In the final days of the “12-Day War” fought by Israel and Iran last June, it was striking to see Israeli aircraft, having achieved full control of Iranian airspace, begin targeting sites belonging to forces long described as carrying out repressive intimidation against regime opponents and protesters.

The notorious Evin Prison (a high-security prison in Tehran known for holding political detainees) was among the targets. From the ruins of destroyed detention centers and security headquarters, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared, calling on the Iranian people to rise and overthrow their regime.

From June through the final days of December, and despite Netanyahu’s repeated appeals, most recently promising to provide water to thirsty Iranians if they rid themselves of their regime, nothing happened. The regime had the final say, arresting more than 2,000 people on charges of collaborating with Israel and carrying out summary executions against hundreds of them. As a result, Iran recorded an unprecedented figure for executions carried out throughout 2025, surpassing the threshold of 1,500 executions.

But before the 2025 calendar was consigned to the “archive of time,” the long-awaited “uprising” began. It was launched by merchants alarmed by the Iranian currency’s plunge to an extremely dangerous low, one that would push them below the poverty line already affecting more than 60 percent of the Iranian population. Students did not delay in joining the “bazaar uprising,” bringing together two of the most critical components of Iranian society against the “clerical regime” (the ruling system led by Shiite clerics).

The first party to intervene in support of this new uprising was Israel’s Mossad, which sent a message of support via its Persian-language social media account. The Mossad told Iranians: “We are with you not only in words, but on the ground as well.” At first, the Mossad’s stance did not generate other supportive positions. All concerned parties remained silent, weighing their calculations.

At the U.S. level, President Donald Trump’s administration was aware of its Middle Eastern allies’ fears regarding the cost of a collapse of the Iranian regime. In the final two days of the “12-Day War,” those allies intervened, warning against Israel attempting to topple the regime, arguing that there was currently no alternative to it other than chaos - chaos that would not remain confined to Iran but would harm the entire region. It is clear that “potential chaos” remains the sharpest weapon Iran currently wields in its attempt to defend the continuity of its regime.

Trump hesitated to issue a clear stance on the start of the Iranian street movement when he was asked about it at the press conference he held with Netanyahu in Florida after their most recent meeting. In his statement yesterday, following influential positions taken by his supporters in financial and economic lobbies as well as in the Senate and the House, he appeared cautious, linking U.S. intervention in defense of protesters to the scale of the killing of peaceful demonstrators. This means, at least to date, that non-peaceful protesters who attack official buildings would not fall under the “protected” category. His position can therefore be seen as a form of centrist positioning.

In Israel, the Mossad’s Persian-language stance initially remained a lone voice. Security, military, and political institutions were conducting an assessment of the repercussions of Israel’s involvement in supporting the “Persian people”. The assessment went beyond the interests of Iranians themselves, reaching the level of Israeli preparedness to deal with the possibility that Iran, driven by the need to suppress internal unrest if it escalated might open fronts against Israel simultaneously with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq (Iran-aligned paramilitary groups integrated into Iraq’s security structure), and the Houthis in Yemen (the Iran-backed armed movement controlling much of northern Yemen). During this assessment, everyone remained silent, led by Netanyahu. But once the overall evaluation concluded that the potential scenarios Iran might pursue could be contained, Israeli positions began to follow in succession. The Foreign Ministry joined the Mossad, as did the education minister and media outlets of various orientations, and the momentum continued.

Will the Iranian regime fall this time, after being weakened by Israel’s superiority in direct warfare and in the war against “proxies,” after U.S. sanctions drove its economy to tragic levels, and amid the emergence of an Israeli desire to eliminate it from within, where the Mossad has operatives, equipment, and influence?

No one can say for certain, as the level of external support for the internal uprising could serve as a form of qualitative pressure on the Iranian regime, pushing it to retreat to the point of accepting the deal being offered to it.

In any case, the same question has been asked time and again, most resoundingly during the fiercest popular uprising the regime faced between 2022 and 2023, during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement (the protest movement sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody).

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Annahar