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Report: Israel threatens “Dahiya-style” assault on Tehran in bid to destabilise Iran

June 16, 2025 at 1:01 pm

Smoke rises after Israeli airstrike in Tehran, Iran on June 15, 2025. [Fatemeh Bahrami – Anadolu Agency]

Israel is preparing a “Dahiya-style” military operation targeting the Iranian capital, Tehran. The plan, disclosed by Israeli broadcaster Channel 14, reportedly seeks to destabilise Iran’s government through systematic bombing of strategic sites while coercing mass evacuation from densely populated areas.

The operation, is said to have been greenlit by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz, draws directly from Israel’s controversial military doctrine first employed during its 2006 war on Lebanon.

That assault saw the wholesale destruction of the Dahiya district in southern Beirut—a stronghold of Hezbollah—marking the beginning of what military officials would later describe as a deliberate strategy of “disproportionate force” and the targeting of civilian infrastructure to achieve political objectives.

In a message addressed to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Katz issued a stark warning: “Tehran will be treated like Beirut.” Israeli military sources confirmed that the occupation army have begun issuing Farsi-language warnings to residents near so-called dual-use or military sites, a tactic previously deployed in Gaza and Lebanon to pre-emptively displace civilian populations ahead of attacks.

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Israeli airstrikes early Monday targeted the Iranian Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Ministry, and a civilian home adjacent to the Ministry of Communications. The assault marks a significant escalation and comes amid a wider regional campaign that has already seen Israel strike targets in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen and Gaza where the Zionist state has been accused of committing genocide.

The Dahiya Doctrine represents a formal Israeli military strategy of deliberate and complete destruction. The doctrine openly advocates for the obliteration of entire civilian neighbourhoods, regardless of the proportionality or legality of such action. Human rights groups and legal experts have long condemned it as a doctrine of annihilation—tantamount to collective punishment—intended to erase communities under the guise of military necessity

Under international law, such tactics, particularly those that fail to distinguish between civilian and combatant populations, are explicitly prohibited. Yet Israeli officials have repeatedly reaffirmed their commitment to the doctrine.

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