ISRAEL’S audacious blitz of Iran that killed top generals and targeted its nuclear sites took years of planning, IDF sources have revealed.

Intelligence agents spent months tracking senior commanders before taking them down in pinpoint strikes in the dead of night.

Israel has significantly disrupted Iran’s leadership by targeting Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, who is second only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as part of a larger strategic assault.

Revolutionary Guard chief Hossein Salami and Gen. Gholamali Rashid, deputy commander in chief of the armed forces were also wiped out.

The casualties resulted from an extraordinary Israeli operation called Rising Lion, aimed at Iran’s nuclear facilities, with the first explosions occurring in Tehran around 3.30am local time (1am BST).

Missiles pounded Iran’s main nuclear enrichment site, the Natanz atomic facility, and the regime’s ballistic missile arsenal.

At least six of Iran’s top nuclear scientists were killed during the sweeping assault.

Iran has already fired around 100 drones at Israel while vowing bloody revenge and warning strikes were a “declaration of war”.

Back in April, high-ranking military and political officials in Israel informed The Sun about their readiness to strike Iran within weeks, stating the nuclear threat needed addressing long overdue.

Retired IDF general Miri Eisin today said Israel has been planning to blitz Iran for at least a decade – and this exact plot would have been months in the making.

Eisin, who advised Benjamin Netanyahu’s PM predecessor Ehud Olmert, told The Sun: “[The attack] is years in the making.

“But this is something which evolves, meaning it isn’t that the specific plan that is still being enacted today is necessarily the one that they started thinking of years ago.

“But Israel has been planning as a plan to attack the nuclear and projectile facilities for many years because of the Islamic regime’s threat.

“That plan evolved over the years, meaning you’re always looking at what happens in the Islamic regime, the new nuclear sites, the new capabilities that they built, and you have to adapt all of the time.”

Israel’s decision to strike comes after a senior diplomatic source in Jerusalem told The Sun Iran was “much closer than anyone can be comfortable with” in developing a nuclear weapon.

Fears have been rising internationally about Iran’s nuclear programme as its progress has become more and more cloak and dagger in recent years.

The UN watchdog this week confirmed the country is breaking its obligations for the first time in 20 years.

Israel’s attack overnight – aimed at diminishing the regime’s nuclear threat – was spearheaded by Mossad commandos who smuggled kamikaze drones and precision weapons into Iran.

Their daring mission paved the way for Israeli forces to hammer 100 targets using 200 war jets – eliminating military chiefs and scientists and striking atom sites.

Eisin, who served in the IDF for 20 years and has a background in military intelligence, said a combination of different security and intelligence capabilities would have spent months tracking senior commanders.

Speaking from Tel Aviv, she said: “You have to find them and you’re attacking them all at the exact same time.

“So it’s putting together that intel picture of where they are and knowing that at that specific time you’re getting all of them.

“In addition, you have to gather intel on all of the different nuclear sites and air defence sites and projectile sites. Those are three different elements.

“It’s the intel of knowing where they [commanders] are, and then it’s the operational decision of doing it, because you understand that they’re all where you want them to be simultaneously.

“It is very complex.”

An IDF source, speaking to The Sun in Israel earlier this year, said its forces had been working for months to clear the path for a major strike on Iran.

They told how three air campaigns in Iran have eliminated strategic aerial defences which were “the main obstacle” protecting the rogue nation’s nuke facilities.

The insider said the IDF has also worked to significantly downgrade the threat posed by Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthi – effectively leaving Iran isolated.

Vitally, this allowed Israeli aircraft to get to Iran’s borders without fear of being blasted.

The overnight attack is just the first phase of what is set to be two weeks of action aimed at ran’s atom threat.

Ex-military intelligence agent Dr Raz Zimmt, whose work on focussed on Iran, previously told The Sun it would require a “long process” to properly downgrade Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.

But he conceded it would be highly unlikely Iran’s nuclear scheme could ever be fully wiped out.

“It’s too scattered, the knowledge and technology are already inside Iran,” Dr Zimmt said.

The Sun last month exposed one of Iran’s secret nuclear sites – dubbed “Rainbow” – but there are believed to be more clandestine bases.

IDF Brigadier General Effie Defrin today confirmed it will be a “long campaign” against Iran – but that the military was “well prepared” to continue until achieving its goal.

Eisin said the IDF will be continuing to gather intel and launching pre-emptive attacks.

She said: “It isn’t that we destroyed everything that Iran has. It’s the beginning of the campaign.

“I think that we will continue to attack. They will try to attack us.

“We have our defence systems, but it isn’t over. We’re still right at the beginning of this.”

Israel hoped to coordinate an attack with the US after enraged Donald Trump gave Iran 60 days to thrash out a nuclear deal – a deadline that passed on Wednesday night.

Trump had warned Israel not to undermine talks with Tehran that could jeopardise his administration’s efforts.

But Nadav Shtrauchler, who previously advised Netanyahu, said the PM wanted to cement his legacy.

He The Sun: “Eliminating Iran, the head of the snake, is his life mission.

“He sees them as the immediate threat and as today’s Nazis.

“He said that he will not stop until he strikes the head of the snake.

“And after so many years of planning it started with a very strong offensive opening.

“He planned it and waited for the right timing and I’m sure it was not an easy decision to go without the US – but it had come to a place that we had to do it.”

The US has publicly distanced itself from the Israeli operation and Trump today urged Iran to make a deal before it’s too late.

Writing on Truth Social, the president said: “I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal.

“There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end.

“Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left.”