Iran has plans to destroy Israel since shortly after their 1979 revolution, using Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, Yemen, and to a lesser extent, Iraq, as part of their plan alongside development of nuclear weapons.

On June 13, 2025, Israel surprised the world by attacking Iran in the middle of the night using drones from within Iran and the air force. During that time, Israel killed many (most?) of the top Iranian military leaders, the capability for Iran to make further ballistic missiles to overwhelm Israel’s defenses, and most of Iran’s missile launchers with the help of U.S. spy satellites locating the heat signatures of the missiles during launch. Near the end of the 12 day war the United States took out three of Iran’s nuclear sites using bunker busting bombs.

What follows is my day-by-day diary posted on my Facebook feed.

June 16, 2025

Yesterday, going to the bomb shelter became an impromptu karaoke session. My office in the basement is also our safe room with highspeed internet and a decent sound system. “New day will rise” while missile interceptors provide the bass is something special. Going to a bomb shelter shouldn’t be fun, though seems better than any other reaction.

Israeli is kicking Iran’s touchos though it doesn’t feel like that when about 10 Israelis die per day and an apartment building is destroyed per day. In the scheme of the real size of this war which has now reached “boss level” and the casualties on both sides being so low, it’s a very different kind of war.

There are soldiers with guns – though 1500 miles apart. Thus, the amount of human life taken is very small for a war of this size. Israel targets Iran’s military leaders (the revolutionary guard and not the army – seemingly hoping for an overthrow by the army) though has the power to kill hundreds of thousands. Iran only has the power to shoot conventional weapons at civilians (which is a war crime).

I trust the Israeli army completely and their decision to attack Iran directly. A dirty bomb shipping in a container to a port anywhere in the world could cause nuclear waste and panic within a few miles of any port in the world and be nearly unstoppable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZdkXj3wxpM <— prophetic about this war from 13 years ago. This risk of “mutual assured destruction” is something that some people think is a good idea. They await the hidden Imam or some such apocalyptic thing.

Not sleeping well which somewhat has to do with my kids. Without a regular daytime schedule, they’re staying up late … with music and light … and I shut off the internet connection from my phone which avoided a trip to tell one of them to go to bed. We both then went to sleep. Success.

When I’m not sleeping well because of a standard marital struggle over temperature and light in the bedroom, I go to my office. Now it’s noise as well, though from the outside. Can’t hear a thing in my office so I plan to start out there tonight … if there are sirens, I hope to sleep through karaoke time.

During the day, bakeries are essential businesses and so is their music are the lively outdoor seating. The frozen yogurt place also is, apparently. The commercial areas are full of cars, and I don’t know where they are coming from because so is my neighborhood.

Iran attacks pretty much only at night when they can hide the hours of preparation to launch ballistic missiles which need their own oxygen supply. The numbers they can launch at a time are decreasing … I expect the impact will continue to decrease.

Imagine if Hamas, Hezbelloh, Houtis, and Iran all attacked at the same time – that would have been a nightmare. Somehow, thank G_d despite Iran building up terrorists around every border of Israel, we’ve been able to take them out one at a time. Consider how well we’re doing given what we face.

Waiting to win boss level and hear he triumphant music when the death star blows up and bowser falls into lava.¹

June 17, 2025

Last night I slept in my office / safe room … there were no sirens though I did get some good sleep anyway. I sleep best there.

This morning, went to pray in someone’s backyard and just as we were commenting that there were no sirens, we got a siren. Went into the safe room, came back, prayed.

Otherwise, not much to write about. Normal day … stuff is open, people are mostly working from home … my youngest daughter received a packet of work to do at home and surprisingly, I could do 5th grade Hebrew grammar homework (and so can she – her first year in school in Israel). Morale is super high around here.

Number of missiles from Iran is decreasing faster than expected. Their volleys are down to about 12 missiles at a time and no deaths in Israel.

While 150,000 Israelis are trying to find a way back to the country and El Al is about to start airlifting people back home, 10 million Iranians are fleeing Tehran. ATMs aren’t working and their crumbling infrastructure is failing with it.

Israel can send its planes anywhere in Iran with almost no limit and bomb whatever it wants. Iran’s ability to send missiles to Israel seems to be decreasing exponentially as their launchers are destroyed and they fire from launchers further and further away with what appears to be less accuracy … now triggering sirens in Jordan and some landing in Syria.

I was wondering how Israel got 200 F14 jets to Iran which is beyond their range … turns out they added large fuel tanks to the bottom of the planes. Made Israels achievements even more of a surprise. Thanks America!

Now two videos:

1) Muppets version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM_gO2zReRs

2) Iranian TV parodies the Muppets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5nxCnGPQXU

June 18, 2025

Went to the grocery store and there were crazy lines and hard to move through the aisles. Had to compete with others to get a shopping cart from someone finishing loading their car.

… and that is the supermarket on any afternoon late in the week. War hasn’t changed a thing.

Iran’s major bitcoin exchange has gone from 1.8 billion in bitcoin to 100 million. Hard to evade sanctions without your bitcoin.

Braved karaoke twice last night in my office / where I’m sleeping / safe room. Only in my house is an air raid siren a cause for joyous singing. All our sleep schedules are whack. Will karaoke be at 3am? 1am? 11pm? Who knows …

Iran’s missile launches are getting weaker … barrages of about 11 maximum and given the smaller number, Israel’s defenses are working much better. No more destroyed buildings or deaths in the past two days.

People are jovial. We’re in this together while threats to our existence by the anti-Teddy Roosevelts keep going on … they walk loudly and don’t carry a big stick.

June 19, 2025

– gym reopened

– family karaoke sessions in the safe room needs some help

– daughter is graduating middle school again … middle school ends in 8th grade in US and 9th grade in Israel. It’s via Zoom. Guess Covid prepared us for this.

– Fighting Iran is like being a major league baseball fighting a middle school team with an insatiable ego. They didn’t have enough running water or energy even before the war … Iran’s capital is emptied out, their banking system is disabled, their ability to produce oil is partially, and could easily be fully disabled …

If this were in Europe, there’d have been surrender a long time ago and Israel isn’t even trying to get territory from a neighbor.

My son came up with this analogy:

Biden treated Europe like Europe and the Middle East like Europe.

Trump treats Europe like the Middle East and the Middle East like the Middle East.

– Israel’s terms for peace: leave us alone. Actually, we’d prefer to be friends … we like Persians.

– Iran’s terms for peace: Death to America. Death to Israel.

Let us have mutually assured destruction of the world because it’s our religious duty.

Sigh. It’s like in every generation someone rises up to try and kill the Jews. Where have I read that before?

June 20, 2025

Yesterday I went to the mall and gym (same place). The mall is completely open. With a 10-minute warning, easy enough for everyone to get to the underground parking lot. (Iran hasn’t shot in the middle of the day – too easy to detect.)

Gym … max 30 people at a time. They let people in on the hour, for an hour. I put my name on a list and waiting 1/2 hr. Good thing I was there when I was … after that people put their name on the list for the next hour. 95% of the people were under 25. Need to go the morning.

Last night, no sirens. “Only” one missile made it out of Iran towards the South of the country ,,, after they struck our largest hospital in Beersheva and the South yesterday. “Oops” they kind of said and then claimed a bunch of nonsense, using AI generated maps with errors that AI makes like wrong street names and artifacts …

Why’d they only get one missile off last night? Israeli air force struck the others as they were launching and they’re losing personnel that can launch them. Israel estimates that 50% of their launchpads are destroyed. Not destroying them fast enough.

There are lots of pundits on YouTube with their theories and I think most of them hasn’t a clue. The one I trust is Caspian Report … he’s excellent with geopolitical matters and predicted this war five months ago.

My theories: Sinwar jumped the gun and attacked from Gaza before Iran and Hezbollah wanted it. They weren’t ready or properly informed. Hezbollah joined only the next day with small range munitions (a couple of miles) mostly – not when Sinwar asked. It was tepid support if you can call it that when you shoot at another country.

Iran wasn’t ready … didn’t have a bomb yet … negotiating with years of stalling while they built up things like hidden mountain fortresses and plutonium “research” that was only discovered many years later, etc, etc. Peaceful? Then why hide it and why enrich to 60%+ when you need 3.75% for energy? (U-235 doesn’t work for nuclear reactions … only U-238 and it’s barely distinguishable except with small mass difference requiring hundreds of miles of tubes for the Manhattan project and/or thousands of precisely acting centrifuge running for years).

With or without a nuclear bomb, Iran is the one who pays for and arms Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houtis and are actively rearming Hezbollah now (I imagine Israel isn’t stopping 100% of it). With or without a nuclear bomb, Israel isn’t going to return to a situation surrounded by extremely well funded terrorists (while Tehran has gas and water shortages … dictators don’t care about their own people).

The attack on Iran has to happen now or later and right now there’s open air between Israel and Iran to do it.

What about America joining? Here’s my theory – first, Trumps cabinet is made up of those who are more for international intervention and those who want others to defend themselves. The leaked signal chat about attacks on Yemen made that more clear … Rubio is against it and was the one to announce that US had no part in Israels attacks on Iran (not really true).

Trump appreciates other countries spending their money and doing the dirty work for themselves … as they should. He likes strength and respects it even when it’s from someone like Putin.

America will join soon enough … here’s the difficulty: Iran has hypersonic missiles that can attack US bases in the region. They aren’t stoppable once launched with today’s tech. The US has been moving stuff out of airbases within range while moving in other stuff in other bases to prepare for war.

My theory is as follows: America is waiting for Israel to knock out as many missile launchers as possible so Iran can’t attack America. Once that is accomplished, America is ready to go in and do the rest. This will be the next stage of the war though it’s not clear how long it takes until we get there.

June 21, 2025

Woke this morning to news that America took out Iran’s main nuclear sites. This was predicted based on a high level of ‘papa john’s’ DoorDash orders near the Pentagon.

Trump praised Netanyahu up the wazu and Netanyahu praised Trump even more. (gotta stroke that ego … can’t imagine if Kamala had won the presidency … oy) Trump said ‘G-d bless Israel’ before he said ‘G-d bless America’.

Waiting for the Iranian response, Israel closed down everything “non-essential”. (I suspect the bakeries with music and outdoor seating like a restaurant will be open.)

At about 7:30 in the morning we heard the sirens – thank you for waiting until morning! (It takes Iran about 4 hours to prepare, and this was about 4 hours after the American attack.) In the safe room the teenagers responded, “why couldn’t they wait until -our- morning?” We played nice renditions of ‘modeh ani’ … thanks to G_d that I woke up this morning … it’s the first thing a Jew says when they wake up (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npRw36_Ftmc and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=271YZsbm4IU).

We heard loud booms overhead – the metal door over the window rattled a lot. Surely this is going to be a big one because Iran is angry now!

It is exhilarating to be here while history is being made and I’m so glad I got here before the airspace was closed … and with enough time to get settled and comfortable here.

The whole thing was over soon enough … finished karaoke “Guns and Ships” though didn’t even finish karaoke “Non-stop” from Hamilton (to fair, it’s a really long song).

Went to my regular minyan [prayer group] … we pray every morning in synagogue … they’re closed right now. “Quiet morning, everyone?” I asked before we started.

There are 13 types of prayer (https://zachary-dubow.medium.com/13-types-of-prayer…) … after the Shemonei Esrei, that central part of prayers, there are “supplications” which are normally said … except on days of joy.

Someone asked, “should we say it today?”

Someone answered, “we should say Hallal” (related to the English word ‘halleluy-ah”), which is reserved for special days of thanks to G_d … we say it on holidays, the night of the Passover seder …

“It says in the Gemora that when Sancheriv was beaten back we didn’t receive moschiach [messah] because we didn’t give praise to G_d” and we sang full Hallal with a brocha [blessing].

When we finished someone else reminded us that we’re still at war and we said tehillim [psalms].

The series of events making this possible are like something out of a biblical text.

Read the news … Iran “only” shot 27 missiles … not much more than they’ve been able to shoot lately. Israel destroyed more launchers, weakening Iran more and more. All but 2 were intercepted … no deaths in Israel, just light wounds … attacks on civilian populations while America/Israel take-out only weapons sites.

Iran shot a new 30 ton missile which they call the “Khyber” … for those who haven’t read the Koran, this refers to an event where Mohammed massacred Jews complete with beheadings, breaking a peace treaty, after each of three Jewish communities didn’t come together to stop him before he got that powerful.

Came back home – wife was in the car going out to pick-up the cleaning lady because the buses aren’t running. Got to have the cleaning lady!

June 3, 2025

Only ‘essential’ businesses are open. I’m having trouble figuring out what Israel calls ‘essential’ because on the one hand, Stemenetski, one of the big bookstore chains, was closed. Yet the other, Tzomet Seforim, was open.

Footlocker was closed, yet the shoe store near it was opened. Pet stores all seem to be ‘essential’. Most cafes seem not to be essential … except some are. Hobby stores … some aren’t essential, some are. Lighting stores, hardware stores, home goods stores … all essential.

Traffic is lighter. I don’t mind.

Coming back from the cafe the “10-minute warning” siren went off. We decided to ‘book it’ home. Had to honk a car to get him fully into his turning lane so I could go straight … in fact, while the traffic was very light, people on the road didn’t seem to be in a rush. (We’re not directly in the path of anything though we’re not that far away either.)

At the final traffic light … it was red, yet sparse. Drove around a car waiting properly for the light to turn and made a left on red. Mostly because I could. I still feel guilty about it. Didn’t really need to.

Iran changed its tactic. Instead of a barrage of 10 to 20 missiles (which they claimed would be 100 to 200) … they fired about 10, spread into groups of about 3 … first central, then south, then north of country. Causes little damage … guess they’re conserving their resources and makes it harder for Israel to find individual launchers.

I am afraid of ‘forever war’. It seems Israels strategy is ‘overthrow the Iranian government’ which has about a 15 to 20% popularity. Israel announced that for every rocket fired at Israel, there will be devastation in Iran and so it was today with the strongest airstrikes in Tehran to date.

Hundreds of the terrorists / government organizations were at meetings, these organizations being related to oppression of people who don’t wear hijabs properly or advocate for things like “democracy”. Hundreds of the terrorists died all in one major attack.

Oldest trick in the book and it’s not like this is the first time Israel has killed groups of terrorists gathering … it’s even been done in Iran already and Israel organized the meeting. This time it was a few hundred terrorists with one stone (well, probably about 12 stones).

Not sure what will happen next, though the sad part is that this is the only strategy that works in the Middle East. “Let’s get together, draw borders, and live at peace” said every European to the dismay of every Arab still living with Picot-Sykes. Europe is still saying, “we decide the borders of Israel are x, y, z” despite maybe 5 people in the entire Middle East agreeing that it’s a good idea. Stop it Europe. This isn’t WWI and you’ve done enough.

America’s strategy with destroying Iran’s nuclear program … brilliant. Went in, poked a bunch of holes in the ground in the right places, left and no mess. Iran, weakened in both material and bluster, has few options … do they stick to their threats and attack United States who isn’t at war with them and get pummeled? Do they do nothing and look weak to their people?

A new day will rise. I think people are more worried about Israel who are outside of Israel than those that are inside. Two of my kids had sleepovers … one is taking online Hebrew, another Physics and Geometry … a third places with horses and kittens … we’re good.

June 25, 2025

The war has become like the TSA … security theater. US tells Iran what they will attack and then leave. Iran tells US what they will attack and then leave – 6 missiles to be intercepted here, here, here, here, and here … and one will fly over your head. Iran breaks a cease fire. Trump tells Israel how much they can attack Iran and then leave … it’s kind of like a duel where one side is happy to shoot in the air and then say, “I’m satisfied – my honor has been restored because I stood up to you even though neither of intended to hurt each other.”

Obviously, happy to have it over … and a lot quicker than anyone reading the news would have thought. Questions remain: will Iran make more missiles? Will Israel have to attack again in six months or a year? Will Iran try to empower Hezbelloh again?²

The price of oil was already going down … clear there wasn’t going to be a large war … and the shekel is now 3.4 to the dollar … it was 3.8 not long ago! The shekel and Israeli stock market gained value during the war. Tried to figure out why … Globes financial news says it’s because once Iran’s ability to attack Israel and fund terrorism goes away, Israel has a very bright financial future and investors invest ahead of the curve.

Today seems to be recovery day for Israel … some more parking spots available in my neighborhood because people went back to work, though not that many. (A lot of people work from home … everyone in Israel works in HiTech as they call it around here.)

What did Iran lose in the war? Nuclear weapons manufacturing (for 2 years? 5 years? “forever?”) and a dozen or so of their top nuclear scientists.

They also lost 700 or so of their security enforcer people that beat the women who don’t wear hijabs, et al … seems neither Israel nor Iran really wans to publish this number.

Nine out of 15 of Iran’s top commanders are dead. The rest are probably part of the mossad anyway. (There’s a joke about the shuk in Tehran … a mossad agent says, “Shalom” in Hebrew instead of Farsi by accident. He’s afraid he just blew his cover when the storekeeper answers, “ani baya, chaver. Gam ani b’mossad”.)

Iran … is a paper tiger now without Russian radar defense. Iran lost all their bluster and it is no longer taboo for Israel to attack should Iran start doing crap again. It’s not in the news – until this very day Israel continues to kill terrorists in Lebanon almost daily and continues to control land in Lebanon … and the entire Hermon mountain with radar systems looking down on Beirut and Damascus.

In short – Israel has emerged a whole lot stronger. Loss of life since Oct 8th has been minimal. Each death hurts us because we care so much about life. (Not enough to release 10,000 terrorists as Hamas had hoped.)

My opinions on other countries:

China: busy oppressing Muslims … at war with them for over a thousand years. They buy huge amounts of oil from Iran and don’t want to see Iran still at war they China steps in to help no one, especially not a Muslim country.

Russia: Needs machines of war from Iran. Enjoys close relations with Israel … Israel, in fact, is pushing for Russia to maintain it’s army base in Syria as a hedge against other groups in Syria getting too much power. Russia doesn’t want to see war.

Europe: A “thank you” to Israel would be nice for taking out Iran’s ability to threaten them.

Saudi Arabia: Can we come out of the closet finally with our relationship?

Qatar: Iran did a stupid by choosing to attack a US military base in Qatar and send some Qatar citizens running from booms. Qatar, an alleged mediator, keeps Hamas in their country and plays both sides.

Lebanon: Lebanon hates Hezbelloh more than anyone else … they’re making sure Hezbelloh doesn’t become powerful again and are moving towards making their country less of an excrement hole that Hezbelloh turned it into. Waiting for them to thank Israel too.

Syria: Hates Iran. Won’t let weapons from Iran go through their territory. That’s good for now.

Jordan: Outlawed Hamas and arrests them. Egypt … similar. Basically … the majority in Sunni countries hate the Shite Muslims a lot more than they hate Israel, returning to their roots. Iran is really isolated right now.

… and that is my opinion for now. Have at it. As the 60s Batman show ended ….

… The End ?!?

June 26, 2025

Ceasefire yesterday.

Today: What war?

Everything as busy and packed as usual.

The Entire Aliyah Diary

Arrival

01. Aug 19, 2024: Preparation In America
02. Aug 25, 2024: First Few Days
03. Aug 29, 2024: Moving In
62. July 17, 2025: I MADE IT

Cultural Adjustment Fun

Cultural Adjustment Difficulties

On The Roads

Shopping

11. Oct 13, 2024: Packages. (חבילות.)
34. Feb 17, 2025: Finding Obscure Things
41. Mar 23, 2025: New Shopping Habits
44. Apr 6, 2025: Pesach Shopping & Osher Ad

Government and Bureaucracy

Politics and Thought

Travel: South Israel

Travel: Central/North Israel

Travel: From Israel to …

54. June 4, 2025: Marseille and Avignon

Comment by me in response to a person not liking that we were woken up … Hamas is neutered.
Hezbelloh is being taken out by the Lebanese government.
Syria is too weak to do anything … and Israel controls the Hermon having radar over Damascus.
Yemen … they probably still have capabilities to fire missiles at us though they don’t do much damage. Unclear if the latest attacks by sea have actually deterred them. Suffice to say, doesn’t look like they’ll have an easy time restocking.
There are some terrorist groups in Iraq who were launching drones at Israel … they stopped after Hezbelloh agreed to a truce with Israel. They’re not “that much” of a threat.
Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt hate Iran and aside from public statements, side with Israel in the conflict.
Jordan outlawed Hamas and has been arresting them.
Egypt just stopped a convey of 1000+ people leaving from Libya and Tunisia from crossing into their border on their way to “liberate Gaza”. Egypt was going into their hotel rooms in the middle of the night with guns arresting them and kicking them out of the country.
UAE and Oman have full and excellent relations with Israel.
Could be a wildcard somewhere, though the head of the beast has just been gut punched and stripped of most of its weapons and leaders … Israel took out the second in command in Iran, right under Khomenei! (Probably decided to leave Khomenei alive.) ↩︎
Comment: Anat Rosensweig – You wrote: Questions remain: will Iran make more missiles? Will Israel have to attack again in six months or a year? Will Iran try to empower Hezbelloh again?
My answers:
Yes, they will try to rearm as soon as possible. They have not abandoned their ideology to destroy us. And seem to believe, or want to convince themselves, that they “won”.
Yes, Israel will attack again, far sooner than in six months or a year. They will be watching closely and any breach in the brokered terms of the ceasefire will be enforced with munitions, as is the case in Lebanon against Hizbolla. Not a month goes by that we don’t attack there.
Not sure if Iran will try to empower hizbollah and hamas again. I think they may look for a new route to annihilate Israel… Which is what they were doing before “Lion Rising” – rushing to thousands of ballistic missiles and to nukes. ↩︎