The US-Iran war: the US and Israeli strikes and Iran's retaliation

The US military initially reported three service members killed and five seriously wounded in the offensive's first days.^[19] Iranian drones hit the US Embassy compound in Saudi Arabia,^[3] Iranian missiles wounded people in southern Israeli towns,^[4] and Iran struck a large gas facility in Qatar after an Israeli attack on an Iranian gas field.^[5] At sea, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a US submarine had sunk an Iranian warship.^[20]

The harm to civilians became a central question after a girls' school in Minab, southern Iran, was struck. Iranian officials and local reports said many children were killed.^[11] Later reporting on a preliminary US military assessment pointed to a US missile and outdated targeting information.^[12]

The exchange did not end with the first wave. In May, the US military said it made further strikes on Iranian missile launch sites.^[7] In June, another US round of attacks was followed by Iranian fire toward Gulf states and Jordan.^[8] Heavy US strikes resumed in July, with Iran again firing missiles and drones at US positions and regional targets.^[9] Reports later described US attacks extending to Iranian bridges and renewed incoming fire toward Bahrain and Kuwait.^[6] In late August, US forces struck targets in Iran after a reported pause in military action.^[10]

Both sides prepared for more fighting in October. Iran's commanders signaled that they were readying for another round of war,^[21] and reports said the United States and Israel were drawing up plans to resume strikes after the US midterm elections, with Netanyahu pressing Trump to act.^[14] On October 22, Netanyahu said he had directed Israel's military and the Mossad to pursue the overthrow of Iran's government.^[22]

The threats grew on both sides before the election. A US intelligence memo warned that Iran had ramped up efforts to target US personnel,^[23] the Pentagon prepared options for restarting major combat as Trump showed ambivalence,^[24] and US officials told regional allies to prepare for possible action after the midterms.^[25] Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei told Iran's top commanders that any new attack must be met with an immediate response,^[26] and Gulf states feared a more destructive war.^[27] An Associated Press analysis found that Iran's earlier strikes on more than two dozen US bases had focused on early-warning systems before hitting aircraft and buildings, causing billions of dollars in damage.^[28] The November 2 strikes on Qeshm, in the Strait of Hormuz, left many in the region on edge about what would come next.^[13][29]

After the midterms, the strikes stayed limited. On November 6 the United States hit Iran's air defense systems in strikes Trump called "minor,"^[15] and two days later he said it was "highly unlikely" he would need to order the country back to war as long as negotiations over Iran's nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz made progress.^[16] Iranian forces then reportedly attacked ship navigation systems on Oman's island of Didamar in the strait, saying the facilities were helping the enemy's oil smuggling.^[30] Iran's security chief warned that Tehran would strike US bases in Europe if they were used to attack Iran.^[31] On November 13, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had destroyed a US early-warning radar in Bahrain in retaliation for a US strike on a telecommunications tower in southern Iran, Iran's first claimed attack on a US military site in a Gulf country in about two months. The US military denied it, saying it had shot down two drones headed for Bahrain and nothing was harmed.^[17][32]