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The United States has entered Israel’s war against Iran.
American warplanes dropped bombs on three nuclear sites in Iran, President Trump announced on Saturday night, bringing the U.S. military directly into the war after days of uncertainty about whether he would intervene.
“All planes are now outside of Iran air space,” he said in a post on social media, adding that a “full payload” of bombs had been dropped on Fordo, the heavily fortified underground facility in Iran that is critical to its nuclear program. “All planes are safely on their way home.”
The three sites that Mr. Trump said were hit on Sunday morning included Iran’s two major uranium enrichment centers: the mountain facility at Fordo and a larger enrichment plant at Natanz, which Israel struck several days ago with smaller weapons. The third site, near the ancient city of Isfahan, is where Iran is believed to keep its near-bomb-grade enriched uranium, which inspectors saw just two weeks ago.
Three senior Iranian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said that they believed American forces had bombed Fordo and Natanz at around 2.30 a.m. on Sunday in Iran — about 6:30 p.m. on Saturday in the eastern United States.
Iran, which has refrained so far from direct attacks on U.S. troops and interests in the Middle East, has warned that American entry into war would bring retaliation, raising fears around the region about the danger of a widening war. But what form that response would take is unclear. Analysts have also speculated that Iran could react by accelerating its nuclear program — assuming the program survives U.S. bombing.
After a week of mixed signals, President Trump, who has long vowed to steer America clear of overseas “forever wars,” authorized U.S. forces to strike Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear installation, deep underground. The goal, American and Israeli officials have said, is to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb.
For days, Mr. Trump had been weighing whether to use the powerful munitions needed to destroy Iran’s deeply buried nuclear enrichment facilities, at an installation known as Fordo. Only American bombs known as bunker busters are believed up to the job, and only American aircraft can deliver them.
Israel and Iran, sworn enemies for decades, have been exchanging attacks since June 13, when the Israelis launched a surprise assault that targeted Iranian infrastructure, including nuclear installations, and military leaders. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his nation had no choice but to act if it wanted to stave off a nuclear “holocaust.”
Iran responded with missile barrages of its own, as well as offers to resume negotiations over its nuclear development program.
Just days ago, the Trump administration appeared intent on distancing itself from the conflict. “We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared.
But Mr. Trump, when he was not urging peace talks, began sounding increasingly belligerent.
On Tuesday, he went so far as to make a direct threat against Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying that “we know exactly where” he is and calling him “an easy target.” He said, “We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least for now.” But he warned, “Our patience is growing thin.”
Mr. Trump called for Iran’s “complete surrender.”
This week, when asked about assessments by U.S. intelligence agencies and his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, that Iran was not actively working toward a nuclear weapon, Mr. Trump said flatly that they were wrong. Iran, he insisted, was months — if not weeks — away from being able to produce a bomb.
Here is what else to know:
What’s next? Now that Mr. Trump has sent American bombers to help Israel destroy a uranium enrichment facility in Iran, it will most likely initiate a more dangerous phase in the war. Here are some ways that could play out, and a look at how the U.S. military’s powerful bunker-busting bombs work.
Saturday strikes: Israel launched a wave of airstrikes against missile sites, a nuclear facility and munitions storage sites in Iran, while Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles and launched drones into Israel. The southern region that Israel targeted in Iran would likely have been on any potential flight path used by U.S. warplanes on the way to strike Fordo.
Commanders killed: Israel’s military said it killed Mohammed Said Izadi, Behnam Shahriyari and Aminpour Joudaki, commanders from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Mr. Izadi and Mr. Shahriyari were both senior officials in the Quds Force, which oversees and supports proxy militias around the Middle East, according to Israel’s defense ministry. The deaths were not immediately confirmed by Iran.
Evacuations: The U.S. Department of State has begun evacuating Americans from Israel, said the American ambassador, Mike Huckabee. In a post on social media, he encouraged Americans in Israel and the West Bank to fill out a form requesting evacuation, which could be by cruise ship, commercial flight, charter flight or a flight operated by the U.S. government.
Where U.S. Forces Are Deployed in the Middle East
About 40,000 U.S. troops are currently stationed across the Middle East.
Kuwait Five installations are located here. They can hold more than 13,500 troops.
Al Udeid Air Base U.S. Central Command regional headquarters can accommodate more than 10,000 troops.
Al Asad Air Base Many of the approximately 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq are located at this Iraqi base.
Al Asad Air Base Many of the approximately 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq are located at this Iraqi base.
Source: Congressional Research Service
Note: Troop numbers and locations are approximate and fluctuate.
By Daniel Wood and Lazaro Gamio
More than 40,000 U.S. active-duty troops and civilians are working for the Pentagon in the Middle East, positioned across several countries along with billions of dollars in weapons and military equipment.
Thousands of American troops could be in Iran’s direct line of fire, either through missiles, drones or attacks by Iran’s allies, which include groups in many of the same countries where U.S. forces are stationed.
Iraq
As many as 2,500 American troops and military contractors are in Iraq, based in the capital, Baghdad, as well as in the northern Kurdish region and in the western desert. The Al Asad desert base, which is controlled by the Iraqi military, was targeted by Shiite forces backed by Iran earlier this week in drone strikes. American forces stationed there shot down the weapons.
Bahrain
The headquarters of the Navy’s Fifth Fleet are in Manama, Bahrain, and host about 9,000 U.S. military and civilian personnel. Part of its mission is to ensure safe passage for commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply.
Iran has threatened to seed the strait with as many as 6,000 naval mines, a tactic meant to pin American warships in the Persian Gulf. It would also disrupt global oil trade, especially for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which ship a lot of oil through the strait, as well as energy buyers like China and India.
Kuwait
Five bases in Kuwait, where about 13,500 American troops are stationed, have served for decades as an essential staging point for forces, weapons and military equipment on their way to battlefields around the world. Military ties between Kuwait and the United States have remained strong since the Persian Gulf war of 1991, and in 2003, U.S. and international troops used Kuwait as a launchpad to invade Iraq and oust Saddam.
Qatar
The Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar is the largest U.S. military site in the Middle East and is the regional headquarters for the U.S. Central Command, which oversees forces in the region. About 10,000 troops are stationed there. The U.S. military has been using Al Udeid since the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when it positioned planes there to target the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
United Arab Emirates
About 3,500 U.S. military personnel are at the Al Dhafra Air Base, outside Abu Dhabi, where the United States has deployed F-22 fighter jets in recent years, including to protect Emirati fuel tankers that were attacked by Iran-linked Houthi fighters in 2022.
The 380th Air Expeditionary Wing of the U.S. Air Force is based at Al Dhafra, from where it has launched combat operations against the Islamic State and the Houthis, and in Afghanistan. It also has been used as an intelligence-gathering and surveillance unit during the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as for aerial refueling.
One reason the U.S. may have struck multiple sites on Saturday was that its intelligence agencies estimated that Israeli attacks only set back Iran’s nuclear program by about six months. The assessments also concluded that further Israeli attacks were unlikely to do more damage.
Javier Hernandez
What happens next? Experts say that depends on the extent of the U.S. strikes on Iran.
If Iranian leaders perceived the attacks as limited to nuclear sites, they might be more measured in their response. But if the attacks were seen as broad, Iranian leaders might face pressure for full-fledged retaliation, such as by striking American bases.
One risk, experts said, was that Iran might see a disproportionate attack as the only way to restore deterrence.
“Then you’re looking at a significant escalatory spiral that could get out of hand quickly,” said Jonathan Panikoff, the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council.
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President Trump’s decision to send American bombers to help Israel in its campaign against Iran could kick off a more dangerous phase in the war.
The U.S. attack on Fordo, an enrichment site buried deep in a mountain, and two other Iranian nuclear sites, may not obliterate Iran’s nuclear program and could lead Iran to broaden the war or accelerate that program.
And the attacks may have unpredictable consequences in Iran. The country’s autocratic clerical leadership, which has ruled for nearly half a century since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, has proved its staying power even in the face of multiple domestic uprisings, and proved its resilience under economic sanctions and intense U.S. pressure.
Here are some ways U.S. involvement could play out.
Iran could negotiate
Before Israel launched a surprise attack on June 13, Iran and the United States were discussing limits on Iran’s nuclear program. Iran was rapidly producing fuel close to the levels needed for nuclear weapons, and in exchange for new limits on the program, it would win relief from economic sanctions.
The two sides were nowhere near a final agreement, but signs of a possible compromise had emerged by early June. When Israel attacked Iran, the negotiations collapsed. Still, Iran has signaled that it remains willing to talk, and even a strike on Fordo would not necessarily wipe out prospects of a return to the negotiating table.
But so far, Mr. Trump has not extended many carrots. He called on social media last week for Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.”
Iran may lean into nuclear activity
All eyes are on Fordo. But it is possible that Iran has secret nuclear sites aimed at producing weapons that the United States and Israel do not know about, though no public evidence has emerged of such places.
If they do exist, Iran could use whatever it has left to try to accelerate its nuclear program in the wake of an American attack.
With the damage Israeli airstrikes have done to nuclear facilities and the killings of top nuclear scientists, Iran probably lacks the capacity to build a nuclear weapon quickly, analysts said. Still, it could move in that direction and would have fresh incentive to do so.
The war could get bigger and messier
Though Iran has responded to Israeli attacks with missiles and threats of its own, it has refrained from hitting American troops or bases in the Middle East. It has also not struck Arab countries allied with the United States, such as Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates.
Nor has it sent global oil prices soaring by sealing off or harassing traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping channel to Iran’s south.
But on Friday, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that if the United States chose to strike Iran, the country reserved the right to retaliate, as it has against Israel. “When there is a war, both sides attack each other. That’s quite understandable. And self-defense is a legitimate right of every country,” he said in an interview with NBC News.
And Iran’s allied militias in the region, including the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and armed groups in Iraq, have not joined the fight. Though many of them have been seriously weakened over the past two years, those Iranian allies could still join the fray.
Talk of regime change
Even if Iran’s supreme leader were to be killed, the religious-military establishment that has tightly held power in Iran for nearly five decades may not fall.
With a war raging, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the most powerful branch of Iran’s military, could seize control of the country. They might put in place a more Western-friendly government, or, more likely, replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with a more extreme figure who would dig in for a long fight.
If the military does not assert itself quickly, some analysts fear that Iran could plunge into chaos or civil war as different factions struggle for control. But they see little chance for Iran’s liberal opposition, which has been weakened and brutally repressed by the regime, to prevail.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence, said the strikes against the three nuclear sites on Saturday were complete. The official said no follow-up attacks were expected, although commanders were ready to respond to any Iranian retaliatory attacks.
A news anchor said on Iranian state television, “Mr. Trump, you started it, and we will end it.” The broadcast showed a large graphic of American bases in the Middle East with the headline, “Within the fire range of Iran.” The anchor said the United States had no legitimate place in the region.
Despite his criticism of U.S. engagements overseas and his disinterest in longstanding global alliances, Trump is fascinated by the military and by displays of strength. He famously told a journalist in 1990 during an interview with Playboy that China’s leadership had appropriately behaved when it violently shut down student protests in Tiananmen Square. It showed, he said, “the power of strength.”
Morteza Heydari, the spokesperson for the Emergency Committee of the City of Qom, said that enemy forces had bombed “parts of the Fordo nuclear facility,” near Qom, according to Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards.
A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential intelligence, said that multiple 30,000-pound bunker bombs were dropped on Fordo and that initial damage assessments indicated that the facility had been “taken off the table.”
Yoav Gallant, Israel’s former defense minister, said in a social media post that President Trump had made a “bold decision for the United States, for Israel, for all of humanity.”
Gallant, who was fired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November after the two clashed on Israel’s war against Hamas, has notably expressed continuing support of Netanyahu’s efforts against Iran. Gallant has repeatedly called for the United States to be more directly involved in the war.
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Iran’s clerical rulers have a long history of open animosity toward the United States. From vowing “Death to America” to taking American diplomats hostage, the Iranian government has repeatedly gone to the brink of conflict with the United States and then pulled back to avoid direct military confrontation. Now, after the U.S. strikes on nuclear facilities and Iran’s threats to retaliate, the conflict risks entering a more dangerous phase.
Trump announces that he will give an address to the nation at 10 p.m. from the White House.
Some members of Congress criticized the Trump administration for not seeking congressional approval before U.S. troops engaged in attacks against Iran. “This is not Constitutional,” said Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, who was a co-sponsor of a resolution trying to block any military action in Iran without Congress authorizing it.
Writing directly in response to Trump’s statement, Representative Jim Himes, a Democrat from Connecticut on the Intelligence Committee, said: “According to the Constitution we are both sworn to defend, my attention to this matter comes BEFORE bombs fall. Full stop.”
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The U.S. strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran included an attack on Fordo, Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear site and one that is central to any effort to destroy Iran’s ability to make nuclear weapons.
In March 2023, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that it had discovered uranium that had been enriched to 83.7 percent purity in Fordo — close to the enrichment level, 90 percent, necessary for nuclear weapons.
Iran, which is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, has maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Iran built the centrifuge facility at Fordo in the 2000s, knowing that it needed to bury it deep to prevent it from being attacked. In 1981, using F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, Israel bombed a nuclear facility near Baghdad as part of its effort to stop Iraq from acquiring nuclear weapons. That facility was above ground.
“The Iranians fully understood that the Israelis would try to get inside their programs and they built Fordo inside of a mountain a long time ago to take care of the post-Iraq problem” presented by the 1981 strike, said Vali Nasr, an Iran expert who is a professor at Johns Hopkins University.
Over the years, the Israelis drew up a variety of plans to attack Fordo in the absence of U.S.-supplied bunker buster bombs. Under one of those plans, which they presented to senior officials in the Obama administration, Israeli helicopters loaded with commandos would fly to the site. The commandos would then fight their way inside the facility, rig it with explosives and blow it up, former U.S. officials said.
Israel successfully mounted a similar operation in Syria last year when it destroyed a Hezbollah missile production facility.
But Fordo would have been a much more dangerous endeavor, military officials said.
“The Israelis have sprung a lot of clandestine operations lately, but the physics of the problem remain the same,” said Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., who was in charge of the Iran war plans when he ran the Pentagon’s Central Command after General Votel. “It remains a very difficult target.”
It remains unclear how much damage the U.S. strikes early Sunday may have done to Fordo. Three senior Iranian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said that Fordo was hit by bombs around 2:30 a.m.
Senator Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, joined in the praise of President Trump’s decision to strike in Iran, calling it a “deliberate” and “correct” decision. “We now have very serious choices ahead to provide security for our citizens and our allies and stability for the Middle East,” Wicker said in a statement.
In the immediate aftermath of the strike, Republicans are issuing statements of support. Representative Rick Crawford, Republican of Arkansas and the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, praised the strikes and said he had been in touch with President Trump leading up to the bombings. “I have been in touch with the White House before this action and will continue to track developments closely with them in the coming days,” Crawford said in a statement.
On Saturday, John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, joined other officials, including Marco Rubio, the national security adviser and secretary of state, at the White House, where they went into the Situation Room to monitor the strikes and their aftermath, officials said. Ratcliffe had been briefing President Trump and the White House regularly this week on the Iranian nuclear program.
Javier Hernandez
Experts said the decision by President Trump to strike Iran marked the start of an unpredictable chapter of security and politics in the Middle East.
“It’s a new phase, and a potentially problematic one,” said Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Iranian political leaders will most likely face pressure inside the country to respond, possibly by launching counterattacks on American military sites or proxies.
“They were very humiliated in every possible way, and that makes them vulnerable to their population and to domestic critics,” Takeyh said. “They would have to essentially restore pride in some way.”
President Trump was propelled to victory in part by interventionist skeptics who applauded him for condemning the war in Iraq. But he also said repeatedly that it was not acceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. And now, he has taken action that the neoconservatives in his party, whom he has long mocked, have dreamed of for decades.
While the attacks on Fordo and Natanz were expected, Isfahan was actually the more complex, and less discussed, target. Laboratories there did work on how to convert uranium into the form that would be needed to actually produce a weapon. And most of the near-bomb-grade fuel, enriched to 60 percent, was in specialty casks, deep inside one of the many laboratories and storage sites. Their locations were known by international inspectors, at least until a few weeks ago. It was unclear whether Iran had moved those supplies, as some Iranian officials suggested, in recent days.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and one of the most vocal Iran defense hawks on Capitol Hill, celebrated the strike, saying in a social media post that it was “the right call.” Graham had been in regular contact with President Trump to argue in favor of strikes. In his post on Saturday, he said, “The regime deserves it.”
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Three senior Iranian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said they believed American forces had bombed Fordo and Natanz at around 2:30 a.m. in Iran.
A Defense Department official said on condition of anonymity, given the sensitive nature of the information, that a number of American B-2 bombers were used to hit Fordo. The bombers can carry the needed 30,000-pound, “bunker-buster” bombs that can penetrate into Fordo. It was not immediately clear whether other American warplanes were used in the strikes.
A U.S. official said on condition of anonymity, given the sensitive nature of the information, that multiple B-2 bombers carried out the strikes against the three nuclear sites.
The White House alerted television networks that the president was expected to address the nation later.
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After Iranians were cut off from the world for four days, the country’s nearly complete internet blackout was abruptly lifted late Friday for some Iranians, who managed to get access to weak connections by switching to different servers or perhaps through sheer luck.
But many said they thought the connections were temporary or unsafe, with the government still imposing tight restrictions that were difficult to bypass.
“It feels like we’re in a dark cave,” said Arta, an Iranian who fled Tehran on Tuesday and was able to briefly send a few messages over Instagram late Friday.
Like many others who have exchanged messages with The New York Times over the last week, he asked to be identified only by his first name to avoid scrutiny by the authorities.
“Even SMS texts don’t go through sometimes,” he said.
Many Iranians rely on virtual private networks, or VPNs, to evade government restrictions on the internet, but many of those services have been disrupted since Israel’s attacks began. On Saturday, as some connection returned, providers urged their users to act cautiously.
“For your own sake, don’t spread the link, the server will disconnect, and our work will only get harder,” one organizer wrote on a VPN provider’s Telegram channel. The organizer warned that reports of disconnection were increasing again, and asked subscribers to not share their product link because their server was overwhelmed.
Since at least Wednesday, the Iranian government has significantly restricted internet access across the country, with a government spokeswoman, Fatemeh Mohajerani, saying on Friday that the measures were taken because of “cyberattacks and security” reasons.
For Iranians abroad with loved ones in the country, the blackout has multiplied anxieties that were already high as news reports about Israeli evacuation orders and airstrikes rolled in.
Incoming international calls have also been blocked, forcing people in Iran to call their family and friends abroad directly. But making international calls from Iran means very high fees, which many in the country can’t afford.
Still, Iranians have sought creative ways around the restrictions.
On Thursday, during the height of the blackout, a group of Iranians managed to get online and speak with people outside the country through Clubhouse, an audio app that is popular in Iran. At one point, nearly 1,700 Iranians joined the call, hoping for help in reaching their loved ones.
For hours, Iranians abroad took turns sharing the names and numbers of their friends and relatives so that people inside Iran could connect them through Clubhouse.
“Dad? Can you hear me? Do you have insulin?” asked a woman who managed to get a hold of her elderly father when the organizers on Clubhouse dialed his number. “I went and bought it, don’t worry,” her father tried to reassure her.
“When you speak to Sanaz, tell her happy birthday for us,” another woman told her niece, who was in Canada. “Don’t cry, don’t worry about us,” the woman said, echoing what many Iranians in the country kept repeating to their nervous family members.
As Iranians abroad have tried to reach relatives, those inside the country have made a show of public solidarity since Israel’s attacks began last week.
Hotels and hostels have advertised free shelter. People in line for bread at a bakery shared what little of it remained, and others said they were feeding the stray cats still wandering Tehran. A father and daughter handed out drinks to people waiting in a long line for gas. Others delivered water to those stranded on the roads after their GPS-guided maps stopped working in the blackout.
A woman named Niloofar, who lives in a residential district of Tehran that Israel warned should be evacuated on Monday, said that many Iranians, despite their fears, had also expressed a determination to keep living as they always had.
“My sister and I tried so hard to get our parents to evacuate,” she said in a message on Telegram. But her mother was cooking olovieh, a classic Persian dish, “while my dad watched soccer,” she added. “At the end, they both refused to leave.”
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Multiple U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers appeared to be airborne and heading west from the United States across the Pacific, and President Trump returned to the White House Saturday evening as he deliberates about whether to join Israel’s efforts to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites.
Air traffic control communications indicated that several B-2 aircraft — the planes that could be equipped to carry the 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs that Mr. Trump is considering deploying against Iran’s underground nuclear facilities in Fordo — had taken off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.
By Devon Lum and Elena Shao
The B-2 flights were initially tracked on social media before 1 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday. Some flight trackers said on social media that the destination of the aircraft is Guam, the U.S. territory, which has several military installations. The bombers appeared to be accompanied by refueling tankers for portions of the journey, the flight tracking data showed.
Additional Air Force F-22, F-16 and F-35 fighter jets have crossed Europe and are now at bases in the Middle East, or are arriving there, a U.S. official said on Saturday. The jets could escort B-2 bombers that target Fordo, or protect U.S. bases and troops in the region in the event of Iranian retaliatory strikes.
Moving planes does not mean a final decision has been made about whether to strike. It is not unusual to shift military assets into position to provide options to the president and military commanders even if they are not ultimately deployed.
Mr. Trump left his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., and returned to the White House to confer with his national security team, which he was also scheduled to meet with on Sunday. Mr. Trump typically spends both weekend days out of town at one of his properties.
A White House spokeswoman declined to comment.
Mr. Trump has made clear he is weighing whether to have the United States join Israel’s effort to curtail Iran’s ability to acquire a nuclear weapon, a line he has drawn repeatedly over the years.
But he also gave himself extra time to say what he intends to do. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Wednesday that the president would make a decision within the next two weeks as he gives Iran another chance to engage in talks.
The president has been seeking a deal with Iran for months, but he become frustrated at the refusal of Iranian officials to agree to a proposal to end uranium enrichment on Iranian soil. At the same time, the U.S. intelligence community came to the conclusion in early June that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel planned to move forward with strikes against Iran, with or without U.S. help.
Those strikes began on June 12 and have continued since, killing multiple members of Iran’s military leadership and drawing retaliatory strikes from Iran against Israel.
Mr. Trump has been torn between the opportunity to carry out what could be a devastating blow against Iran’s nuclear facilities at a moment when Iran’s defenses have been greatly weakened and the concern that doing so would risk the kind of protracted U.S. military engagement in the region that he campaigned against in 2016 and 2024. That debate has also split his supporters.
On Friday, Mr. Trump reiterated his time frame for a decision on military action “within two weeks,” saying the thinking behind it was “just time to see whether or not people come to their senses.”
As questions mounted about whether Mr. Trump was preparing to enter the war, Israel stepped up attacks on nuclear sites that are part of the supply chain Iran has built up over the past two decades, enabling it to enrich uranium.
For the second time in eight days, Israel focused on sites in the mountains near the ancient capital of Isfahan. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. body that monitors nuclear production sites, reported that a “centrifuge manufacturing workshop” had been targeted. That is one of the workshops where Iran produces the machines that spin at supersonic speeds to enrich uranium.
The same kind of machinery sits under the mountain at Fordo. The agency’s inspectors often visited the workshop, and I.A.E.A. monitoring cameras were installed there.
“We know this facility well,” said Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the agency. “There was no nuclear material at this site, and therefore the attack on it will have no radiological consequences.”
But by hitting the workshops, Israel is clearly seeking to impede Iran from rebuilding nuclear enrichment sites elsewhere, presumably in secret, if the Fordo plant is disabled or destroyed.
Still unknown, however, is whether Iranian scientists, many of whom have been killed in the past week, have replicated the Isfahan workshop in undeclared sites elsewhere in the country.
On Wednesday, the nuclear agency reported that Israel had also attacked the Tehran Research Center, where the most delicate and complex parts of the centrifuges — the fast-spinning rotors — are produced and tested.
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The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had assassinated three Iranian commanders, one of them a senior figure in the force that oversees proxy militias around the Middle East such as the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.
The Israeli defense ministry identified one of those killed as Mohammed Said Izadi. He was a longtime target of Israeli intelligence who oversaw Iran’s ties to groups like Hamas, which led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that ignited the war in Gaza, according to the military.
Mr. Izadi was one of the few people who knew in advance about Hamas’s plan to launch the surprise attack, The New York Times reported last year.
Israeli officials said Mr. Izadi led the Palestinian affairs branch in the Quds Force, the arm of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps responsible for foreign operations. Israel said it had struck an apartment where Mr. Izadi was staying in central Iran overnight between Friday and Saturday.
There was no immediate comment from Iran.
A second commander Israel said it killed was identified as Behnam Shahriyari, another Quds Force commander who oversaw weapons transfers to Iran-backed paramilitary forces in the region.
Mr. Shahriyari had been sanctioned by the U.S. government since 2011 on accusations of transferring weapons on behalf of the Revolutionary Guards to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group.
Effie Defrin, a spokesman for the Israeli military, accused Mr. Shahriyari of being behind financial transfers to allied militant groups in the region.
“Izadi and Shahriyari were at the forefront of Iran’s project to export war into Israeli territory,” Mr. Defrin said in a statement. “In this operation, we have brought the war to them — we eliminated them inside Iran.”
Iran has long backed a network of militias across the Middle East in an attempt to extend its power and influence across the region and menace its enemy, Israel. They include Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, who control parts of Yemen.
In 2019, the United States imposed sanctions on Mr. Izadi, saying he had provided millions of dollars to Hamas. Britain did the same four years later to counter what it called “unprecedented threats from the Iranian regime.”
The Times reported that in August 2023, Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, said in a closed-door meeting of the group’s leadership that he had spoken to Mr. Izadi the previous month to outline its plan to launch a huge assault on Israel, according to internal minutes of the group’s leadership meetings.
Mr. al-Hayya said he had told Mr. Izadi that Hamas would need help with striking sensitive sites during “the first hour” of the attack. According to the documents, Mr. Izadi said that Hezbollah and Iran welcomed the plan in principle, but that they needed time “to prepare the environment.”
After the war in Gaza began, Mr. Izadi remained in direct contact with Hamas’s top leadership and sought to aid them by transferring equipment and funds into the territory, according to two Israeli defense officials. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Last year, as Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon intensified, Mr. Izadi left his longtime base in that country for Iran.
He eventually wound up in a safe house belonging to the Revolutionary Guards in the Iranian city of Qum, the two officials said — the same apartment where he was killed overnight.
Israel’s military on Saturday also released video of a missile strike on a car, which it said showed the Israeli strike that killed Mr. Shahriyari as his vehicle drove through western Iran.
Mr. Defrin said Israeli forces had also killed a Revolutionary Guard commander of drone operations identified as Aminpour Joudaki. He said Mr. Joudaki had coordinated strikes on Israel launched from southwestern Iran.
