Jonathan Sacerdoti

Where’s your nearest bomb shelter? And how long would it take you to get there? What about at work? Have you downloaded an early warning app for alerts when there’s an incoming missile attack? If you live in Britain, you probably can’t answer most of these questions. I have no idea where my nearest shelter is. So what will you do when the time comes? All this might be purely theoretical. But it is not impossible Israelis can answer all these questions and have been able to for years. Of course – they live under the constant threat of missile attack. They’ve had to implement effective monitoring, alerts and shelter provisions.

As the war approaches the end of its third week, US and Israeli strikes inside Iran continue to intensify and repeated missile launches toward Israel continue to send the civilian population into shelters constantly. President Donald Trump said he had instructed Israel to stop targeting Iranian oil and gas facilities, a request Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Israel would honour going forward. This came as a hit was identified at Israel's oil refineries in Haifa, with Iranian media describing the strike as retaliation for earlier attacks on the South Pars gas field. It is not clear whether the disagreement between Israel and the US in this matter is genuine, or part of the theatre of war designed to permit some independence of action between the two nations.

The United States has carried out what President Donald Trump described as one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East, striking Iran’s most important oil export hub on Kharg Island as the war draws to the end of its second week. Iran has attacked tankers and threatened to close the route entirely In a statement posted online, Trump said U.S. Central Command had “totally obliterated every MILITARY target” on the island, which he described as Iran’s “crown jewel”. Kharg Island, a five-mile-long outpost about 19 miles off the Iranian coast, accounts for roughly 90 per cent of the country’s oil exports. Despite the scale of the attack, Trump said he had deliberately chosen not to destroy the island’s oil infrastructure.

Overnight on Wednesday, around 100 Basij soldiers were killed across Tehran by dozens to hundreds of suicide drones in a covert operation some are comparing to Israel’s previous pager operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The drones hit Basij bases, motorcycles, and vehicles, targeting IRGC, Basij, and special forces checkpoints. Inside Israel, political debate is intensifying over the war’s long-term objectives Iraq also experienced a heavy night of strikes against pro-Iranian militias. At the same time, the regime in Iran continues its efforts at self-preservation through sustained attrition from within Iran and on other fronts.

As the war continues, the Iranian regime has pressed ahead with appointing its new Supreme Leader. Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ali Khamenei, was formally elevated in Tehran even as Israeli and American strikes continue to dismantle the regime’s military leadership, its fighting forces and its air defences – a striking dynastic turn for a system that has long presented itself as a revolutionary republic rather than a hereditary regime. Having watched Israel systematically eliminate senior figures around him while degrading the regime’s ability to fight and defend itself, the new leader may reasonably wonder whether his days could be numbered.