hit regime targets inside Iran and simultaneously reduce its ability to respond. The military does this by striking leadership nodes and by seeking out and destroying Iranian missile storage areas, transporters and launch sites. We have practiced these missions for years. One thing is certain: Without pressure, nothing will change. There is opportunity in the death of the supreme leader. We should not squander this moment, when Iran is uniquely weak and vulnerable and we hold all of the advantages. We can also seek to return to negotiations. If we do so, it should not be a dialogue of equals. It should be between the victor and the vanquished. We should require Tehran to accept an end to its nuclear program; limitations on ballistic, cruise and land-attack missiles; limits on proxy forces; and, lastly, a declaratory policy that recognizes Israel's right to exist. I know from personal observation that Mr. Trump does not seek a prolonged conflict with Iran. I do believe that there are worse things than war, though - continued Iranian exportation of terror across the region and maltreatment of Iran's own people, to name a few. This military campaign may allow us to find a path forward to long-lasting peace in the region, and with the death of the supreme leader, an opportunity for representative government in Iran. The writer is a former commander of U.S. Central Command.

(JNS) Dr. Fiamma Nirenstein - The Israeli public understands that history sometimes accelerates suddenly, and that when it does, hesitation becomes more dangerous than action. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu framed the moment, Israel is confronting a regime that for decades has killed Americans, shed Jewish blood and brutalized its own citizens, while striving for nuclear capability. The objective of this war is to end a permanent threat. The American aircraft flying alongside Israeli jets above Tehran sketch a future Middle East no longer dominated by Iranian imperial ambition. The choice was not imposed by immediate necessity but by long-term responsibility: a decisive shift rather than endless postponement. This moment is exceptional: nations acting to dismantle a system of intimidation and fear. The writer, a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, served as vice president of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

(Ynet News) Ben-Dror Yemini - This is meant to be a war to reshape the face of the Middle East. Nothing less. Nearly every ring of fire constructed around Israel in recent decades was built by Iran. Regime change will not be simple. Even if most Iranians have grown weary of a regime of repression and terror, there are still tens of millions who support it, who make their living from it, who are complicit in its crimes. They are far more organized and far better armed. War is evil. But there are circumstances in which failing to attack early brings enormous damage later. For decades, we have heard the regime's leaders declare, "Death to America, death to Israel." They mean every word. They truly believe they can destroy Israel. So it is a supreme moral and national duty to the people living in Israel to strike the regime. Without an attack, Iran and Iranian proxies would have grown far stronger. From every moral perspective and under international law, this is a war of no choice. In Jewish tradition, it is a mitzvah war, a commanded war. So move forward, soldiers of Israel, in the Air Force, in intelligence, in the Mossad, and all who are involved. You must succeed. We simply have no other option.

(Israel Hayom) Yoav Limor - Israel is prepared to fight Iran to the end. Across the political and security establishment, there is near unanimity that there is a rare window of opportunity to bring about a historic turning point in Iran, and as a result in the entire region. Are there risks? Absolutely. But Israel appears ready to take them, provided it believes other chances for meaningful change have been fully exhausted. It is difficult to find anyone in Israel who believes a good agreement with Iran is achievable. A good agreement, in Israeli terms, would permanently halt all nuclear activity under strict and continuous supervision; limit Iran's missile program to production volumes and ranges that do not threaten Israel, under a rigid monitoring mechanism that does not currently exist; and completely end Tehran's support for its proxy organizations across the region. Even if such an agreement were signed, few in Israel believe Iran would honor it. Without the nuclear program, the missile arsenal, the network of proxy organizations and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij militia, there is no revolution and no regime.

(Times of Israel) Ella Rosenberg - Tehran appears to believe that destabilizing the Persian Gulf, targeting oil tankers, and threatening the energy infrastructure of Arab states will serve as an effective lever of pressure that will force the Americans to back down. This reflects a fundamental misreading of today's geopolitical reality. These moves, in practice, are accelerating Iran's isolation and strengthening the very regional alliances it fears. Striking Gulf states is a reckless gamble. Any disruption in the Persian Gulf - one of the world's most vital energy corridors - is not a localized incident but a trigger for expanded Western surveillance, intelligence deployment, and interception capabilities. Tehran appears to assume that heightened aggression will cause Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain to distance themselves from the West out of fear of escalation. Yet the opposite is happening. Iran is deepening the historic rift between itself and the Sunni Arab world, pushing these countries to rely more heavily on the American security umbrella and, in some cases, on emerging regional security frameworks that include Israel. Through its own actions, Iran has transformed Israel into a relevant security partner in Gulf defense. The writer is an Iran and financial terrorism expert at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.

(Jerusalem Post) James Genn - Former Gaza hostage Matan Angrest told Israel's Channel 12 that he was tortured, including by electrocution, during his time in Hamas captivity, in an interview broadcast on Thursday. "I woke up in Gaza in some house, and could not open my eyes or move my hand - my hand was burned," Angrest said, describing the first moments he recalls. "Someone came to me with two wires and put them on my wounds. I felt like I was being electrocuted. I screamed in pain, and then he did it to me again." Over time, his Hamas interrogators, who knew he was part of a tank crew, kept increasing the pressure. "They tortured me to the extreme. Electric shocks - trauma that will stay with me." Angrest was released in October 2025 after 738 days in captivity.

(Times of Israel) Aviram Bellaishe - In February 2023, weeks after an earthquake killed thousands in Syria, 100 trucks of humanitarian aid sat stranded because Assad's regime demanded more than half the cargo. Turkish-backed groups blocked another 30. This was an example of a system that fed wars while claiming to fight them. When President Trump dismantled USAID, his diagnosis was not wrong. The multilateral pipeline was compromised structurally. But in that vacuum, Hamas regroups, the Houthis consolidate, and every armed actor who profited from the aid economy waits for the spigot to reopen. Over 60 years, the humanitarian aid pipeline has become a revenue stream for armed actors. An August 2025 study by Hebrew University researchers examined eight conflict zones and found that in the most acute cases, over 80% of aid never reached its intended recipients. Agencies struck quiet deals with armed groups. Field reports downplayed diversion to protect funding. In Gaza, captured Hamas documents show the group directed up to 25% of aid to its military. The aid wasn't just stolen. It was the terror economy's revenue stream. Aid in a conflict zone that does not include deradicalization is not neutral. It is assistance to the regime that controls the classrooms. In Gaza, aid that feeds bodies while Hamas feeds minds is aid to Hamas. In Yemen, food distribution that strengthens Houthi control over who eats is a military operation with a humanitarian label. The writer, vice president of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, has served in senior government positions for over 25 years.

(Henry Jackson Society) Barak M. Seener and Dr. David Wurmser - Israel's traditional security doctrine - centered on deterrence, containment, and reactive defense - has been transformed in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre. The doctrine of defensive restraint and status-quo management has failed and cannot be restored. Such a posture is incompatible with the current security environment. The new phase is marked by the State of Israel projecting power more frequently at a greater range across the region. Israel must institutionalize the new doctrine of preventive power projection that authorizes sustained action against emerging threats beyond Israel's borders. Prevention would deny adversaries the ability to regenerate military capabilities. This report lays out a multidimensional blueprint that fuses deterrence with preventive action, diplomacy, trade corridors, and defense technology as instruments of statecraft. Israel must convert battlefield advantage into political outcomes by professionalizing strategic communications, strengthening the Abraham Accords, and shaping regional alignments against the Iranian regime and the Qatar- and Turkey-backed Muslim Brotherhood axis.