On Thursday night a damning report found Iran had failed to comply with its nuclear obligations — the first time in almost 20 years.
Tensions had already been brewing between Iran and the UN’s nuclear watchdog, who published the report, for several years.
This latest stand-off had sparked fears Iran would respond by escalating its nuclear program, which it had threatened to do in the past.
Less than 24 hours after the report was handed down, Israel struck.
The beginning of 'Operation Rising Lion'
Early on Friday local time Israel launched strikes on dozens of targets in Iran.
The strikes targeted the country’s nuclear sites, killing both scientists and members of Iran’s elite paramilitary unit.
According to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, the operation — dubbed "Operation Rising Lion" by Israel — came in two parts.
In the first, swarms of smaller drones swept in, striking air-defence radars and communications nodes, saturating early warning systems.
In the second, hundreds of Israeli fighter aircraft conducted precision strikes on more than 100 targets across the country.
Also hit were sites linked to Iran’s air defences and missile bases, hindering any plan to retaliate.
Hours later, Iran hit back, firing multiple waves of ballistic missiles into Israel.
Air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem before dawn, sending residents rushing to shelters.
According to Israel many of the missiles were intercepted by its Iron Dome defence system.
The Israeli military said rescue teams were operating at a number of locations across the country.
By Saturday morning local time, Israeli officials said three people had been killed.
Later, several explosions were heard in Tehran.
According to Fars news agency, two projectiles hit the city’s Mehrabad Airport.
The retaliatory strikes continued in the hours that followed and tensions have since showed little sign of settling down.
It has raised fears of escalating the broader regional conflict — despite Iran's allies in Gaza and Lebanon having already been decimated by Israel.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused Israel of starting a war.
Israeli officials have called its strikes on Iran's nuclear sites "an act of national preservation".
A fraught relationship fuelled by the nuclear arms race
Relations between both nations have been tense for many years.
Past clashes have stemmed both from Israel's mission to prevent Iran from both equipping its allies and to keep Iran from building a nuclear arsenal.
In 2010 a computer virus believed to be a joint US-Israeli creation disrupted and destroyed centrifuges at Iran's nuclear facilities.
Eight years later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alleged Israel had obtained tens of thousands of pages of data from a Tehran warehouse.
He claimed the papers — dubbed the "nuclear archive" by Israeli officials — showed Iran covered up its nuclear program before signing a 2015 nuclear deal.
The 2015 deal would have prevented Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons for more than a decade.
It was explicitly opposed by Israel — a position backed by US President Donald Trump just a few years later during his first term in office.
By December 2017, Mr Trump had issued new sanctions on Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
By May the following year he had officially ended US involvement in the deal.
Sabotage efforts against Iran's nuclear program continued.
In 2019, Israel carried out a series of attacks in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, accusing Iran of creating an arms supply line across several countries.
In July 2020 a mysterious explosion tore apart a production plant at Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment facility.
Iran blamed the attack on Israel.
[jerusalem ] More attacks followed, including a cyber attack which caused a blackout at the Natanz facility.
October 26 last year marked the first time Israel had openly attacked Iran — striking air defence systems and sites associated with the missile program.
Both countries have been involved in talks with the US trying to reach a deal, but discussions have so far been fraught.
Following a meeting with Mr Trump at the White House in April, Mr Netanyahu said a deal between the US and Tehran could only work if Iran's nuclear facilities were blown up.
"We go in, blow up the facilities, dismantle all the equipment, under American supervision and American execution," he said.
"A second possibility is that this does not happen [and Iran] simply drags out talks. And then the option is military. Everyone understands this."
Iran urged to make a deal or risk 'more brutal' attacks
The sixth round of US-Iran nuclear talks were scheduled to be held on Sunday, but their fate was as yet unknown.
For Iran, more talks appear "meaningless" after the repeated back and forth attacks.
It has since accused Washington of supporting Israel’s attack.
"The other side [the US] acted in a way that makes dialogue meaningless," the semi-official Tasnim new agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei as saying.
"You cannot claim to negotiate and at the same time divide work by allowing the Zionist regime [Israel] to target Iran's territory."
Washington has denied being complicit in the attacks.
President Donald Trump appeared to see the attacks as all the more incentive for Iran to reach a nuclear deal.
Iran, he said, had brought the violence on itself.
"I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal," he wrote on Truth Social, warning of potentially "more brutal" attacks to come.
"I told them, in the strongest of words, to 'just do it', but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn't get it done.
"Make a deal, before there is nothing left."
ABC/Reuters/AP
