ISRAEL'S NEXT FRONTIER

Benjamin Netanyahu claimed the dramatic attack on his country's longstanding enemy, which began last week, was to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But does he have an even greater objective in mind?

- Deepa Parent, Shah Meer Baloch and William Christou

IT WAS JUST PAST 4PM when Nahid's windows began to shake. An Israeli bomb hit a building nearby - she could not see where- and soon her house began to fill up with smoke. It was the third day of the Israeli bombing of Iran and the situation in Tehran was getting worse.

"This is a massacre. The blasts haven't stopped. Children are crying and we fear many civilians have been killed. There's a smell of death in the air. I can't stop crying," Nahid*, a 25-year-old finance analyst at an e-commerce company in Tehran, told the Guardian via text.

Residents began to flee Tehran and head towards the countryside last week as Israeli attacks on the Iranian capital escalated, with bombs raining down on residential and government buildings alike. On Monday night, images showed heavy traffic out of the city after both the Israel Defence Forces and the US president, Donald Trump, warned Iranians to evacuate.

The bombing started early last Friday when Israel launched hundreds of strikes in what it said was an operation aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Israel has hit hundreds of major targets, including nuclear facilities and missile sites, and killed senior military commanders and scientists. Satellite imagery showed significant damage to areas of the Natanz nuclear site, Iran's most significant nuclear enrichment facility, but the fuel enrichment plant appeared to be undamaged. A nuclear research centre in Isfahan was also hit.