Smuggled drones inside Iran to launch them and confuse the Iranian air defence system. Attacking from within is a common trait between these attacks and Ukrainian Operation Spiderweb
Israel used a new and brilliant strategy to disable Iran’s air defence system, which included smuggling in over 2,000 Israeli drones inside Iran and launching them from within Iranian airspace. When Drones are released from and into your own airspace, the radars and operators presume they are local Iranian drones since the origin of radar signature is from a point inside Iran.
Unlike aircraft, low cost drones don’t have unique digital identifiable signatures as there are simply too many low cost drones in the world. So Israel hit several targets using these drones and simultaneously hit the control system of Iranian Air Defense through a vicious cyber attack engineered from Israel.
Israel kept the Iranian Air Defense disabled long enough for the GPS to fail in Iran. Without GPS each S-300 in Iran was completely on their own since the Navigational Seeking was not working. The Israeli F-35s fired missiles towards Iranian targets from Iraqi territory, firing AGM 158 missiles on various targets while the S-300s in Iran had to fire on manual mode, which meant low percentage of counter attacks. Iran’s inability to use the radar (which was on the destroyed integrated network) and rely on manual sighting (Since GPS was also jammed) made them lose a lot of targets to Israeli missiles.
Israel dominated the skies in Iran with drones launched from within Iran, F-35 strikes with AGM-158 missiles from Iraqi airspace and after the cyber attacks and GPS lockout, Israeli drones were also launched from Azerbaijan into Iran.
Then China helped Iran
China enabled their BEIDOU navigation to Iran to protect key targets and integrate the Iranian S-400s on a Chinese platform that was immune to Israeli cyber attacks. The targets that were protected thus included Khamenei and other key targets inside Tehran. Once the Chinese rebooted the Iranian air defense system, the S-400s and S-300s became operational causing the F-35s to leave Iranian airspace. The Israeli drones were shot down. Almost all of them were rendered useless. It was then that Iran could bring out their launchers and fire wave after wave of ballistics towards Israel.
The Iran–Israel war, also known as the Twelve-Day War (13 June – 24 June 2025), was an armed conflict in the Middle East, in the midst of the Gaza war and its broader regional spillover.
From 13 June 2025, Israel launched surprise attacks on key military and nuclear facilities in Iran, assassinated prominent Iranian military leaders, nuclear scientists, and politicians, and damaged or destroyed Iran’s air defenses. Iran retaliated with over 550 ballistic missiles and more than 1,000 suicide drones, and hit at least twelve military, energy, and government sites.
The United States intercepted Iranian missiles and drones, and bombed three Iranian nuclear sites on the ninth day of the war. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at a US base in Qatar. On 24 June, Israel and Iran agreed a ceasefire under US pressure.
The war is an escalation of a decades-long proxy war. Iran has challenged Israel’s legitimacy, called for its destruction, and armed Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Following the October 7 attacks in 2023, both entered open conflict with Israel. Direct conflict began in April 2024 when Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing senior Iranian officials, and the countries traded strikes in April and October.
This also follows more than a decade of international concern about Iran’s nuclear program, which Israel considers an existential threat. In 2015, under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), six countries lifted sanctions on Iran, which froze its nuclear program.
In 2018, US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew. Iran began stockpiling enriched uranium and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) lost most of its ability to monitor Iran’s nuclear facilities. On 12 June 2025, the IAEA passed a resolution drafted by the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany that declared Iran non-compliant with its nuclear obligations. Israel began strikes the following day.
Iran’s nuclear facilities were extensively damaged. The IAEA and many observers believe Iran evacuated its stockpile of enriched uranium, and its nuclear program was set back only a few months. Other analysts and Israeli and Western officials disagreed, giving a longer timeline. Iran subsequently suspended cooperation with the IAEA, claiming all shared data about scientists and locations of nuclear facilities with this organization had been passed on to Israel.
