Israel may strike Iran's nuclear facilities, oil facilities, military infrastructure in response

Israel may strike Iran's nuclear facilities in response to the attack, The New York Times reported, citing American officials. According to the publication, during the previous shelling of Israeli territory by Iran, it was possible to avoid a powerful response from Tel Aviv and strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. The Israeli side's reaction to the missile strikes was restrained. In April, they shelled an airbase in Isfahan, a city surrounded by several important Iranian nuclear facilities. Thus, the Israelis sent a message to Tehran that next time they could target facilities valuable for the nuclear program, the The New York Times believes.

U.S. officials say Israel is considering response scenarios this time that include strikes on nuclear sites, specifically the enrichment facilities at Natanz, the heart of Iran’s program. It is there, north of Isfahan, that Iran synthesized its “near-bomb-grade uranium,” which U.S. officials say can be converted to “bomb-grade” in days or weeks. Striking there would take much longer to produce a nuclear weapon.

Possible targets known to Sima Shine, a former head of Mossad's Research and Evaluation Division, include oil facilities, military infrastructure and nuclear sites. She also said it was possible that Israel could go after senior military officials, though she doubted that Iran's political echelon would be on the hit list.

"The question will be whether to go wider or no," Shine, who now serves as director of the Shiite Axis research program at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, said. "And from what I understand, there is an ongoing consultation of the cabinet; they, together with the Americans that are in a very delicate time now, a month before elections."

Israeli officials have previously called for a joint strike with the United States against Iran, particularly targeting nuclear sites that Israel has long warned served as the basis of a burgeoning nuclear weapons program. Iranian officials have repeatedly denied seeking weapons of mass destruction, though officials and experts have suggested this could change if the Islamic Republic faced an existential threat.