While all kinds of political and strategic stories in Israel, the US, and Iran led to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give the order to go to war with Iran, there is a specific one regarding operational intelligence that needed to happen to green light this.
In October 2024, the IDF began to fixate on establishing a real operation plan that could actually take down Iran’s nuclear program and any other elements of its national power that could severely threaten Israel.
Already in mid-2023, IDF intelligence and the Israel Air Force had pinpointed hundreds of potential targets to strike in a hypothetical war.
Still, these plans were divorced from converting the theoretical attack into a specific, real-world moment that would also allow for the element of surprise that Israel favored.
At the end of November 2024, IDF intelligence and the air force held a 10-hour-long conference with the goal of arriving at a formula and strategy for striking as quickly as possible at Iran’s military centers of gravity to eliminate the threat against Israel.
Military intelligence designated a particular office for around 120 soldiers and officers to work on the issue, including breaking down into teams, each of which would focus on a different category of targeting.
The categories in question included nuclear threats, ballistic missile threats, drones, top commanders, communications, air defenses, military-industrial complex production, economic power, and governance.
By December 2024, the IDF’s intelligence staff still felt that they were a far cry from resolving how to crack Iran’s national power rapidly and efficiently before the Islamic Republic could strike back against Israel with all of its fury.
In January, the pressure escalated further, but IDF intelligence still felt that it had not identified the key center of gravity.
At one point, it thought that it might have reached a dead end and needed to inform the political echelon that the ambitions of a quick knockout war against Iran were beyond its planning capabilities.
IDF intelligence shifted gears
However, by February or March, IDF intelligence shifted its focus from concentrating on one center of gravity to multiple ones.
This was much harder and more complex work, requiring many more elements of targeting. However, one IDF intelligence officer accepted the scope of the challenge, and they found that, while difficult, it was not impossible.
By April, the plans were ready.
Factoring in Iran’s quick recovery after its ballistic missile production program was hit in October 2024 (after which Israeli officials said the production would be setback by years) and following intelligence showing that Iran could double its production of such missiles by the end of 2025, advances by Tehran’s nuclear weapons group, and developments with Iranian plans with its proxies to try to destroy Israel, June 13 became the right moment to launch the attacks.