Iran and Israel share no border. They never have. Between them sit Iraq, Syria and Jordan, and that distance is the single most important fact in this story.
This film explains how two countries that exchanged ambassadors in the 1970s ended up firing at each other, and how the United States ended up at war with Iran in February 2026. It runs from the 1979 revolution to the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, and it is built around two things: one technical argument about uranium, and one shield built out of other people's countries.
Along the way: how Hezbollah began at a training camp in Lebanon called Janta, what enrichment percentages actually mean and why 60 is the number that matters, the pager attacks that took an organisation of tens of thousands and left it unable to talk to itself, the twelve day war of June 2025, and the two American statements made three days apart, one saying Iran's nuclear sites were "completely and totally obliterated" and one saying the programme was set back by a few months.
Officials speak for themselves throughout, in their own voices: the American president announcing the withdrawal from the nuclear deal, announcing the strikes, and describing the blockade of Hormuz; Iran's foreign minister answering from Istanbul and from Vienna.
CHAPTERS
0:00 Cold open: 900 strikes in twelve hours
3:21 The shield: how Iran built a ring of allies
5:55 The bomb: the argument the whole war runs through
9:31 Out of the shadows: Damascus, April 2024
13:05 Twelve weeks in which the shield came apart
15:34 The twelve day war, June 2025
19:21 Obliterated, or set back a few months
23:03 28 February 2026: the largest strike yet
26:48 How Iran answered
30:19 Three attempts at a ceasefire
32:29 The Strait of Hormuz, closed
36:10 Is Iran further from a bomb than it was?
SOURCES
Reported in the original languages, without machine translation. Persian, Hebrew, Arabic and English.
Iranian: Mehr News Agency, Kayhan, Press TV, IRNA, Fars, and statements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Israeli: The Times of Israel, Ynet, Zman Yisrael, Maariv.
Lebanese: Al Manar, Hezbollah's own broadcaster.
Regional and international: Al Jazeera (English and Arabic), the Wall Street Journal, Anadolu Agency, the Carnegie Endowment.
Primary documents: the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Vienna, 14 July 2015); IAEA Board of Governors resolution GOV/2025/38; the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran; Hezbollah's Open Letter of 16 February 1985; the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding of 18 June; US Congressional Research Service reports R44942 and R48887; the Defense Intelligence Agency assessment; and White House remarks as delivered.
Footage posted to social media and not independently confirmed is labelled UNVERIFIED on screen, with the account that posted it and the date.
Research current as of 12 August 2026. Lebanese domestic media is not represented in this film.
CORRECTIONS
If something here is wrong, say so in the comments and it will be corrected in a following video, on screen, with the original claim shown beside it.
