Israel struck a centrifuge production site in Tehran early Wednesday, after successfully intercepting more than two dozen missiles launched by Iran toward Israel in the preceding hours.

Over 50 Israeli Air Force jets flew to Iran, where they struck a facility in which centrifuges were manufactured to expand and accelerate uranium enrichment for Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said.

”The Iranian regime is enriching uranium for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons. Nuclear power for civilian use does not require enrichment at these levels,” the IDF said.

The IDF also said it struck several weapons manufacturing facilities, including one used “to produce raw materials and components for the assembly of surface-to-surface missiles, which the Iranian regime has fired and continues to fire toward the State of Israel.” Another facility that the IDF struck manufactured components for anti-aircraft missiles.

IDF Spokesperson Effie Defrin said on Wednesday that the IDF “attacked five Iranian combat helicopters that tried to harm our aircraft.” 

“There is Iranian resistance, but we control the air [over Iran] and will continue to control it. We are deepening our damage to surface missiles and acting in every place from which the Iranians shoot missiles at Israel,” Defrin added.

Defrin said on Tuesday evening that, as a result of Israel’s air superiority in western Iran and the Tehran area, the Islamic Republic’s military efforts “have been pushed back into central Iran. They are now focusing their efforts on conducting missile fire from the area of Isfahan.”

Defense Minister Israel Katz said that “a tornado is passing over Tehran. Symbols of the regime are exploding and collapsing, from the broadcast authority and soon other targets, and masses of residents are fleeing. This is how dictatorships collapse.” 

Most of the projectiles fired from Iran toward northern and central Israel overnight were intercepted, and no injuries or fatalities were reported. 

In addition, Iran launched over 10 drones at the Galilee and the Golan on Wednesday morning, all of which the IDF intercepted.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Israel is running low on Arrow interceptors used to shoot down long-range ballistic missiles from Iran. Israel also uses the David’s Sling system against Iranian missiles. The Arrow is manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries. The U.S. has augmented Israel’s air defenses with its THAAD system, but is concerned about its own stock of interceptors. The IDF told the Journal that “it is prepared and ready to handle any scenario.”

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wrote on X that Iran “must give a strong response to the terrorist Zionist regime. We will show the Zionists no mercy.” On his Persian X account, Khamenei evoked Khaybar, the site of a massacre of Jews by Muslims in the 7th century, along with an image of a man with a sword entering a burning castle. 

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that it shot Fatah-1 hypersonic missiles at Israel, which move faster than the speed of sound and cannot be detected by missile defense systems. However, there is no evidence on the ground in Israel of that being the case. 

Iranian state media reported on Wednesday the interception of an Israeli drone near Isfahan, with footage of an aircraft that looks like an IAF Hermes 900. The IDF declined to comment. 

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar wrote a letter updating the U.N. Security Council on Israel’s Operation Rising Lion against Iran. The operation is “aimed to neutralize the existential and imminent threat from Iran’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs” and “specifically targets military facilities and critical components of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, as well as key individuals involved in Iran’s efforts to achieve nuclear weapons.” 

Sa’ar noted the Islamic Republic’s “public threats to eliminate the State of Israel, in stark violation of the UN charter, and its continued attempts to achieve the means to accomplish this by rapidly developing military nuclear capabilities, as well as its ballistic missile program.” He pointed out that the International Atomic Energy Agency censured Iran in a recent Board of Governors decision for its non-compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Sa’ar’s letter came after two missives from Iran to the UNSC about Israel’s strikes on the country.

Also Wednesday, the first Israeli rescue flights arrived from Cyprus, meant to help some of the over 100,000 Israelis stuck abroad while Israel’s airspace is closed. Israel Airports Authority said that 2,800 Israelis were expected to return on Wednesday. Israeli airlines El Al, Arkia, Israir and Air Haifa will be making further emergency flights to repatriate Israelis.

China’s foreign ministry said that it was telling citizens to leave Israel and Iran, and Russia’s ambassador to Israel, Anatoly Viktorov, said that the families of Russian diplomats left Israel via Egypt on Tuesday. 

Iran has launched about 400 ballistic missiles and hundreds of drones at Israel, hitting 40 impact sites since the beginning of the operation on Friday, according to the Israeli Government Press Office. There have been 24 fatalities and over 804 injured, eight of whom are in serious condition. About 3,800 people have been evacuated from their homes and 18,766 damage claims were submitted to the Israel Tax Authority.

Former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan praised President Donald Trump for his strategy of engagement with Iran on their nuclear weapons program and predicted that the Trump administration would reach a deal that “is going to look and feel pretty similar to the” 2015 nuclear deal reached by former President Barack Obama.

Sullivan made the comments on the Unholy Podcast, hosted by Channel 12 anchor Yonit Levi and The Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland, when asked how he views Trump’s embrace of diplomacy with Iran after withdrawing from the Obama-era deal in his first term. Sullivan, who helped negotiate the 2015 agreement before serving as former President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, noted that Trump referred to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as “the worst deal in human history.”

“The irony is not lost on me that now they are negotiating something that, in its broad elements, is going to look and feel pretty similar to the JCPOA. I’m not talking to anyone in the Trump administration about this. I don’t know of them engaging with other of the architects or negotiators from the Obama era, in part because, while they’re following some of the blueprint of the JCPOA, I think from a marketing perspective, they want to distance themselves and say [that] whatever the Trump deal is is going to be so much better than the Obama deal. I will find it very interesting to watch them make that case,” Sullivan said. 

The former national security adviser said he was monitoring public developments with regard to how the uranium enrichment issue was addressed in the ongoing negotiations. Sullivan noted that the issue “has both hung up the negotiations and created this big fight, frankly, within the Republican party.”

Citing the risk of the “potential for retaliation by Iran against both Israel and the United States in the region,” Sullivan said that, “I’ve always thought that a diplomatic resolution that puts Iran’s nuclear program in a box is the right way to proceed. And on this, unlike on many other issues, on foreign policy, I seem to be on the same page as Donald Trump.”

Asked about Trump’s decision to not stop in Israel during his recent Middle East visit and if his overall approach to extracting concessions from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu served as evidence that the Biden administration should have taken a firmer stance with the Israelis, Sullivan argued there were commonalities between Trump and Biden’s approach to the Gulf states. 

“Donald Trump likes peace and he likes deals. That’s his basic approach to the region. And he looks at Bibi and he says, ‘Is Bibi going to give me peace or deals? No. Is MBS [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman]? Yes. Is MBZ [UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan]? Yes. Even, are the Iranians? Maybe. So are the Houthis, maybe they’ll give me a deal.’ So really I think what he’s doing is saying, ‘Can Bibi be a partner in the things I’m trying to accomplish here, deescalation and deals?’ And since he’s kind of concluded the answer is no, he’s just going to go off and largely do that himself,” Sullivan explained. 

“That means cutting a deal with the Houthis that essentially still leaves the Houthis in a position where they’re attacking Israel and saying they’re going to hold Israeli link shipping at risk. It has him potentially doing a deal with Iran, despite misgivings from Israel. And of course, it has him pursuing these massive economic deals with Saudi and the UAE,” he continued. 

Sullivan argued that the Biden administration “worked to pave the way for a lot of the strengthened relations with countries in the Gulf,” pointing to partnerships they made with the Saudis and Emiratis.

“We had a different approach on some of this AI and tech stuff, particularly limitations around numbers of chips that would go there. But in substance, the idea that there would be a technology partnership between the UAE and the United States, between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, that was a hallmark of the Biden approach as well. And so I don’t see a huge divergence there,” he said.

Asked about the ramifications of Israel potentially striking Iran’s nuclear program without Trump’s approval, Sullivan dismissed the notion that Netanyahu would defy the current president.

“I’m pretty skeptical that Prime Minister Netanyahu would act contrary to Trump’s wishes on this front. I think it is highly unlikely that you would see an Israeli prime minister order an attack against the express urging of an American president, particularly this American president in this time, particularly given that the U.S. is engaged in diplomacy with Iran to try to get to some kind of deal,” Sullivan said.