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.

BEIRUT — Iran and Israel traded air raids and ballistic missile barrages overnight and into the evening Sunday, with neither side showing any inclination to back down from an escalating grudge match between the two longtime enemies.

Iran has vowed to retaliate against the U.S., too, while Trump has warned: “If we are attacked in any way, shape, or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before.” Here’s what to know about U.S. involvement so far.

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.