Despite stunning early successes in Israel’s unprecedented strikes on Iran, a weekend of intensive bombardment and retaliation is raising questions about Israel’s exit strategy – how it can end this conflict with its ambitious goals achieved.

Hundreds of civilians, mostly in Iran, have been killed by dueling airstrikes despite international pleas for de-escalation.

Iran’s state-run news agency said Monday that its governmental television station abruptly stopped a live broadcast after Israeli strike. During a live broadcast, the sound of an explosion could be heard as a the news presenter hurried off camera amid dust and debris wafting in the air.

Shapiro served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East until January—charged with, among other things, considering scenarios in which tensions between Israel and Iran escalated into all-out war and preparing U.

The conflict, the most intense fighting between the two countries in decades, has been met in the United States with feelings of “frustration and helplessness,” as well as heartbreak.

Israel has said it launched Operation Rising Lion to deal a blow to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that the strikes are essential to ‘roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival’ and that Tehran could build a nuclear weapon within a few months.

Israel and Iran have continued to trade heavy missile strikes overnight as Donald Trump threatens to respond 'at levels never seen before' if Tehran attacks US bases.Posting on Truth Social, the US president said his forces had “nothing to do with the attack on Iran,

The S&P 500 jumped past 6,000 on Monday, sending a loud signal across Wall Street that fears of World War III may finally be cooling. Investors had been on edge all weekend after Israel struck Iran Friday,