OAN Staff James Meyers
8:52 AM – Friday, June 13, 2025
Iran launched more than 100 drones toward Israel on Friday, calling the Jewish state’s airstrikes on its nuclear facilities “a declaration of war.”
“In recent hours, Iran has launched more than 100 drones toward Israeli territory,” IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin confirmed Friday.
“We are working to intercept the threats.”
According to an IDF spokesperson, the Israeli military is in “control over the situation” and the Israeli air force has been continuously shooting down drones at the border.
Additionally, the IDF said that Iranian drones have yet to make it into Israeli territory.
The retaliation from Tehran comes after Israel conducted Operation Rising Lion targeting several sites across Iran to dismantle the country’s nuclear infrastructure, ballistic missile factories, and military facilities Thursday night.
In a letter to the United Nations, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called it a “declaration of war.”
Meanwhile, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the mission took place to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and to ensure the “survival” of the Jewish State, after decades of calls from Iranian leaders to destroy his country.
“We can’t leave these threats for the next generation,” Netanyahu said during an address shared on YouTube.
“Because if we don’t act now, there will not be another generation. If we don’t act now, we simply won’t be here. We have internalized the lessons of history. When an enemy says he intends to destroy you — believe him,” he continued.
“When the enemy develops the capabilities to destroy you — stop him.”
Netanyahu also vowed to continue air strikes “for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.”
According to the IDF, close to 200 Israeli fighter jets participated in the attack, targeting close to 100 sites.
The Jewish state targeted Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, which Netanyahu called “the heart of Iran’s ballistic missiles program.”
Tehran did confirm the facility was damaged in the strike, but no nuclear radiation or chemical contamination has occurred.
According to Iranian state media, Major Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Hossein Salami, and the head of the Khatam-al Anbiya Central Headquarters, Gholam Ali Rashid, were killed in the strikes.
Additionally, six nuclear scientists were also killed.
In a statement, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed that Israel would face a “severe punishment” and “should await a harsh response.”
Israel “opened its wicked and blood-stained hand to commit a crime against our beloved country, revealing its malicious nature more than ever by striking residential centers,” Khamenei said in a statement on the state-run IRNA news agency.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the country’s military would “continue its activities to thwart the Iranian nuclear program and remove threats on the State of Israel.”
“The precise hit on the heads of the commanders of the Revolutionary Guards, the Iranian army, and the nuclear scientists, who were all involved in promoting the plan to destroy Israel, is a strong and clear message — those who work to destroy Israel will be eliminated,” Katz said.
For several years the Jewish State has feared and alleged that Iran was trying to weaponize and enrich uranium in an effort to create nuclear weapons.
Early Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — a global nuclear watchdog that has been overseeing Iran’s nuclear program — announced for the first time in 20 years that Iran had breached its non-proliferation obligations and was not working with its inspectors.
After, Tehran immediately announced it would establish a third enrichment site “in a secure location” and that “other measures are also being planned.”
In a statement to the Board of Governors on Monday, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi reported that “the Agency found man-made uranium particles at each of three undeclared locations in Iran — Varamin, Marivan, and Turquzabad — where we conducted complementary access in 2019 and 2020.”
“Since then, we have been seeking explanations and clarifications from Iran for the presence of these uranium particles, including through a number of high-level meetings and consultations in which I have been personally involved,” Grossi wrote.
“Unfortunately, Iran has repeatedly either not answered, or not provided technically credible answers to, the Agency’s questions. It has also sought to sanitize the locations, which has impeded Agency verification activities.”
Tehran has denied ever trying to create nuclear weapons.
Stay informed! Receive breaking news blasts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts