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← The June 2025 Twelve-Day War

Iran's Retaliation, Al Udeid, and the Strait of Hormuz

Evidence rating: CONFIRMED. Iran fired about 550 ballistic missiles and about 1,000 drones at Israel, and one volley of missiles at the US base at Al Udeid in Qatar, after warning in advance. No American was hurt. Iran's parliament voted to back closing the Strait of Hormuz but the strait stayed open. Hezbollah stayed out.

When a country bombs another, the other country shoots back. The questions for an American family are simple: at whom, and how close did it come to Americans? In June 2025 the answer was "at Israel, heavily, and at one American base, carefully." In 2026 the answer changed.

Go deeper (Level 4): True Promise III: the missile campaign · Al Udeid, June 23 · American interceptors for Israel · Oil, diesel and the pump

Missiles on Israel​

The Times of Israel's military correspondent Emanuel Fabian tallied the twelve days: Iran fired "550 ballistic missiles and around 1,000 drones," about 90 percent of the missiles were intercepted, and "31 ballistic missile impacts were reported in populated areas or critical infrastructure" (Times of Israel, June 24, 2025). Iran called the campaign Operation True Promise III.

Iran's leaders framed each night's missiles as punishment and as a message to Washington. The Supreme Leader's first words on June 13: "The regime must expect severe punishment" (as posted by @prestonstew_). President Masoud Pezeshkian on June 16: "If America does not rein in the Zionist regime, Iran will be forced to deliver more painful responses" (as posted by @Osint613). Iran's defense minister later said the other side was never only Israel: "Behind this war, America was present with all its might, and some European and Western countries were also present from logistical and equipment perspectives" (Aziz Nasirzadeh, August 2025, as translated by @ME_Observer_). An IRGC spokesman said Iran carried out "22 waves of operations" planned to keep Israelis "constantly running to their shelters" (as posted by Iran Military Monitor, November 2025).

The first waves did little. The Institute for the Study of War judged on June 14 that the opening two-wave attack "seems to have had limited to no effect" (ISW on X). Later waves did more.

More got through than Israel admitted at the time. France 24's open-source investigation team found that "around 10% of the Iranian missiles got through and struck targets inside Israel," and that the damage "was more extensive than was reported during the conflict, including strikes on military and strategic sites that were censored by the Israeli army." Israel acknowledged "just over 50" impacts; France 24 geolocated 36 of them, including three on energy infrastructure, one on a university research institute, and four on military bases. It reports that on June 16 Israel's chief military censor sent newsrooms a letter forbidding them to film damage at or near military sites or to give exact addresses of impacts near security infrastructure (France 24 Observers, video, August 15, 2025; same report on Facebook). One hit was the Haifa oil refinery; footage of it was released more than a year later (as posted by @DailyIranNews, September 2026). That censorship is ordinary wartime practice, not a denial that missiles landed, but it means early Israeli totals understated military damage.

Other countries helped shoot missiles down. Jordan intercepted Iranian missiles and drones crossing its airspace, and Saudi Arabia reportedly allowed Israel to use its airspace (as stated by UN Watch's Hillel Neuer in a November 2025 Oxford Union speech, posted on X). Iraq's prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, told the Associated Press his government stopped 29 attempted attacks by Iran-aligned militias on Israel and on US bases in Iraq during the war (as reported by Israel Daily News Podcast).

The worst hits: Bat Yam (nine killed), Tamra (four women of one family), the Soroka hospital in Beersheba, and, in the last hours before the ceasefire, a Beersheba apartment building where four people died inside safe rooms (Times of Israel). Details: Civilian Harm.

Many of the interceptors that stopped those missiles were American. CNN reported that the United States fired more than 100, and possibly as many as 150, THAAD interceptors (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) defending Israel, roughly a quarter of the US supply (CNN, July 28, 2025). The Pentagon's own reprogramming request put the replacement bill at about $498 million (The War Zone). A senior US Navy official, Admiral James Kilby, later described the use of munitions to Congress as an "alarming rate," and the Financial Times reported that the Pentagon had ordered fewer than 650 THAAD interceptors since 2010 and planned to buy just 37 more in 2026 (as summarized by Drop Site News, March 1, 2026).

Al Udeid: the strike on Americans, June 23​

Al Udeid Air Base, outside Doha, Qatar, is the largest US military base in the Middle East and the forward headquarters of US Central Command. It normally hosts roughly 10,000 US personnel, according to common press estimates.

On the evening of June 23, the day after the American strike, Iran fired missiles at it. Iran warned Qatar beforehand. Trump said Iran fired 14 missiles, 13 were intercepted and one was "set free" because it was going in a "nonthreatening" direction. He then wrote: "I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured" (CBS News; Fox News). He later described the warning this way: "They said, 'We're going to shoot 'em. Is one o'clock OK?' I said, 'It's fine'" (Military.com, June 27, 2025).

One missile did hit. Satellite images later showed that a geodesic dome housing a $15 million secure-communications terminal was destroyed. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the strike "did minimal damage to equipment and structures on the base" and the base "remains fully operational" (Military Times, July 12, 2025).

Iran's Supreme National Security Council put the message in writing the next day: the response showed "that American and zionist bases, from West Asia to deep inside the occupied territories, have all become potential targets of attacks" (statement as posted by @SuppressedNws, June 24, 2025). Qatar condemned the strike on its territory as a violation of its sovereignty (as reported by @SMO_VZ, June 23, 2025), and a Gulf scholar at Rice University's Baker Institute called the war "a watershed moment for Qatar, exposing its strategic vulnerability" (Kristian Ulrichsen, quoting Amwaj; Amwaj article).

The Washington Post summed up the risk to Americans the day of the Al Udeid strike: "None of Iran's missiles could reach the U.S., but it could strike U.S. military bases — like it did Monday in Qatar — or launch terrorism plots" (Washington Post on X, June 23, 2025).

Americans killed or wounded in the twelve days: none reported. That was not luck alone. It was a choreographed, telegraphed strike, designed by Iran to answer without starting a wider war with the United States. The next time, in 2026, there was no warning. By September 2026 the Pentagon had disclosed 19 US service members dead in that war (Spokesman-Review, from the Washington Post, September 22, 2026). See After the Ceasefire.

The Strait of Hormuz​

The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow sea lane between Iran and Oman. About a fifth of the world's oil passes through it. If it closes, gasoline prices everywhere jump.

On June 22, 2025, Iran's parliament voted to support closing the strait. The vote was non-binding; the decision belonged to Iran's Supreme National Security Council (CNBC, June 23, 2025). Iran did not close it. After the Al Udeid strike showed Iran was aiming at a military target it had warned about, and not at oil, prices fell sharply: India's public broadcaster reported the biggest one-day drop in oil prices in five years (All India Radio, June 24, 2025).

That restraint did not survive the second war. In late March 2026 Iran's Revolutionary Guard declared the strait closed to ships going to or from the ports of the United States, Israel, and their allies, and traffic fell to a trickle (Wikipedia summary, 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis; Congressional Research Service, R45281).

Hezbollah stayed out​

Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon, had been Iran's insurance policy against an Israeli attack. In June 2025 it did not fire. Israel's defense minister had warned it to stay out (Times of Israel). The Jerusalem Post quoted Israeli analyst Tal Beeri that the decisive reason was that "No religious directive was issued to Hezbollah to join Iran in the war against Israel," not only its weakness after the 2024 war (Jerusalem Post, July 6, 2025). The northern front stayed quiet for the twelve days.

Status: Donald Trump, Sean Parnell, Tal Beeri, Abbas Araghchi, Aziz Nasirzadeh, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, Hillel Neuer, and James Kilby are alive, as far as these sources show. Ali Khamenei is deceased (2026). Masoud Pezeshkian: Unknown. Nothing here is a finding that any named person acted unlawfully.

What Iran learned, and why 2026 was worse​

Iran's military leaders said openly after the ceasefire that they had held back and that next time would be different.

  • Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, August 2025: "We have tools that we haven't used yet, including advanced missiles," and Iran "deliberately held back" its most advanced systems in the twelve-day war (as reported by @AryJeay). He also claimed that if the war had lasted "15 days instead of 12," Israel "would not have been able to intercept any missile" (@ME_Observer_).
  • Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, after the war: "If aggression is repeated, we will not hesitate to react in a more decisive manner and in a way that will be IMPOSSIBLE to cover up" (as quoted by NDTV).
  • The chief of Iran's General Staff, in February 2026, weeks before the second war: "After the twelve-day war, we conducted a review of our defense doctrine and switched to an offensive doctrine based on lightning-fast and wide-ranging operations," and "no American will be safe, and the fire in the region will engulf America and its allies" (as posted by Sprinter Press, February 2, 2026; the post does not name the general).

When the United States and Israel attacked again on February 28, 2026, Iran followed that doctrine: it closed the Strait of Hormuz and struck American bases across the Gulf. See After the Ceasefire.

What this means​

In June 2025, both Washington and Tehran chose limits: one night of American bombing, one warned-about Iranian volley, no American dead, the strait left open. Those limits are why most Americans remember it as short and "won." They were choices, and they could be unmade. In 2026 they were.

What a citizen can check​

  • Read Trump's own "thank Iran for giving us early notice" post. Ask what it tells you about how close Americans came to being killed, and how much depended on Iran's restraint.
  • Look up how many Americans serve at Al Udeid and the other Gulf bases Iran could reach.

Sources on this page​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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