Israeli leaders cast a blistering attack on the heart of Iran’s nuclear and military structure as necessary to head off an imminent threat that Iran would build nuclear bombs, though it remains unclear how close the country is to achieving that or whether Iran had actually been planning a strike. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only.

"This is a clear and present danger to Israel’s very survival,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed as he vowed to pursue the attack for as long as necessary to “remove this threat.”

The United States is shifting military resources, including ships, in the Middle East in response to Israel's strikes on Iran and a possible retaliatory attack by Tehran, two U.S. officials said Friday.

The Navy has directed the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner, which is capable of defending against ballistic missiles, to begin sailing from the western Mediterranean Sea toward the eastern Mediterranean and has directed a second destroyer to begin moving forward so it can be available if requested by the White House.

World leaders urged restraint on Friday after Israel pounded Iran, striking 100 targets including nuclear and military sites, and killing senior figures.

Here is a roundup of key reactions:

Just hours before Israel launched strikes on Iran early Friday, President Donald Trump was still holding onto tattered threads of hope that a long-simmering dispute over Tehran's nuclear program could be resolved without military action.

But with the Israeli military operation called "Rising Lion" now underway — something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says will go on for "as many days as it takes" — Trump will be tested anew on his ability to make good on a campaign promise to disentangle the U.S. from foreign conflicts.

Investigators searched the site of one of India's worst aviation disasters and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with the lone surviving passenger Friday, a day after an Air India flight fell from the sky and killed 241 people on board and several people on the ground.

The London-bound Boeing 787 struck a medical college hostel when it fell in a residential area of the northwestern city of Ahmedabad minutes after takeoff Thursday.

Israel's massive strike on Iran on Friday morning came after decades of mutual hostility and a long-running shadow war of covert strikes and sabotage.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long identified Iran as its greatest threat, citing the country's nuclear program, its hostile rhetoric and support for anti-Israel militant groups across the region. Iran has championed the Palestinian cause and portrayed Israel as a malicious Western encroachment on the Middle East.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards confirmed that its aerospace commander had been killed with fellow officers in an Israeli air strike on their command center on Friday.

"Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps aerospace force Major General Amirali Hajizadeh... along with a group of brave and dedicated fighters of this force, were martyred" in an Israeli attack on their command center, the Guards said in a statement.

A fresh round of explosions was heard in northwestern Iran on Friday, state television reported, after Israel carried out a wave of strikes on multiple cities.

Israel launched fresh attacks on a key underground uranium enrichment facility in central Iran on Friday, Iranian state media reported.

U.S. President Donald Trump urged Iran on Friday to "make a deal," warning that there will be more "death and destruction" after Israel launched deadly strikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities.

His comments on his Truth Social platform came after Israel pounded Iran in a series of air raids on Friday, striking 100 targets.

U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News he was aware Israel was going to conduct strikes on Iran before it happened, and stressed that Tehran "cannot have a nuclear bomb," according to the US broadcaster.

His comments to Fox came after Israel pounded Iran in a series of air raids on Friday, striking 100 targets including nuclear and military sites.