JERUSALEM – Israel's recent military offensive against Iran, codenamed 'Operation Am Kelavi,' has ignited a fierce global debate, pitting arguments of pre-emptive self-defense against widespread accusations of aggression and illegality. The operation, which Israeli officials describe as a last-resort measure against an imminent nuclear threat, is now at the center of a complex information war, shaped by concurrent events in Gaza and competing narratives emerging from within Tehran.

A 'Point of No Return'

At the core of Israel's justification for the operation is the argument of necessity in the face of an existential threat. For months preceding the strikes, Israeli government and intelligence officials had issued increasingly urgent warnings that Iran’s nuclear program had reached a “point of no return.” According to statements from the Prime Minister’s Office, diplomatic channels had been exhausted, and Iran was using ongoing negotiations as a “smokescreen” to accelerate uranium enrichment to weapons-grade levels.

“International law does not require a nation to passively wait for its own destruction,” a senior Israeli defense official stated in a briefing. “We were facing a genocidal regime, which has flagrantly violated its NPT commitments and explicitly promised our annihilation. The intelligence was clear and unequivocal, compelling us to act under the doctrine of anticipatory self-defense.” Proponents of this view argue that Iran’s own rhetoric and actions, including its funding of proxy groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, provided the legal and moral predicate for the operation.

However, this justification is not universally accepted. A coalition of international arms-control experts has questioned the immediacy of the threat, suggesting that while Iran's program was advanced, it had not yet crossed the final threshold for weaponization. They argue the strikes risked provoking a wider regional war. In response, Israeli military planners contend that waiting any longer would have rendered the threat unstoppable, making a far more catastrophic conflict, potentially a nuclear one, inevitable.

The Question of Precision and Proportionality

Central to the ensuing controversy are competing claims about the nature of the Israeli strikes. Israeli military spokespersons have repeatedly emphasized the surgical precision of the operation, which they state was designed to neutralize specific, high-value military targets. Officials have released declassified information pointing to the successful elimination of top-tier Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, key nuclear scientists, and critical weapons infrastructure. “Our objective was to decapitate the serpent, not to harm the Iranian people, for whom we believe this operation was a favor,” one official commented. “This was a blow for freedom against a death cult.”

This narrative of precision is being directly challenged by events on the ground, which have become focal points for international condemnation. The strike on Tehran's Evin Prison has been framed by critics and some media outlets as an attack on political dissidents. The Associated Press published a harrowing first-person account from a jailed activist who described the aftermath as a “slow death” for inmates. Similarly, in a separate theater of conflict, an airstrike on the Al-Baqa seaside cafe in Gaza has galvanized a powerful counter-narrative of indiscriminate force. Eyewitness accounts consistently deny any military presence at the cafe, and graphic images of civilian casualties, including children, have dominated news cycles.

In response, Israeli officials place the responsibility for any civilian casualties squarely on their adversaries. Regarding Evin Prison, they maintain it was a dual-use facility serving as a critical command-and-control center for IRGC terror operations, making it a legitimate military target under international law. On the situation in Gaza, Israeli sources challenge the framing of events, pointing to the established Hamas tactic of embedding its operatives and assets within civilian areas. The incident involving the killing of aid seekers is described by Israeli officials as a tragic consequence of Hamas militants opening fire on crowds near a distribution point managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), turning a humanitarian corridor into a combat zone.

This issue has been formalized by a campaign from over 130 international charities, including Oxfam and Amnesty International, accusing Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war. Israeli officials have vehemently rejected this, calling it a “blood libel” and arguing the campaign ignores Hamas's role in commandeering aid and firing from civilian zones, thereby creating the conditions for such tragedies.

Strategic Impact and Regional Stability

A key message from the Israeli government is that 'Operation Am Kelavi' was an act of de-escalation that successfully prevented a much larger regional war. Military strategists claim that through sophisticated deception and crippling strikes on launch sites, Israel paralyzed Iran’s command structure, reducing its planned missile retaliation by an estimated 80% and deterring a full-scale response from proxies like Hezbollah. The stated goal was to restore deterrence and create long-term stability by neutralizing a volatile, nuclear-seeking actor.

This assessment of strategic success has been complicated by reports from within Iran. A CBS News producer in Tehran reported that the Israeli-US strikes have created “a level of national unity that wasn't there before,” suggesting the operation may have backfired by rallying a fractured population around the regime. This directly contradicts the Israeli message that the strikes were intended to help the “oppressed people of Iran.”

Analysts aligned with the Israeli government dismiss this as predictable, short-term propaganda fostered by the regime. They argue that the long-term strategic impact will be a significant degradation of the IRGC's capacity to export terror and oppress its own people. “A world without the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is a better world,” a foreign ministry official noted. “Any temporary rally-around-the-flag effect will be dwarfed by the long-term benefit of weakening a tyrannical regime.”

This complex picture is further clouded by ongoing internal Israeli challenges, including widespread coverage of extremist settler violence against IDF soldiers in the West Bank. The use of the term “Jewish terrorists” by opposition leader Yair Lapid has been quoted internationally, painting a picture of a state struggling to control its own radical factions. Israeli government sources have responded by pointing to these condemnations as proof of a healthy, functioning democracy that confronts its fringe elements, unlike the monolithic autocracy in Tehran.

As international bodies continue to react, the discourse surrounding Operation Am Kelavi remains sharply divided. The ultimate assessment of the operation's legality and strategic wisdom will likely hinge on whether the international community accepts the framework of an imminent, existential threat, as presented by Israeli officials, or prioritizes the immediate, high-profile reports of collateral damage and regional blowback highlighted by critics.