The Twelve-Day War was an armed conflict between Iran and Israel which lasted from 13 to 24 June 2025. It began when Israel bombed military and nuclear facilities in Iran in a surprise attack, assassinating prominent military leaders, nuclear scientists, and politicians, killing civilians, and damaging or destroying air defenses. Iran retaliated with over 550 ballistic missiles and over 1,000 suicide drones, hitting civilian population centers, one hospital and at least twelve military, energy, and government sites. The United States intercepted Iranian attacks and bombed three Iranian nuclear sites on 22 June. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at a US base in Qatar. On 24 June, Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire under US pressure.
The war followed a decades-long proxy conflict in which Iran supported an Axis of Resistance against Israeli and US interests in the region. Iran's development of nuclear enrichment capabilities has been an international controversy for decades, with Israel and its allies seeking to prevent Iranian nuclear weapons development. In 2015, under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), six countries lifted sanctions on Iran, which froze its nuclear program. In 2018, US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the plan. Iran began stockpiling enriched uranium and largely suspended International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring. Following the October 7 attacks in 2023, both Hamas and Hezbollah entered into open conflict with Israel. In April 2024, Israel bombed Iran's consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing senior Iranian military officials. Direct conflict continued in April and October of 2024. The day before Israel started the Twelve-Day War in June 2025, the IAEA declared Iran non-compliant with its nuclear obligations in a resolution put forward by the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
Israel's attacks, which reportedly involved commando units and Mossad operatives in Iran, killed several of Iran's military leaders, leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and at least 10 leading nuclear scientists. The war saw internet blackouts by the Iranian government. Israeli and US airstrikes damaged the nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow, damaging them extensively. Iran suspended cooperation with the IAEA, which it said had passed information about nuclear facilities and scientists to Israel. Iran's total death toll has been estimated at between 1,060 and 1,190; thousands were wounded, tens of thousands were displaced, and the government ordered internet blackouts. Israel struck high-rise buildings, including apartments. Iranian missiles struck military and government sites, apartments, a research center, and a hospital.
The United Nations and most countries expressed deep concern over Israel's strikes and called for a diplomatic solution. The strikes were condemned by many countries, including most Muslim-majority and Arab states. The International Commission of Jurists and some other legal scholars saw the Israeli strikes as a violation of international law. Meanwhile, Argentina, Germany, Ukraine, and the United States said the strikes on Iran were justified to prevent nuclear proliferation and said Iran should agree to a nuclear deal promptly. Nine months later, on 28 February 2026, Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iran, beginning the 2026 Iran war.
The Twelve-Day War, also known as the Second Imposed War by Iran, was an armed conflict between Iran and Israel which lasted from 13 to 24 June 2025. It began when Israel bombed military and nuclear facilities in Iran in a surprise attack, assassinating prominent military leaders, nuclear scientists, and politicians, killing civilians, and damaging or destroying air defenses. Iran retaliated with over 550 ballistic missiles and over 1,000 suicide drones, hitting civilian population centers, one hospital and at least twelve military, energy, and government sites. The United States intercepted Iranian attacks and bombed three Iranian nuclear sites on 22 June. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at a US base in Qatar. On 24 June, Israel and Iran agreed to a ceasefire under US pressure.
The war followed a decades-long proxy conflict in which Iran supported an Axis of Resistance against Israeli and US interests in the region. Iran's development of nuclear enrichment capabilities has been an international controversy for decades, with Israel and its allies seeking to prevent Iranian nuclear weapons development. In 2015, under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), six countries lifted sanctions on Iran, which froze its nuclear program. In 2018, US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the plan. Iran began stockpiling enriched uranium and largely suspended International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring. Following the October 7 attacks in 2023, both Hamas and Hezbollah entered into open conflict with Israel. In April 2024, Israel bombed Iran's consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing senior Iranian military officials. Direct conflict continued in April and October of 2024. The day before Israel started the Twelve-Day War in June 2025, the IAEA declared Iran non-compliant with its nuclear obligations in a resolution put forward by the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
Israel's attacks, which reportedly involved commando units and Mossad operatives in Iran, killed several of Iran's military leaders, leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and at least 10 leading nuclear scientists. The war saw internet blackouts by the Iranian government. Israeli and US airstrikes damaged the nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow, damaging them extensively. Iran suspended cooperation with the IAEA, which it said had passed information about nuclear facilities and scientists to Israel. Iran's total death toll has been estimated at between 1,060 and 1,190; thousands were wounded, tens of thousands were displaced, and the government ordered internet blackouts. Israel struck high-rise buildings, including apartments. Iranian missiles struck military and government sites, apartments, a research center, and a hospital.
The United Nations and most countries expressed deep concern over Israel's strikes and called for a diplomatic solution. The strikes were condemned by many countries, including most Muslim-majority and Arab states. The International Commission of Jurists and some other legal scholars saw the Israeli strikes as a violation of international law. Meanwhile, Argentina, Germany, Ukraine, and the United States said the strikes on Iran were justified to prevent nuclear proliferation and said Iran should agree to a nuclear deal promptly. Nine months later, on 28 February 2026, Israel and the United States launched strikes on Iran, beginning the 2026 Iran war.
Name
Donald Trump first labeled the conflict as the "12 day war" in his announcement of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Iran on 23 June 2025. AP News speculated the title was a reference to the 1967 Six-Day War, fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states. A few days afterwards, American academic Howard Stoffer also compared the two wars to each other, and Reuters began using "12-day war" as a descriptive title; however, some experts initially doubted that Trump's coining would catch on. Ultimately, the standardized name "Twelve-Day War" or "Twelve Day War" entered into common usage by late 2025. In Iran, however, the conflict is labeled as the "Second Imposed War".
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited Iran's nuclear program as the reason Israel preemptively struck Iran. The country developed a covert nuclear weapons program named the AMAD Project in the 1980s and 1990s, which, according to US intelligence assessments, was suspended in 2003.
Iran had consistently said that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes and that it has never intended to develop nuclear weapons. However, since 2019, it had repeatedly violated the terms of the previous nuclear deal of 2015, and in June 2025 the IAEA reported that Iran had acquired enough enriched uranium to produce nine nuclear warheads.
In 2015, six countries negotiated with Iran the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal to lift sanctions on Iran and freeze Iran's nuclear program. In 2018, after being briefed on evidence that Iran sought to resume its nuclear weapons development, U.S. president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from and voided the deal – despite the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran was keeping to the deal. After the withdrawal Iran began stockpiling enriched uranium, and the IAEA lost the ability to monitor Iran's nuclear facilities.
In a letter addressed to the president of the UN Security Council, the foreign ministers of France, Britain and Germany (E3) stated that since 2019, Iran had "increasingly and deliberately ceased performing its JCPOA commitments", including "the accumulation of a highly enriched uranium stockpile which lacks any credible civilian justification and is unprecedented for a state without a nuclear weapons program," a statement confirmed by the IAEA. The letter detailed additional Iranian violations of the agreement despite the fact that the E3 "have consistently upheld their agreements under the terms of the JCPOA".
In March 2025, US Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified that the US intelligence community assessed that "Iran is not building a nuclear weapon". A month later, Trump announced negotiations between the United States and Iran regarding Iran's nuclear program. The White House declared that Iran had two months to secure a deal, which expired the day before Israel's strikes. On 31 May 2025, the IAEA issued a report in which it stated that Iran had enough uranium enriched up to 60% for the production of nine nuclear weapons, and enough for additional weapons at lower enrichment levels.
On 12 June 2025, the IAEA board of governors passed a resolution, drafted by the US, UK, France and Germany, that declared that Iran was non-compliant with its nuclear obligations for the first time since September 2005. IAEA director general Rafael Grossi stated in an interview that the IAEA did "not have any proof of a systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon", on the other hand, in his statement to the board of governors on 9 June he stated that "Unless and until Iran assists the agency in resolving the outstanding safeguards issues, the Agency will not be in a position to provide assurance that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful".
Axis of Resistance
Israel has fought wars with Iranian proxies including against Hezbollah since the 1982 Lebanon War. In the October 7 attacks in 2023, Hamas, an Iranian proxy in Gaza, started the Gaza war, following which Israel severely weakened both Hamas and fellow Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, while also attacking the Houthis in Yemen. This is said to have weakened Iranian deterrence and increased Iranian isolation.
Gaza war
Israel's strikes on Iran came against the backdrop of its ongoing war with Iran-aligned Hamas in Gaza and a broader escalation of its military actions across the region, including Israeli military activity in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and the occupied West Bank. They also came in the context of a risk of famine and humanitarian crisis in the Israeli blockaded Gaza Strip that a growing number of scholars and human rights organizations have described as a genocide. In the weeks leading up to Israeli attacks, the Israeli government faced international pressure over the high risk of famine in Gaza and killing of civilians. Even Israel's allies in Europe had become critical of the starvation in Gaza, and the EU had announced it would reconsider its free-trade deal with Israel. Political scientists stated that the attack on Iran provided a distraction from Israel's actions in Gaza. Nesrine Malik said the attack was an attempt by Israel to bring a Europe alienated by Israel's action in the suffering in Gaza back to its side.
Announcement
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Operation Rising Lion, targeting Iran's main enrichment facility in Natanz, its nuclear scientists, and parts of its ballistic missile program. He described Iran's nuclear efforts as "a clear and present danger to Israel's very survival", and said the operation would continue "for as many days as it takes".
In a speech announcing the attack, Netanyahu stated that for decades, Iran's leaders had openly called for Israel's destruction and warned that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon "in a very short time. It could be a year. It could be within a few months, less than a year."
Timeline
13 June
In the early hours of 13 June 2025, the IDF attacked dozens of Iranian nuclear facilities, military bases and infrastructure installations, and key military commanders. By 06:30 IDT, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) had launched five waves of air strikes, using more than 200 fighter jets to drop more than 330 munitions on about 100 targets. Israeli targets included the Natanz Nuclear Facility and other infrastructure of Iran's nuclear program, with no nuclear accidents occurring as a result of the airstrikes. Meanwhile, the Mossad operatives along with commando forces sabotaged Iran's air defense systems and missile infrastructure. An Israeli official said the Mossad had smuggled precision weapons and established a covert drone base near Tehran, which were used to disable air defenses, securing air superiority for Israeli aircraft. The operations in the early hours, which killed 30 Iranian generals in minutes as well as nine nuclear scientists, are referred to as Operation Red Wedding and Operation Narnia.
Israel conducted strikes in Tabriz in the early afternoon, reportedly targeting an area near Tabriz Airport. Explosions also occurred at the Hamadan Airbase the Parchin military base, and the subterranean Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant. The IDF later confirmed striking the Hamadan and Tabriz airbases and the Isfahan Nuclear Technology/Research Center. Iranian media reported that at least two Israeli fighter jets were downed over Iranian airspace and a female pilot was captured. The IDF denied this.
After the Israeli attack, Iranian leaders promised a "harsh response", with attacks against Israeli and US forces in military bases across the Middle East. Shortly thereafter, Iran launched missiles and drones at military bases and air bases under the codename Operation True Promise III. These included more than 100 Shahed drones, according to IDF Brigadier General Effie Defrin. The US evacuated some of its troops from Iraq and also authorized the evacuation of family members of US troops across the region. Around 9 p.m. IDT—10 minutes before dozens of missiles hit—Israeli citizens received IDF Home Front Command phone alerts about an incoming attack. Some Iranian missiles hit targets in Tel Aviv including the Da Vinci high-rise apartment building and shopping centre on the corner of Leonardo da Vinci and Kaplan Streets immediately bordering the Kirya military headquarters near Begin Road; others were shot down. Sirens were activated in Amman, Jordan's capital. Some drones were intercepted by the Royal Jordanian Air Force in Jordanian air space; some by the IAF over Saudi Arabia and Syria. Various Israeli sources said that an order for Israeli civilians to seek shelter was later lifted, suggesting that a majority or all of the drones were destroyed. An intercepted drone fell on a house and wounded three people in Irbid, Jordan.
Several hours later, Iranian state media announced that accurate military and intelligence sites had been targeted in retaliation for earlier Israeli attacks on Iranian territory.
At least 63 Israelis were injured: one critically, one seriously, eight mildly, and the rest lightly, according to Magen David Adom. One civilian woman later died of her wounds. Seven soldiers were lightly injured. The Israel Fire and Rescue Services rescued two people from a building struck in Tel Aviv, while the IDF's Home Front Command rescued another civilian from a building in the city. The IDF estimated that around 150 ballistic missiles were fired in two waves during the attack, which did little damage. Al-Mayadeen reports that Iranian missiles struck a nuclear energy research facility in Tel Aviv. The Israeli military has prohibited the public from sharing photos and videos depicting the damage and destruction resulting from the Iranian missile attack. Elsewhere, The Houthis fired a ballistic missile from Yemen at Jerusalem. It landed in Sa'ir, West Bank, injuring five Palestinians, including three children.