Israel has long fought a shadow war with Iran while avoiding all-out conflict. Now Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is risking it all in pursuit of a conclusive victory.

Iran once ridiculed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the boy who cried wolf for his constant public warnings about Tehran's nuclear programme, and his repeated threats to shut it down, one way or another.

Israel felt emboldened to attack because most of Iran’s allies in the region, such as the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas and other forces in Palestine, Syria and Iraq, who could hit Western targets, are at their lowest ebb, degraded by years of Israeli attacks. Such has never been the case before. And it certainly caught the Iranian regime off-guard.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government survived an attempt to dissolve parliament early Thursday morning, with most of his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners joining him in voting against a bill that would have forced them to register for military service while the country is at war.

The vote was the most serious challenge to Netanyahu’s government since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, the biggest security failure in Israel’s history and the trigger for the ongoing war in Gaza.