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Two confidence votes, each fewer than seven days apart, tell much of the story of Israel’s political transformation since it launched attacks on longstanding regional nemesis Iran on Friday.

Early on Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government narrowly survived a vote that ensured its continuation after an 11th-hour deal was reached with ultra-Orthodox parties who are a key force within it. Had a deal not been found, then parliament would have been dissolved and new elections called, leaving Netanyahu vulnerable as opposition against him grew.

But then on Monday, a similar attempt to dissolve parliament failed miserably after no confidence motions brought forward by parties led by Palestinian citizens of Israel failed to attract any support from the centre and the right.

Of course, in between, Israel had launched its attacks on Iran, upending domestic Israeli politics as well as regional geopolitics.

Rejecting Monday’s no confidence motions, opposition politician Pnina Tamano-Shata – who has been critical of Netanyahu in the past – told lawmakers the efforts were “disconnected from reality”.

That is now the mainstream view in Israeli politics, with opposition parties falling into line behind Netanyahu and a war against Iran that the prime minister has been promoting for at least two decades.

Writing in Israeli media the day after Israel’s strikes on Iran began, former Prime Minister and self-styled centrist Yair Lapid, who less than a month earlier had been calling upon the prime minister to seek a truce in Gaza, wrote of his full support for the attacks on Iran while urging the United States to participate in the war. He was then pictured shaking Netanyahu’s hand with a map of Iran on a wall behind the two men.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met today with Leader of the Opposition MK Yair Lapid for a security update. pic.twitter.com/dvCMEjivXb

Former right-wing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, whom polls have shown to be a favourite to replace Netanyahu if early elections were called, also told Israeli media: “There is no right, no left, no opposition and no coalition” in regard to the attacks on Iran.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Tuesday, Aida Touma-Suleiman, a member of parliament representing the Hadash-Ta’al Party, said: “Politically, the switch to supporting the war by the main opposition isn’t surprising. It took them a year and a half to say it’s forbidden to kill children. It will probably take them another year and a half to realise they don’t automatically have to fall in behind Netanyahu every time there’s a new crisis.”

“There are no voices in Israel questioning this, apart from us, and we’re Palestinians and leftists, so apparently not to be trusted,” Touma-Suleiman said. “Even those who call themselves the Zionist left are supporting the war.”

“Israelis are raised being told they’re in danger and that they’re going to need to do everything they can to survive,” she added.

Changed fortunes

Only last week, things seemed very different. Domestically, Netanyahu and his coalition were under pressure from a parliament, public and even military that appeared to have grown tired of the country’s seemingly endless war on Gaza.

Open letters protesting the burden that the war was imposing upon Israeli lives and, in some cases, Palestinian ones had come from members of the military and from within its universities and colleges. Large numbers of reservists were also believed to be refusing to turn up for duty.

There was also pressure to hold an inquiry into Netanyahu and his government’s failure to prevent the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, and a corruption trial that has haunted Netanyahu since 2019 rumbled on.

Now, the prime minister leads a public and parliament that, apart from a few notable exceptions, appears united behind his leadership and its new attacks upon an old enemy, Iran. That is despite the unprecedented attacks that Israel has faced over the past week with ballistic missiles crashing into Tel Aviv, Haifa and other Israeli cities – killing at least 24 Israelis.

On Monday, a poll conducted by Israel’s Channel 14 showed “overwhelming” public support for the prime minister with editorials and coverage across much of the Israeli media similarly supportive of the prime minister.

On Tuesday, one of the country’s leading newspapers, The Times of Israel, echoed the claims of politicians, such as Lapid, that Iran was committing war crimes in response to Israel’s unprovoked attacks on Friday, itself deemed illegal by some legal scholars. No mention was made of the accusations of genocide against Israel being considered by the International Court of Justice or the warrants for war crimes issued against Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant by the International Criminal Court.

“Through a [long] campaign led by Netanyahu and others, the idea that Iran is the source of all anti-Israeli sentiment in the region, not the plight of the Palestinians, who are occupied and subjected to ethnic cleansing, has largely become entrenched within Israeli politics,” Israeli political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg said of the dramatic political unity that has followed on the heels of Friday’s attacks. “The idea that Iran is the source of all evil has become embedded across Israeli society.”

Uncertain future

However, Netanyahu has squandered support before, and he may do so again.

Much like in Gaza, Netanyahu has set maximalist war aims. In Gaza, it was a “total victory” over Hamas while with Iran he has said Israel will end Iran’s nuclear programme and even suggested the possibility of regime change in Tehran.

Netanyahu may find once again that it is easy to start wars but not to finish them in a manner that is satisfactory to his political base.

“Netanyahu is making a big gamble,” Dov Waxman, professor of Israel studies at the University of California-Los Angeles, told Al Jazeera. “If the war doesn’t succeed in destroying Iran’s nuclear programme or forcing Iran to make unprecedented concessions to reach a new nuclear agreement, then it will be considered a failure in Israel, and this will no doubt hurt Netanyahu politically. And if the war drags on and Israeli casualties continue to mount, then Israeli public opinion may well turn against the war and blame Netanyahu for initiating it.”

However, the degree to which a change in the public and political mood may act as a check upon Netanyahu and his government is unclear. Netanyahu has repeatedly ignored the public pressure to find a deal to secure the release of Israeli captives held in Gaza with some government members even directly criticising family members of captives.

Santa Barbara, California – Far away from US President Donald Trump’s public confrontations with elite universities like Harvard and Columbia, students at the bustling University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) are finishing up their final exams under the sunny skies shining above the nearby beach.

Despite the distance and pleasant weather, students here still feel the cloud of uncertainty hanging over them, created by Trump’s rhetoric and policies towards foreign students.

“The overall mood across the room [among international students] is that people are looking for other options,” said Denis Lomov, a 26-year-old PhD student from Russia who has been at UCSB since 2022 studying climate change politics and energy transitions.

Since coming into office this year, the Trump administration has revoked the student visas of hundreds of foreign nationals, slashed funding for science and research programmes, arrested and tried to deport foreign nationals involved in pro-Palestine campus activism, and suspended student visa appointments.

For international students at universities like UCSB, where nearly 15 percent of all students are from outside the US, the rhetoric and policies have left students wondering about their futures in the country.

“It makes you wonder if maybe you’d rather go somewhere else,” Lomov told Al Jazeera, adding that he is still several years away from completing his PhD.

Like his fellow international students, he said he has started to consider whether his skills might be more valued in places like Canada or Europe after he finishes his programme.

“I think it’s the unpredictability of these policies that makes me fear about the future, both with me being a student, but also after I graduate,” he said.

Lack of certainty

The Trump administration’s actions against universities and foreign students have met mixed results in the courts.

On Monday, in one of the Trump administration’s first significant legal victories in those efforts, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit from Columbia University over the government’s cuts to the university’s federal funding, based on allegations that the university had not taken adequate steps to curb pro-Palestine activism in the name of combatting anti-Semitism on campus.

In another ruling, also on Monday, a judge extended a restraining order pausing Trump’s efforts to block incoming international students from attending Harvard as the case makes its way through the legal system. Trump has also threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status and has frozen more than $2.6bn in research grants. Harvard has also filed a lawsuit challenging those cuts.

Several universities in the UC system, including UCSB, have warned international students against travelling outside of the country, a restriction that poses serious complications for their academic work and their personal lives.

“People are considering whether they’ll be able to go home and visit their families during their programme,” said Anam Mehta, a US national and PhD student at UCSB.

“They’re being extra cautious about what they post online out of concern about being questioned at the airport,” added Mehta, who is also involved with the UAW 4811 academic workers union.

These concerns, he said, could also stymie the ability of international students to conduct field work in foreign countries, a common feature of graduate research, or attend academic conferences abroad.

Some students — and even university administrators themselves — have noted that it is difficult to keep up with the raft of policy announcements, media reports, lawsuits, and counter-lawsuits that have unfolded as Trump presses his attacks on higher education.

“There have been frequent changes and a lot of these policies have been implemented very quickly and without a lot of advanced notice,” Carola Smith, an administrator at Santa Barbara City College (SBCC), said, noting that prospective international students have reached out with questions about whether they are still able to study in the US.

Smith says that between 60 and 70 different national identities are represented on campus and that, in addition to international students paying higher tuition fees than US students, their presence on campus provides a welcome exposure to a wider variety of perspectives for their classmates and creates connections with people from other parts of the world.

With student visa appointments currently suspended, Smith predicted the number of foreign student enrollments could drop by as much as 50 percent in the coming year.

Shifting attitudes

The stress of keeping up with shifting developments has also been paired with a more abstract concern: that the US, once seen as a country that took pride in its status as a global destination for research and academics, has become increasingly hostile to the presence of foreign students.

“Harvard has to show us their lists [of foreign students]. They have foreign students, almost 31 percent of their students. We want to know where those students come from. Are they troublemakers? What countries do they come from?” Trump said in March.

The administration has also said that international students take university spots that could go to US students, in line with a more inward-looking approach to policy that sees various forms of exchange with other countries as a drain on the US rather than a source of mutual benefit.

“They’re arguing that they don’t need international students, that this is talent they should be cultivating here at home,” says Jeffrey Rosario, an assistant professor at Loma Linda University in southern California.

“You can see a throughline between this and their tariffs abroad, based on this form of economic nationalism that says the rest of the world is ripping us off,” added Rosario, who has written about the government’s history of trying to exert influence over universities.

For Lomov, the student from Russia, the atmosphere has him wondering if his skills might find a better home elsewhere.

“I left Russia because I didn’t feel welcome there, and my expertise wasn’t really needed. That’s why I left for the United States, because I knew the United States provides amazing opportunities for academics and research,” said Lomov.

Israel’s attacks on Iran initially focused on Iran’s nuclear program, but a rumored “regime change” is being discussed in full. Emanuel Macron, the president of France, cited the aftermath of Iraq and Libya as saying that such action would “cause chaos.”

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has warned the United States that joining Israeli strikes on his country would “result in irreparable consequences” for the US as his and US President Donald Trump’s war of words accelerates and the Israel-Iran hostilities rage for a sixth day.

In his first televised address since Israel began its attacks on Friday, Khamenei said on Wednesday that Iran “will not surrender to anyone”.

His remarks came as Israel reported that Iran launched a fresh wave of missiles on Wednesday evening, with explosions heard in the greater Tel Aviv area and east of the city, following Israeli strikes on Tehran and other parts of the country throughout the day.

Iran “will stand firm against an imposed war, just as it will stand firm against an imposed peace”, he said.

Responding to threatening remarks made a day earlier by Trump, Khamenei said those who know Iran and its history “know that Iranians do not answer well to the language of threat”.

In recent days, Trump has strongly hinted that the US could join in Israel’s military operation against Iran, saying he is seeking something “much bigger” than a ceasefire.

In comments made on Wednesday on the White House lawn at a flag-raising ceremony, Trump said: “I may do it. I may not do it,” when asked if the US was moving closer to striking Iran. “I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” he added.

He claimed, without offering any evidence, that Iran is “totally defenceless. They have no air defence whatsoever.” Iran has said it has had success in bringing down Israeli drones and fighter jets.

“The next week is going to be very big, maybe less than a week,” Trump said without elaborating.

The US has in recent days sent more warplanes to the Middle East and is also sending the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier.

The US president claimed Iranian officials reached out to him and suggested visiting the White House, something Iran denies.

“No Iranian official has ever asked to grovel at the gates of the White House. The only thing more despicable than his lies is his cowardly threat to ‘take out’ Iran’s Supreme Leader,” the Iranian mission at the United Nations said in a post on X.

No Iranian official has ever asked to grovel at the gates of the White House. The only thing more despicable than his lies is his cowardly threat to “take out” Iran’s Supreme Leader.

Iran does NOT negotiate under duress, shall NOT accept peace under duress, and certainly NOT…

Trump’s comments came after he demanded on Tuesday Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, saying: “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.” He also boasted that the US could easily assassinate Khamenei.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei echoed Khamenei’s sentiments, warning: “Any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region.”

Iran is “under an attack by a genocidal” government and it will defend itself with “full force” against Israel’s “war of aggression”, Baghaei said.

Significantly, he added he trusted that Iran’s Arab neighbours would not allow the US to launch attacks on Iran from their countries.

Day 6 of Israel-Iran hostilities

The warnings were issued as Israel and Iran exchanged fire for a sixth consecutive day. The Israeli military said it struck 40 sites in Iran, including centrifuge production and weapons facilities.

The strikes targeted two centrifuge production sites – one in Tehran and one in Karaj, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Assadi said explosions were heard near Payam International Airport in Karaj as well as in areas in eastern Tehran. An Iranian government spokesperson also confirmed cyberattacks on at least two of Iran’s banks, he added.

ویدیوی دریافتی: “حمله دوباره به حوالی همان نقطه قبلی در شمال شرق #تهران.
بزرگراه صدر در تصویر مشخص است.”#iran #israel https://t.co/DAYs7Qmtb3 pic.twitter.com/vV6jlM199W

Translation: Another attack near the same previous location in northeast Tehran. Sadr Highway is visible in the footage.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israeli jets “destroyed the Iranian regime’s internal security headquarters” without providing evidence.

Israel’s military confirmed one of its remotely piloted aircraft fell in Iran after being shot at by a surface-to-air missile. “No injuries were reported, and there is no risk of an information breach,” the military said. Iranian state media earlier had said Iranian forces shot down an Israeli drone and fighter jet.

‘Crazed’ Israeli attacks

Israeli strikes have continued to target other areas of Iran, including the central province of Isfahan. An Israeli strike on a vehicle in Najafabad killed six people, including a pregnant woman and two children, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported.

According to Iran’s Ministry of Health and Medical Education, at least 240 people, including 70 women and children, have been killed since Israel began attacking the country.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Israeli army said it is “operating freely” in Iranian skies and had shot down 10 Iranian drones.

It also said its forces intercepted an Iranian drone that entered airspace over the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in Syria.

Meanwhile, as Iran continues to launch barrages of Iranian missiles at Israel, Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman, Jordan, said Iran’s attacks are creating an unprecedented “disruption” of life.

“Over the past six days, the Israeli public has experienced something they haven’t in the past: a formidable army that is firing ballistic missiles at Israeli cities and sensitive Israeli sites,” Odeh said.

They’re seeing “reports in their back yard of dozens of buildings damaged and condemned for demolition,” she said. “There are more than 1,300 Israelis who now have to live in hotels because their homes are unliveable, damaged beyond repair.”

IN another development, Iran’s Ministry of Communications said it will temporarily limit internet access to prevent “the enemy from threatening citizens’ lives and property.” The announcement follows an earlier report from the London-based internet watchdog Netblocks stating that there was a “near-total national internet blackout.”

The attacks have continued to cause global concern, and many countries have expressed a need for de-escalation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated his country’s willingness to help mediate the crisis.

Speaking to members of his ruling Justice and Development Party in parliament, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country wants to see the crisis resolved diplomatically and Ankara could play a constructive role.

Erdogan accused Israel of waging “crazed” attacks against Iran that amount to “state terrorism”. Iran’s response, he said, has been natural, legal and legitimate.

Hassan Ahmadian, an associate professor at the University of Tehran, said he doubts the prospects for any diplomatic solution between Iran and the US, which had been trying to reach a new nuclear agreement before Israel launched its attacks.

“The minimal trust that led to the negotiations with the US is currently nonexistent,” Ahmadian said, adding that many Iranians now view the previous round of nuclear talks as little more than a distraction before the surprise Israeli attack.

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Israel’s launch of air attacks against Iran on Friday prompted Tehran to fire a wave of retaliatory strikes on Israel, and some Iranian ballistic missiles have pierced through Israel’s missile defence systems and hit key targets.

Israel’s escalating attacks have killed more than 240 people, including 70 women and children, in Iran. In retaliation, Iran has fired about 400 missiles and hundreds of drones, killing at least 24 people in Israel, wounding hundreds and forcing Israelis across the country to take cover in bomb shelters.

Some Iranian strikes have hit residential areas in central Israel, causing heavy damage. Israel’s fortified military headquarters in Tel Aviv, the Kirya, was also hit although damage was limited there.

On Tuesday, Iran said it hit a military intelligence centre and a Mossad spy agency operations planning centre, breaching Israel’s advanced missile defence systems – some of the most advanced in the world.

In recent history, Israel has successfully intercepted most aerial attacks coming its way through these systems, such as its signature Iron Dome.

So how are Iranian missiles making it past Israel’s air defences?

What is Israel’s Iron Dome?

While the Iron Dome is at the heart of Israel’s air defences, it is only a part of a larger system, comprising “the lowest level of these multitiered, integrated air defences,” said Alex Gatopoulos, Al Jazeera’s defence editor.

The Iron Dome detects an incoming rocket or missile, determines its path and intercepts it. Israel said the Iron Dome is 90 percent effective. It became operational in 2011 after it was developed to counter rocket attacks during the war with Hezbollah in 2006.

Gatopoulos explained that the Iron Dome was designed to intercept low-level rockets that larger systems would not be able to detect.

Israel also has the Barak-8 surface-to-air missile system, which intercepts medium-range missiles; the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, which intercepts short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles; and the David’s Sling, which intercepts medium- to long-range missiles.

What is Israel’s defence against Iranian missiles?

The Israeli missile defence systems use the Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 interceptors to intercept long-range missiles, such as Iranian missiles fired in the current conflict.

The main contractor for the Arrow project is state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries, and Boeing is involved in making the interceptors.

The Arrow-2 is designed to intercept incoming missiles at slightly higher altitudes within and outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

Besides using air defence systems, Israel also carries out air-to-air missile defence, which involves the use of aircraft, such as combat helicopters or fighter jets, to destroy drones heading towards Israel.

How do air defence systems work?

Israeli air defence systems are made of three components: a radar system, a command and control centre, and a launcher with interceptor missiles.

An incoming enemy missile is tracked on the radar, which alerts the control centre to assess which targets to engage. The launcher normally sends out two interceptor missiles for one incoming enemy missile, Marina Miron, a postdoctoral researcher at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera.

All air defence systems are equipped with a limited number of interceptor missiles, and the exact number of interceptor missiles in Israel’s air defence systems is unknown to the public.

Has Iran broken through Israeli air defences?

On Saturday, an Israeli military official said its defence systems had an “80 or 90 percent success rate”, emphasising that no system has a perfect rate, the Reuters news agency reported without naming the official.

This means that some Iranian missiles had pierced the fortifications.

How has Iran managed to break through?

While we do not know exactly how some Iranian missiles made it past Israeli air defence systems, there are a few possible ways Iranian drones and missiles managed to avoid interception.

Exhausting interceptor missiles

One way Iran possibly evaded Israeli air defences is by exhausting Israel’s interceptor missiles.

“No system shoots down 100 percent [missiles] anyway,” Miron said, adding: “You cannot shoot down more missiles if you only have a limited number of interceptors.”

Hypersonic missiles

Gatopoulos said Iran has hypersonic missiles, a direct reaction to evolving and maturing ballistic missile defences. This is because one way to evade an air defence system is to use missiles that fly faster, giving the air defence system less time to react.

Miron said hypersonic missiles are difficult for air defence systems to intercept even if they are detected by radar.

Some hypersonic missiles are also equipped with a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), a warhead attached to a missile that can manoeuvre and glide at speeds five times faster than the speed of sound. In Iran, the Fattah-2 uses the HGV. “It looks like a normal missile with a craft attached to the end of it,” Gatopoulos said.

He explained that besides travelling faster, HGVs also zigzag and do not move on a predictive path like regular ballistic missiles. Such quick, erratic movements evade air defence systems, which are designed to predict the path a missile will take.

Cruise missiles

Cruise missiles can also change their trajectory and become difficult to intercept, Miron said.

Iran has cruise missiles in its arsenal, such as the Hoveyzeh missile, and has used such missiles against Israel. While these missiles are slower than ballistic missiles, they fly like pilotless planes, low and steady, sneaking past air defences.

What are other ways air defence systems can be challenged?

Another way air defence systems can be tested is by overloading their systems by tricking them with decoys of drones and missiles, Miron added.

“It shows up as a threat on the radar, but in actuality, it’s not. And usually such decoys are used … to empty the interceptor missile reserve so that the actual missiles and drones can get through.”

Miron added that some missiles are also equipped with radar suppression technologies that make them undetectable for air defence systems.

Could Iran or Israel run out of missiles?

Gatopoulos explained that the conflict between Iran and Israel is “attritional” at the moment.

On Monday, Israel claimed dominance over Iranian skies. However, the shortest distance between Iran and Israel is 1,000km (620 miles). “It is a long way for Israeli planes to go unfuelled,” Gatopoulos said.

“You can loiter there, but only up to a certain amount of time,” he added. He explained that while the US could possibly help Israel with air-to-air refuelling, adding external tanks on planes makes them lose stealth properties.