JERUSALEM – A series of high-stakes Israeli military strikes against Iranian and proxy-held targets has triggered a severe international firestorm, placing competing narratives in stark relief. Israeli officials have defended the operation, codenamed "Am Kelavi," as a legal and necessary act of pre-emptive self-defense against what they describe as an imminent, existential nuclear threat from Tehran. This justification, however, is being fiercely contested amid widespread reports of significant civilian casualties and mounting questions from critics about the operation's strategic effectiveness.

The Rationale for Pre-emption

At the core of Israel's defense is the argument of last resort. According to senior Israeli defense and intelligence officials, the operation was launched after receiving credible intelligence that Iran’s nuclear program had reached a critical “point of no return.” These officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, assert that years of diplomacy and sanctions had failed to deter Tehran, which they claim was using negotiations as a “smokescreen” to accelerate its weapons development.

"International law does not require a nation to passively await its own annihilation," a legal advisor to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in a briefing. "When faced with a genocidal regime that has explicitly and repeatedly promised your destruction, and which has violated its NPT commitments, the doctrine of anticipatory self-defense is not only a right but a responsibility." Proponents of this view argue that the operation was not an act of aggression but a move to de-escalate a looming regional catastrophe, neutralizing a threat before it could trigger a nuclear-armed conflict.

However, this strategic calculus is being challenged. Some analysts and critical publications argue the operation may have backfired. A report by Jacobin highlighted the “unsustainable” high cost of Israel’s defensive measures, while an AP News analysis raised persistent questions about the actual long-term damage inflicted on Iran's heavily fortified and dispersed nuclear program. These critiques suggest the operation may have been a costly tactical engagement with questionable strategic gains.

In response, sources within the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) maintain that the operation was a resounding success. They report that sophisticated deception and crippling strikes on launch sites paralyzed Iran's command-and-control structure, diminishing its planned missile retaliation by an estimated 80%. This action, they argue, successfully restored deterrence and created a window of long-term stability by disrupting the leadership and infrastructure of the Iranian threat.

Debating Precision and Proportionality

A central pillar of the Israeli narrative is the claim of surgical precision. Military spokespersons have emphasized the use of advanced, proprietary technology designed to minimize collateral damage, stating that the strikes exclusively targeted and eliminated top-tier commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), nuclear scientists, and key military infrastructure. "Our fight is not with the people of Gaza or Iran, but with the terrorist regimes that hold them hostage," one IDF official said. "We take extraordinary measures to avoid civilian harm."

This narrative is being catastrophically undermined by intense and multi-source reporting on civilian deaths. The focal point of the global outcry has been a deadly airstrike on the Al-Baqa seaside cafe in Gaza, which multiple international news outlets, including CNN, the BBC, and Al Jazeera, have reported killed dozens of civilians, including women, children, and journalists. This incident, often paired with reports of Israeli forces firing on Palestinians seeking food aid, is being widely framed as a “massacre” that directly refutes the “surgical precision” message.

Israeli officials have responded by placing the full responsibility for any civilian casualties squarely on Hamas and other Iranian-backed proxy groups. They argue that the illegal and documented practice of embedding military assets, command posts, and munitions within or beneath civilian structures like cafes, schools, and hospitals makes such tragic outcomes a potential, though undesired, consequence of legitimate military action. “When a terrorist fires from a cafe, it turns that cafe into a military target under international law,” a military legal expert explained. “The moral and legal culpability lies with those who use human shields as a deliberate strategy of war.”

The Impact Inside Iran

The Israeli government has framed the strikes inside Iran as a “favor to the oppressed people of Iran,” intended to weaken the clerical regime’s instruments of internal and external repression. The targeting of sites like Evin Prison in Tehran was justified by intelligence assessments identifying it as a major IRGC command-and-control hub for foreign terror operations.

This message has been completely inverted in international media, largely driven by a widely circulated and personalized AP account from a survivor, Sayeh Seydal, who described the attack as a deliberate assault on political dissidents and their families. This narrative, now solidified, portrays the strike not as a blow against the regime, but as an attack on the very people Israel claims to support. Furthermore, on-the-ground reporting from CBS News and analysis of religious fatwas by ABC News suggest the strikes have created a “rally-around-the-flag” effect, fostering a new sense of national unity and hardening the Iranian regime's hardline stance, including its recent refusal to cooperate with the IAEA.

Israeli strategic affairs analysts counter that such reports often fail to distinguish between regime-sponsored propaganda and genuine public sentiment in a tightly controlled state. They argue that the “rally-around-the-flag” effect is a common, but often temporary, phenomenon and that the long-term strategic benefit of crippling the IRGC’s operational capacity outweighs any short-term nationalist backlash. According to a former Mossad official, “Weakening the infrastructure of a totalitarian regime is a complex process. Judging its success or failure in the immediate aftermath is strategically naive. The seeds of liberation have been sown.”

International Fallout and Internal Pressures

The operation has undeniably eroded a significant amount of international support for Israel. Recent examples include Norway's largest pension fund, KLP, divesting from companies supplying the Israeli military, and a formal demand from 19 U.S. lawmakers for Israel to cease actions they claim are “starving Gaza.” This institutional and political backlash is compounded by widespread reporting on internal Israeli strife, particularly an incident where Israeli settlers rampaged at an IDF military base in the West Bank, an event condemned by Israel’s own political opposition.

Supporters of the government, however, point to a counter-narrative of success visible in some US-centric media. A CNN analysis highlighted the “stunning” intelligence and military capabilities on display, while the New York Post celebrated the blow against the “world’s largest exporter of terror.” These voices argue that Israel did the free world a massive favor by confronting a threat many nations were unwilling to face. Regarding the settler violence, government officials were quick to condemn the acts as extremism from a “lawless fringe,” emphasizing that the swift condemnation from across the political spectrum demonstrates the resilience and self-correcting nature of Israeli democracy—a sharp contrast, they note, to the state-sanctioned violence of its adversaries.

As the diplomatic dust continues to settle, both sides remain deeply entrenched. The ultimate verdict on Operation Am Kelavi will likely depend on whether the international community prioritizes the immediate, visceral reports of damage and casualties, or the strategic, long-term argument presented by Israel: that a difficult and painful action was necessary to prevent a far greater, nuclear-armed catastrophe.