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As the Israeli-Iranian confrontation enters its third day, casualties on both sides are mounting. At least 80 people have been killed in Iran and at least 10 in Israel. Despite the deadly response from Iran, Israeli officials have continued to insist that attacks on various Iranian nuclear and military facilities were necessary.

A number of justifications have been broadcast to the Israeli public, but none explains the true reasons why the Israeli government decided to carry out the unilateral, unprovoked assault.

The Israeli government claims that the strike was a “preventive” one, meant to address an immediate, inevitable threat on Iran’s part to construct a nuclear bomb. There appears to be no evidence for this claim. Israel’s strike was undoubtedly meticulously planned over a long period of time. A preventive attack must carry an element of self-defence, which, in turn, is generated by an emergency. No such emergency appears to have occurred.

Additionally, Israel has suggested that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report released on June 12 that condemned Iran for material violations of its Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) commitments until the early 2000s constitutes such an emergency. But even the IAEA seems to reject that claim. There was nothing in the report that was not already known to the relevant parties.

The Israeli government has also suggested, in direct relation to the notion of a “preventive” strike, that it aimed to “decapitate” Iran’s nuclear programme. It is generally agreed by scholars and policymakers that Israel lacks the ability to destroy the programme, especially if it attempts to carry out such a strike on its own.

The nature of the campaign as it unfolds also seems to indicate that Israel never meant to wipe out Iranian nuclear activities. The Israeli army has been bombing various military and governmental targets, from missile bases to a gasfield and an oil depot. It has also carried out a string of assassinations against senior Iranian military leaders. Ali Shamkhani, a former defence minister and a close adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was among those targeted and is reported to have been killed, though Iranian state media and government are yet to officially confirm his death. Shamkhani is believed to have been a leading figure in the talks with the United States over the past months.

His assassination, alongside others’, reflects a favourite Israeli modus operandi. Israel often attempts to “eliminate” specific people in the hope that their deaths would bring about the unravelling of the systems and institutions they lead. The death of Shamkhani can be construed as an attempt to sabotage talks between Iran and the US. In any case, assassinations also seem to indicate the existence of a thorough plan to demonstrate Israel’s might at all levels of Iranian official life and practices. This is not a “decapitation” of the Iranian nuclear programme.

A third suggestion is that Israel has its heart set on jumpstarting “regime change” in Tehran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this overtly when he called on the “proud people of Iran” to stand up for their “freedom from an evil and repressive regime”.

The assumption that Iranians would simply do Israel’s bidding as it bombs them relentlessly and unilaterally seems akin to the notion that if Israel starves and exterminates the Palestinians in Gaza to the required extent, they would rise against Hamas and remove it from power.

Even if that were the case, presuming that all the Iranians are waiting for is an Israeli strike to move against the regime demonstrates a profound lack of understanding with regard to the forces driving Iranian politics. While many Iranians undoubtedly oppose the Islamic Republic, Iranians of all political persuasions are consistently “patriotic”, committed to supporting Iranian sovereignty and independence from any attempts by external elements to impose their agendas on their country.

In fact, just as numerous Israelis who would consider themselves uncompromising critics of Netanyahu jumped to attention when the Israeli attack began and are now vocally supporting the government – most egregiously, members of the parliamentary “opposition” – so are numerous opponents of the Islamic Republic now rallying behind the flag in support of Iran’s violated sovereignty. Claiming that Israel is merely “laying the groundwork” for a popular Iranian rebellion by striking is, at best, a cynical manipulation.

Israel has not struck Iran for all these reasons. So, what drove the attack? Amid the genocidal campaign in Gaza, Netanyahu is very much aware that his government is running out of options. The international community, as well as regional allies, have started to criticise Israel vocally. Some have also been preparing to carry out unilateral measures, like the mass recognition of a Palestinian state.

The International Criminal Court’s warrant of arrest for Netanyahu is looming, and the decision of the International Court of Justice about the legality of Israel’s occupation is waiting to be fulfilled. Israel and its military have continuously carried out massacres, denied them, and have been found to be lying.

There is no doubt that Netanyahu planned the strike on Iran for years, waiting for just the right time. This time came on Friday. It is a desperate attempt to rally the world behind Israel, just as preparations are made to deny it the absolute impunity it has enjoyed since its creation.

Iran is still considered a potential threat by many leading powers of the Global North. By invoking the known tropes associated with unilateral lethal Israeli action – from divine promises to the Holocaust – Netanyahu hoped to re-establish the status quo; Israel can still do whatever it wants.

This is Israel’s current definition of “security”, the most hallowed principle at its core. It is the seemingly apolitical genesis of Israeliness, the site devoted wholly to Jewish supremacy, which is the only “real” way to ensure the integrity of Jewish lives. “Security” means that Israel can kill whoever it wants for as long as it wants and wherever and whenever it wants without paying any sort of price for its actions.

This “security” is what has motivated Israel’s actions from Gaza to Yemen to Lebanon and Syria, and now in Iran. Such a “security regime” must expand continuously, of course. It can never stop. By striking Iran, Netanyahu has gone for broke, staking a claim for complete and absolute impunity for Israel as well as for himself, in The Hague as well as in domestic courts.

Will this be Netanyahu’s salvation? Will the Israeli public forgive him for his abject failures at home and horrid transgressions in Gaza? When observing the current sense of jubilation in public Israeli discourse, this may very well be the case.

The long lines stretching from every open store, hardware to food, demonstrate that Israelis have entered blank survival mode. A docile citizenry may be good for Netanyahu, but it portends ill for any attempt to build and defend a robust Israeli society.

Israel has unleashed air attacks across Iran for a third day and threatened even greater attacks, while some Iranian missiles have evaded Israeli air defences to strike buildings in the heart of the country.

The region braced for a protracted conflict after Israel’s surprise bombardment of Iran’s nuclear and military sites on Friday killed top generals and nuclear scientists, and neither side has showed any sign of backing down since.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday that if the Israeli strikes on Iran stop, then “our responses will also stop”.

Araghchi said Israel had targeted an oil refinery near Tehran and another in the country’s Bushehr province on the Gulf. He said Iran’s retaliatory strikes also targeted “economic” sites in Israel, without elaborating.

The conflict has raised prospects of a broader assault on Iran’s heavily sanctioned energy industry that could affect global markets.

United States President Donald Trump has expressed full support for Israel’s actions while warning Iran that it can avoid further destruction only by agreeing to a new nuclear deal. But talks scheduled on Sunday in Oman were called off, with Tehran calling the dialogue “meaningless”.

Meanwhile, Israeli attacks have killed at least 80 people and wounded 800 others in Iran over the past two days, including 20 children. In Israel, at least 10 people were killed in overnight strikes by Iran, bringing the country’s total death toll to 13.

Israel has struck some of Iran’s most vital oil and gas facilities, the first such attacks despite decades of rivalry between the Middle Eastern nations, raising fears of a widening conflict and threatening turmoil for the markets.

Late on Saturday, Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum said Israel struck a key fuel depot, while another oil refinery in the capital city of Tehran was also in flames, as emergency crews scrambled to douse the fires at separate sites.

Iran has also partially suspended production at the world’s biggest gasfield, the South Pars, which it shares with neighbour Qatar, after an Israeli strike caused a fire there on Saturday.

The latest round of exchange of projectiles began on Friday after Israel launched attacks on Iran’s military and nuclear sites and assassinated several top military officials and nuclear scientists. Tehran retaliated by firing ballistic missiles and drones at multiple cities in Israel amid global calls for de-escalation.

According to Iranian state media, Israeli attacks have killed at least 80 people, including 20 children, and wounded 800 others over the past two days. Israeli authorities said that 10 people had been killed in Iranian strikes, with over 180 injured.

Israel’s unprecedented and sudden attacks on Iran’s energy facilities are poised to disrupt the oil supplies from the Middle East, and could shake up global fuel prices, even as both countries threaten each other with even more intense attacks.

So, what are the key energy sites in Iran hit in Israeli attacks? And why do they matter?

Which major facilities were hit in Israeli attacks?

Iran holds the world’s second-largest proven natural gas reserves and the third-largest crude oil reserves, according to the United States government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA), and its energy infrastructure has long been a potential target for Israel.

Before the current spiral in their conflict, Israel had largely avoided targeting Iranian energy facilities, amid pressure from its allies, including the US, over the risks to global oil and gas prices from any such attack.

That has now changed.

On Friday, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz warned that if Iran retaliated to its attacks, “Tehran will burn”.

Late on Saturday, major fires broke out at two opposing ends of the Iranian capital — the Shahran fuel and gas depot, northwest of central Tehran, and one of Iran’s biggest oil refineries in Shahr Rey, to the city’s south.

While Iran’s Student News Network subsequently denied that the Shahr Rey refinery had been struck by Israel, and claimed it was still operating, it conceded that a fuel tank outside the refinery had caught fire. It did not explain what sparked the fire.

But Iran’s Petroleum Ministry confirmed that Israel had struck the Shahran depot, where firefighters are still trying to bring flames under control.

The Israeli aerial attacks also targeted the South Pars field, offshore Iran’s southern Bushehr province. The world’s largest gasfield is the source of two-thirds of Iran’s gas production, which is consumed nationally. Iran shares the South Pars with its neighbour Qatar, where it is called the North Field.

The strikes triggered significant damage and fire at the Phase 14 natural gas processing facility and halted an offshore production platform that generates 12 million cubic metres per day, reported the semiofficial Tasnim news agency.

In a separate Israeli attack, fire reportedly broke out at the Fajr Jam gas plant, one of Iran’s largest processing facilities, also in the Bushehr province, which processes fuel from South Pars. The Iranian Petroleum Ministry confirmed that the facility was hit.

Why are these sites important?

The Shahran oil depot is one of Tehran’s largest fuel storage and distribution hubs. It has nearly 260 million litres of storage capacity across 11 tanks. It is a vital node in the capital’s urban fuel grid, distributing petrol, diesel, and aviation fuel to several terminals across northern Tehran.

The Tehran Refinery, located just south of Tehran, in the Shahr-e Rey district, operated by the state-owned Tehran Oil Refining Company, is one of the country’s oldest refineries, with a refining capacity of nearly 225,000 barrels per day. Experts warn that any disruption to this site — whatever the cause of the fire — could strain fuel logistics in Iran’s most populous and economically significant region.

Down south, the offshore South Pars gasfield in the Gulf contains an estimated 1,260 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas, accounting for nearly 20 percent of known global reserves.

Meanwhile, the hit on the Fajr-e Jam Gas Refinery, in Bushehr province, threatens to disrupt Iran’s domestic electricity and fuel supplies, particularly for the southern and central provinces, which are already under huge stress. In Iran, blackouts cost the economy about $250m a day, according to the government’s estimates.

Uncertain global markets

Adding to the uncertainty in global markets, Iran has noted that it is considering closing the Strait of Hormuz amid the intensifying conflict with Israel – a move that would send oil prices soaring.

The Strait of Hormuz, which splits Iran on one side and Oman and the United Arab Emirates on the other, is the only marine entryway into the Gulf, with nearly 20 percent of global oil consumption flowing through it. The EIA describes it as the “world’s most important oil transit chokepoint”.

The Israeli attacks on Friday, which spared Iran’s oil and gas facilities on the first day of the fighting, had already pushed oil prices up 9 percent, before they calmed just a bit. Analysts expect prices to rise sharply when oil markets open again on Monday.

Alan Eyre, a distinguished diplomatic fellow at the Middle East Institute, told Al Jazeera that Israel was trying to push the US into participating in its attacks on Iran. “Ultimately, Israel’s best case scenario is to encourage, if not regime change, then the toppling of this regime,” he said.

“Iran’s options are very limited; they have to respond militarily to save face domestically [but] it is very unlikely that Iran can cause enough damage to Israel internally or put enough pressure to stop bombing,” Eyre said.

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Tehran, Iran – Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Israel’s attacks on his country could not have materialised without the agreement and support of the United States.

“We have well-documented and solid evidence of the support provided by American forces in the region and their bases for the military attacks of the Zionist regime,” Iran’s top diplomat told reporters during a news conference in the capital, Tehran, on Sunday.

He said, more importantly, US President Donald Trump has publicly and explicitly confirmed he knew about the attacks, that they could not have happened without US weapons and equipment, and that more attacks are coming.

“Therefore, the US, in our opinion, is a partner in these attacks and must accept its responsibility.”

Araghchi said Tehran has received messages from Washington through various intermediaries that it was not involved with Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities in Isfahan’s Natanz, but it “does not believe this claim” due to evidence to the contrary.

“It is necessary for the US government to clearly state its position and explicitly condemn the attack on nuclear facilities,” he said. “This act is condemned under international law, and our expectation is that the US government, in order to prove its good faith regarding nuclear weapons, will condemn the attack on a peaceful nuclear facility and distance itself from this conflict.”

Pointing out that the Israeli attacks came as Iran and the US were slated to hold a sixth round of nuclear negotiations mediated by Oman on Sunday, Araghchi emphasised that Israel “will do anything” to stop the talks and diplomacy, as it has done in the past.

‘Major strategic mistake’

Iranian authorities said the Israeli attacks, which have targeted residential and military areas in Tehran as well as many cities across the country since Friday, have killed at least 80 people, including civilians.

Multiple top-ranking commanders of the Iranian armed forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were also assassinated, as were a number of nuclear scientists and university professors.

Iran has so far launched two nights of retaliatory attacks on Israel’s Tel Aviv and Haifa, using hundreds of missiles and drones, which have led to at least 10 deaths and dozens of injuries.

Araghchi told reporters that Iran’s attacks overnight into Sunday started targeting Israel’s energy infrastructure after the Israeli army hit refineries, power stations and oil reserves across Iran.

As sounds of explosions and air defences rang across Tehran in the early hours of Sunday, Israel hit a fuel reserve in western Tehran’s Shahran neighbourhood that caused a massive fire. Authorities said the fire was contained after several hours and that most of the fuel in the reserve was taken out before the air raids.

On Saturday, the Israeli military hit Asaluyeh on Iran’s southern shores in the province of Bushehr, hitting Phase 14 of South Pars, the largest gasfield in the world.

Araghchi said the attack was a “major strategic mistake” that was likely carried out deliberately with the intention of dragging other nations into the war.

“The Persian Gulf region is extremely sensitive and complex, and any military development there could involve the entire region, and even the whole world,” he said, using the name of the Gulf, which is also commonly known as the Arabian Gulf.

Iran and Israel have said their attacks will continue for now, and the Israeli military on Sunday issued a threat to Iranians to stay away from what it called “military weapons production factories and their support institutions”, or risk being killed.

But Araghchi said Tehran is willing to stop if Israel halts its attacks, and urged the international community to intervene and condemn Israel.

‘National battle’

Iranian newspapers on Sunday dedicated their front pages to the war, with more hardline outlets manoeuvring on Iran’s attacks while others focusing on a sense of national unity.

Keyhan, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, published the headline: “We will finish the war and Israel together”, and wrote about “unprecedented damages in occupied territories” caused by the Iranian missiles.

“National battle”, read a headline from the reformist Ham-Mihan, with Etemad newspaper writing about “Israel’s gamble on a minefield” and Sazandegi highlighting “Slap for Tel Aviv” in its headline story.

For the first time in nearly four decades, Iranian state television on Saturday broadcast a victory march. It was last heard in the 1980s during Iran’s eight-year invasion by neighbouring Iraq, which was backed and armed by major powers.

Mehdi Chamran, chairman of the City Council of Tehran, said the capital will soon be forced to use the same shelters used during that war, as well as metro stations and some car parks, as no new dedicated shelters have been built.

Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Sunday that all flights are cancelled until further notice and tried to assure people that measures are under way to ensure the state can provide basic necessities, including fuel, in case of a prolonged conflict.

The Tehran Chamber of Guilds announced that all business associations, grand bazaars and malls were open in the capital, but government workers were told to work remotely until at least Wednesday, in an indication that Tehran is expected to be hit again.

The Tehran Stock Exchange was also closed on Sunday, with its director saying the decision to keep it closed or open it for Monday will be taken on the day, considering Sunday night’s developments.

Iran’s currency, the rial, has taken another nosedive since the start of the latest conflict, having depreciated from about 840,000 against the US dollar before the Israeli attacks to about 955,000 on Sunday.