Israel says months of planning led to surprise Iran strikes

The Israeli military said it spent months preparing its campaign of simultaneous airstrikes targeting senior Iranian political and military officials at several locations in Tehran on Saturday.

The plan included a major intelligence effort to “identify an operational opportunity at the moment when senior regime officials would convene,” the military said. A decision was made to strike in the morning rather than at night despite Iranian preparedness, and the army said it succeeded in “achieving tactical surprise for the second time,” referring to its strikes during the June 2025 war.

Intelligence officers spent thousands of hours compiling targets, increasing their number “by hundreds of percent,” and conducted research “in parallel with precise location tracking of Iranian commanders and senior leadership,” the military said. It added that US confidence in Israel’s “intelligence and operational capabilities” was a significant factor in Washington’s decision to join the operation.