Currently Online 
Israel’s retaliatory attack not targeting Iran energy infrastructure, Israeli military source says
Israel’s retaliatory targets on Iran do not include energy infrastructure, an Israeli military source tells CNN.
The source said Saturday’s attack on Iran was 100% Israeli, but there continues to be “deep cooperation” with the United States, including on aerial defenses.
Earlier this month Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, assured the United States that a counterstrike on Iran will be limited to military targets rather than oil or nuclear facilities, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
Extent of Israel’s attacks a major question
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft think tank, says the extent of tonight’s Israeli attacks on Iran remains a major question.
“If the attack is as extensive as the Israelis themselves claim that it is – numerous targets across the country, not just in Tehran – it dramatically increases the likelihood that the Iranians will respond,” Parsi told Al Jazeera.
“And then in the next round, the Israelis are quite likely to go after nuclear sites, and go after oil installations and economic infrastructure – and at that point, we will be inside of a regional war.”
Israeli plan to strike Iran awaited order from Prime Minister Netanyahu
Just in the last couple of minutes, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel has released a very short statement saying that the prime minister has been at the operations centre at the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv and that he was there while this strike against Iran was ongoing.
What we have also heard from Israeli media in the past hour is that the security cabinet had approved the plan for the strike against Iran and that they were, essentially, waiting for the order from the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
It seems, of course, that has happened now.
Antony Blinken cutting short Middle East trip seen as sign of ‘imminent’ attack
There was a lot of speculation that this strike was going to be imminent because US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was supposed to be in the region for, perhaps, a week.
That trip in the region did not last a week. It only lasted a few days. Then he went on to London where he met with several Arab leaders to discuss the situation in the region.
The fact that he left earlier than had been anticipated – and the fact that we know the US has been discussing so often with Israel the scope of this potential attack against Iran – there was a lot of speculation in the media that perhaps this strike could be happening much sooner rather than later.
