Iran’s senior leaders had been planning for more than a week for an Israeli attack should nuclear talks with the United States fail. But they made one enormous miscalculation.
They never expected Israel to strike before another round of talks that had been scheduled for this coming Sunday in Oman, officials close to Iran’s leadership said on Friday. They dismissed reports that an attack was imminent as Israeli propaganda meant to pressure Iran to make concessions on its nuclear program in those talks.
Perhaps because of that complacency, precautions that had been planned were ignored, the officials said.
This account of how Iranian officials were preparing before Israel conducted widespread attacks across their country on Friday, and how they reacted in the aftermath, is based on interviews with half a dozen senior Iranian officials and two members of the Revolutionary Guards. They all asked not to be named to discuss sensitive information.
Officials said that the night of Israel’s attack, senior military commanders did not shelter in safe houses and instead stayed in their own homes, a fateful decision. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace unit, and his senior staff ignored a directive against congregating in one location. They held an emergency war meeting at a military base in Tehran and were killed when Israel struck the base.
By Friday evening, the government was just beginning to grasp the extent of damage from Israel’s military campaign that began in the early hours of the day and struck at least 15 locations across Iran, including in Isfahan, Tabriz, Ilam, Lorestan, Borujerd, Qom, Arak, Urmia, Ghasre Shirin, Kermanshah, Hamedan and Shiraz, four Iranian officials said.
Israel had taken out much of Iran’s defense capability, destroying radars and air defenses; crippled its access to its arsenal of ballistic missiles; and wiped out senior figures in the military chain of command. In addition, the aboveground part of a major nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz was severely damaged.
In private text messages shared with The New York Times, some officials were angrily asking one another, “Where is our air defense?” and “How can Israel come and attack anything it wants, kill our top commanders, and we are incapable of stopping it?” They also questioned the major intelligence and defense failures that had led to Iran’s inability to see the attacks coming, and the resulting damage.
“Israel’s attack completely caught the leadership by surprise, especially the killing of the top military figures and nuclear scientists. It also exposed our lack of proper air defense and their ability to bombard our critical sites and military bases with no resistance,” Hamid Hosseini, a member of the country’s Chamber of Commerce’s energy committee, said in a telephone interview from Tehran.
Mr. Hosseini, who is close to the government, said Israel’s apparent infiltration of Iran’s security and military apparatus had also shocked officials. Israel has conducted covert operations in Iran against military and nuclear targets and carried out targeted assassinations against nuclear scientists for decades as part of its shadow war with Iran, but Friday’s multipronged and complex attack involving fighter jets and covert operatives who had smuggled missile parts and drones into the country suggested a new level of access and capability.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been moved to an undisclosed safe location where he remained in contact with remaining top military officials, said in a televised speech that Israel had, with its attacks, declared war on Iran. As he spoke, vowing revenge and punishment, Iran launched several waves of missile attacks on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
“They should not think they attacked and it is over,” Mr. Khamenei said. “No, they started it. They started the war. We will not allow them to escape from this crime unharmed.”
Earlier Friday morning, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, a 23-person council responsible for national security decisions, held an emergency meeting to discuss how the country should respond. In the meeting, Mr. Khamenei said he wanted revenge but did not want to act hastily, according to two officials familiar with the discussions.
Divisions emerged on when and how Iran should respond, and whether it could sustain a prolonged war with Israel that could also drag in the United States, given how badly its defense and missile capabilities were damaged. One official said in the meeting that if Israel responded by attacking Iran’s infrastructure or water and energy plants, it could lead to protests or riots.
A member of the Revolutionary Guards briefed on the meeting said that officials understood that Mr. Khamenei faced a pivotal moment in his nearly 40 years in power: He had to decide between acting, and risking an all-out war that could end his rule, or retreating, which would be interpreted domestically and internationally as defeat.
“Khamanei faces no good options,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director of the International Crisis Group. “If he escalates, he risks inviting a more devastating Israeli attack that the U.S. could join. If he doesn’t, he risks hollowing out his regime or losing power.”
Ultimately, Mr. Khamenei ordered Iran’s military to fire on Israel. Initially, the plan was to launch up to 1,000 ballistic missiles on Israel to overwhelm its air defense and ensure maximum damage, according to two members of the Guards. But Israel’s strikes on missile bases had made it impossible to move missiles quickly from storage and place them on launchpads, they added.
In the end, Iran could only muster about 100 missiles in its first waves of attacks. At least seven sites were struck around Tel Aviv, killing one person and injuring at least 20 more, and damaging residential buildings.
On Friday, after Israeli attacks had somewhat subsided for part of the day, Iran’s military hurried to repair some of its damaged air defenses and install new ones, according to officials. Iran’s airspace remained closed with flights grounded and airports closed.
Some residents of Tehran spent Friday, a holiday, waiting in gas station lines to fill up their vehicles’ tanks and flocking to grocery stores to stock up on essentials like bread, canned food and bottled water. Many families gathered in parks late into the night, spreading blankets and picnics on the grass, and said in telephone interviews they feared remaining indoors after Israel had struck residential buildings in various neighborhoods targeting scientists and military and government officials.
Mehrdad, 35, who did not want his last name used because of fears for his safety, shared a video of his kitchen wall and windows destroyed when an Israeli missile struck the high-rise next door in his upscale neighborhood in northern Tehran. He said that he had been lucky to have been in the bedroom when the attack occurred, but some civilians in the neighborhood, including children, had been injured.
In the early hours of Saturday, Israel resumed its attacks on Tehran. Some residents, including Fatemeh Hassani, who lives in the Mirdamad neighborhood, said they heard drones buzzing overhead and nonstop explosion sounds followed by the rat-tat-tat of air defenses firing in eastern and central Tehran.
Mahsa, a 42-year-old computer engineer who lives in the capital’s north and similarly did not want to give her last name out of fear of her safety, said she and her family were unable to sleep. They not only could hear the booms but also could see traces of fire and smoke from their window.
“We are in the middle of a war, this much is clear to all of us, and we don’t know where it will go or how it will end,” she said.
Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization, and also covers Iran and the shadow war between Iran and Israel. She is based in New York.
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