War is not a gala dinner. Both Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump said so from the very beginning: the undertaking is among the most complex imaginable, and it will bring sacrifice and loss.
After the strike in which Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was eliminated, Netanyahu spoke of the determination with which, together with Washington, Israeli jets confronted what he called the most absolutist and dangerous power in the world—and of how this moment could reshape history.
With visible emotion, he added that he had waited 40 years for this moment. Standing on the terrace of his office beneath a clear blue sky, he sought to restore calm and confidence to the Israeli public, while mourning two tragedies that followed almost immediately.
First came the destruction of a building in central Tel Aviv and the death of a 50-year-old woman. Then a ballistic missile carrying half a ton of explosives struck Beit Shemesh, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, devastating a compound stretching hundreds of meters—homes, a synagogue and a large public shelter.
Nine people were killed and dozens were wounded, including children, when what felt like a steel locomotive of death slammed into the roof as civilians were entering.
Israelis obey the instructions repeated endlessly by civil authorities: when the siren sounds, run to shelter. Trust in those instructions is fundamental to national resilience. Yet it is difficult to accept that even obedience cannot always prevent tragedy. The targeted neighborhood contained no military installations—only homes, prayer and refuge. The missile penetrated the air-defense shield that has become a symbol of national pride.
Israel does not indulge in complaint. The impact, filmed live, the frantic rescue efforts and the disbelief of residents who had followed the rules have instead become part of the collective determination to endure.
Now, with Khamenei and dozens of senior figures gone, the question becomes: with whom does the war continue, and how should it proceed until the Iranian people—one hopes—can reclaim their future?
“Full force, to the end,” Netanyahu said, after Iran’s retaliatory missile barrages, now directed by a leadership committee headed by President Masoud Pezeshkian. The notion that Pezeshkian represents moderation quickly evaporated when he defined the strike on Khamenei as “an attack on all Muslims,” demanding revenge. Ideology, not pragmatism, still governs Tehran’s response.
Iran has also launched attacks across the region, including toward Saudi Arabia, apparently to demonstrate that confrontation with Tehran produces only chaos and to pressure Islamic states to urge Washington to halt operations. The tactic mirrors decades of negotiations in which delay served to obscure nuclear ambitions. It has not worked. Instead, it reveals a strategic blindness: striking civilians will not reverse a decision already framed by its authors as historic.
The deeper reason lies beyond military calculations. Nations rarely collapse solely from battlefield defeat; they collapse when their guiding ideology is exposed as violence, coercion and repression. Victory, by contrast, emerges from a simple, shareable principle: survival and freedom defended together.
Israel’s endurance rests on that principle. And in wars shaped as much by ideas as by weapons, it is often the strongest force of all.
