Here’s a look at everything we know about the potential Israeli military action against Iran, and the events that have brought the countries to this point.

When will the strikes take place?

We don’t know.

During an earlier exchange of airstrikes in April, Israel only waited about five days to respond to a similar Iranian attack.

But various factors may have dictated a longer lead-up to a response this time around, including talks between Israel and the Biden administration, the arrival of a US air defence system and the Jewish holidays. The upcoming US election could also have an impact on Israeli timing.

Two classified US intelligence documents that were leaked last week describe satellite images of Israeli military preparations for a potential strike on Iran, and offer an insight into American concern about those plans. One document described recent exercises that appeared to rehearse elements of a strike, while the second details how Israel is shifting the placement of its missiles and weapons in case Iran responds to another strike. (The FBI said Tuesday that it was investigating the document leak.)

What are the potential Israeli targets?

Analysts say there are several categories of targets. Israel could try to balance its strategic goals after severely weakening Iran’s proxy forces – Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip – with concerns from its allies, particularly the United States, that a new attack could set off a wider regional war.

The Israeli Government has told the Biden administration that it will avoid striking Iran’s nuclear enrichment and oil production sites, two officials said. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, said that Israel had agreed to focus its attack on military targets in Iran.

Avoiding nuclear or oil infrastructure sites would reduce the likelihood of an all-out war between the two adversaries, amid concerns in Washington over being dragged into a bigger Middle East confrontation with the presidential election less than two weeks away.

What are Israel’s military capabilities?

If Israel wants to use its powerful air force to retaliate, its planes would have to fly long distances. But it has recently shown that it could do so.

In assaults against the Houthis in Yemen at the end of September, Israeli forces flew more than 1600km to attack power plants and shipping infrastructure, using reconnaissance aircraft and dozens of fighter jets that had to be refuelled midflight. An attack on Iran would require similar range.

Iran has much stronger air defences than Lebanon and Yemen, but Israel has showed that it may have an edge.

In April, in retaliation for Iran’s first missile barrage, an Israeli airstrike damaged an S-300 anti-aircraft system near Natanz, a city in central Iran critical to the country’s nuclear weapons programme. Western and Iranian officials said that Israel had deployed aerial drones and at least one missile fired from a warplane in that attack.

That strike showed that Israel could bypass Iran’s defensive systems and paralyse them.

“I think it’s likely they’ll mimic the April operation and try to take out Iran’s early warning systems and air defences to make way for an air attack,” Grant Rumley, a former Pentagon official and a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said in an earlier interview. “The question will be how extensive and whether they’ll go into Iranian airspace.”

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, Israel also has other options: Jericho 2 medium-range ballistic missiles that can fly about 2000 miles, and Jericho 3 intermediate-range ballistic missiles that can reach targets more than 6400km away.

What is the US government’s stance?

President Joe Biden said this month that he would not support an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Biden replied in the affirmative last week when asked whether he knew when Israel would strike and what kind of targets it had chosen. He gave no details, but his response implied that the United States and Israel may have reached an agreement on the matter. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a lengthy meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.

Some analysts argue that the looming US presidential election makes it harder for the United States to influence and potentially limit any possible Israeli action. They say that the fact that Biden is not seeking a second term could also weaken his hand in terms of influencing Israeli action.

How have Israel and Iran arrived at this point?

For decades, Iran and Israel engaged in what amounted to a secret war. Iran has used proxy forces including Hamas and Hezbollah to attack Israeli interests and Israel has assassinated senior Iranian officials and nuclear scientists, as well as staging cyberattacks. That conflict burst into the open this year.

In April, Iran launched a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel, attacking the country directly for the first time in retaliation for a strike by Israel on an embassy compound in the Syrian capital, Damascus, that killed three top Iranian commanders. Israel mainly thwarted the Iranian missile barrage using its air defences, assisted by the United States and other allies, and then responded with an attack of its own.

Then, in late July, Israeli jets killed a top commander of the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, in retaliation for a rocket attack that killed at least 12 people. One day later, Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in an explosion in Iran’s capital, Tehran.

The Iranian Government and Hezbollah vowed to retaliate but, to the surprise of many, Iran took no immediate action.

When it launched its missile barrage October 1, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it was retaliating for the assassination of Haniyeh and also for the killing in late September of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, as well as for the killing of an Iranian commander.

Days after Nasrallah’s death, Israel invaded southern Lebanon, pummelling Hezbollah, Iran’s most important proxy.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Matthew Mpoke Bigg

Photographs by: Avishag Shaar-Yashuva and Arash Khamooshi

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