Dozens
of female pilots, navigators and technicians have taken part in
Operation Roaring Lion since Saturday, as debate over women in combat
roles continues and the Air Force maintains high operational tempo
The figure includes dozens of female pilots, combat navigators and technicians who participated in the long-range missions.
Following Operation “With the Lion” in June, Capt. N., an F-16 combat navigator from the 107th Squadron who took part in the strikes, described the prolonged flight to Iran in an interview with ynet.
(Photo: IDF)
“On the way to the target you’re tense, listening to the radio for any change and knowing what you’re doing,” she said. “There’s no moment for casual conversation in the cockpit. Only when you return to non-threatened territory do you say something to the pilot, ‘Wow, what an experience we just had.’”
Describing the intensive operational activity since October 7, she added: “You’re just waiting for them to call you. You want to defend and to strike. That’s what we trained for, that’s why we’re here. It doesn’t matter how much you slept at night, if you slept at all. You fly and you do the job.”
At the time, Capt. N. said she believed the confrontation with Iran was not over. “We did very good work here and it’s not finished yet,” she said. “We are still alert and ready for anything.”
Senior lawmakers in both parties said Monday that the Trump administration’s decision to launch bombing and missile strikes across Iran this weekend was largely dictated by Israel’s plan to attack Iran with or without U.S. support.
RELEVANT TRANSCRIPT:
1:26
The third is the
1:28
assessment that was made that if we
1:30
stood and waited for that attack to come
1:32
first before we hit them, we would
1:34
suffer much higher casualties. And so
1:37
the president made the very wise
1:38
decision. He we knew that there was
1:40
going to be an Israeli action. We knew
1:42
that that would precipitate an attack
1:43
against American forces and we knew that
1:45
if we didn't preemptively go after them
1:47
before they launched those attacks, we
1:49
would suffer higher casualties and
1:51
perhaps even hire those killed. And then
1:53
we would all be here answering questions
1:55
about why we knew that and didn't act.
And the imminent threat was that we knew
4:12
that if Iran was attacked and we
4:14
believed they would be attacked that
4:15
they would immediately come after us.
4:17
And we were not going to sit sit there
4:19
and absorb a blow before we responded
4:21
because the Department of War assessed
4:23
that if we did that, if we waited for
4:25
them to hit us first after they were
4:26
attacked and by someone else, Israel
4:28
attacked them, they hit us first and we
4:30
waited for them to hit us, we would
4:32
suffer more casualties and more deaths.
4:34
We went proactively in a defensive way
4:36
to prevent them from inflicting higher
4:38
damage. Had we not done so, there would
4:40
have been hearings on Capitol Hill about
4:41
how we knew that this was going to
4:43
happen and we didn't act preemptively to
4:45
prevent more casualties and more loss of
4:46
life.
4:51
US was forced to strike because of an
4:53
impending Israeli action.
4:54
No, first well I mean two things I would
4:56
say. Number one is no matter what
4:57
ultimately this operation needed to
4:59
happen. That's the question of why now.
5:01
But this operation needed to happen
5:02
because Iran in about a year or a year
5:04
and a half would cross the line of
5:06
immunity. Meaning they would have so
5:07
many short-range missiles, so many
5:09
drones that no one could do anything
5:10
about it because they could hold the
5:12
whole world hostage. Look at the damage
5:13
they're doing now. And this is a
5:15
weakened Iran. Imagine a year from now.
5:17
So that had to happen. Obviously, we
5:19
were aware of Israeli intentions and
5:21
understood what that would mean for us
5:22
and we had to be prepared to act as a
5:24
result of it. But this had to happen no
5:25
matter what.
*
Senior administration officials told Republican and Democratic lawmakers
at a classified briefing on Capitol Hill that the Israeli plan to
strike Iran pushed the United States to take preemptive action to
protect U.S. troops stationed at bases throughout the Middle East, whom
the Pentagon believed would have been targeted by retaliatory strikes.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.),
who serves as vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee attended
the briefing, said the decision to initiate a massive military assault
on another country because of pressure from a U.S. ally put the nation
in “uncharted” territory.
“This is still a war of choice that has been acknowledged by others
that was dictated by Israel’s goals and timeline,” Warner told reporters
at the briefing.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine provided the briefing to lawmakers Monday afternoon.
Warner said he supports Israel, but he questioned the decision to put
American lives at risk when an imminent threat may be directed at an
ally instead of the United States itself.
“Israel is a great ally of America. I stand firmly with Israel. But I
believe at the end of the day when we are talking about putting
American soldiers in harm’s way and we have American casualties and
expectations of more, there needs to be the proof of an imminent threat
to American interests. I still don’t think that standard has been met,”
he said.
Warner argued if the military operation against Iran “was being
driven by imminent security threats from Iran against America, I think
we would have had better planning.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.),
speaking to reporters after the briefing, said that President Trump
faced a tough call on ordering strikes against Iran when it became clear
that Israel would launch military operations, even without U.S.
support, which would have put U.S. troops in the region in danger.
“Israel was determined to act in their own defense here, with or
without American support. Why? Because Israel faced what they deemed to
be an existential threat. Iran was building missiles at a rapid clip to
the point where our allies in the region could not keep up,” Johnson
said.
“Because Israel was determined to act with or without the U.S., our
commander in chief and the administration and the officials [in the
Cabinet] had a very difficult decision to make. They had to evaluate the
threats to the U.S., to our troops, to our installations, to our assets
in the region in beyond,” Johnson said.
A cornered enemy is the most dangerous enemy of all. History has taught this lesson in blood, and we dare not forget it in a moment of adrenaline. When a regime built on fanaticism feels the walls closing in, it does not surrender gracefully; it thrashes. It claws. It fires wildly in every direction. Victory parades are for later. Now is the hour for vigilance.
Our hearts break for the lives already lost. Each name is a universe. Each funeral is a world collapsed into a grave. We sit comfortably in our kitchens and living rooms, but our brothers and sisters in Israel sit in reinforced rooms—safe rooms that are anything but safe for the soul. Children are counting seconds between sirens. Mothers are pretending not to tremble. Fathers are pretending not to calculate worst-case scenarios. Anxiety has become the national soundtrack.
And yet there they stand.
Young Israeli soldiers, barely older than the students in our yeshivot and universities, shoulder rifles heavier than their years. American servicemen and women, representing the might of the United States, position themselves not for conquest but for containment—for the ugly, necessary task of pushing back tyranny before it metastasizes.
Let us speak plainly: tyranny does not retire. It does not mellow with age. It does not negotiate in good faith when its theology or ideology demands annihilation. When such forces are cornered, they grow desperate. And desperation armed with rockets is not a theoretical danger; it is a midnight phone call.
We are not yet ready to celebrate because this is not yet over.
There is a temptation, especially among political commentators and social media generals, to declare turning points, to speak of “decisive blows,” to tweet victory emojis while others sit in bomb shelters. That temptation is obscene. Real war is not a press release. It is sweat pooling under body armor. It is a soldier whispering Shema under his breath. It is a mother clutching her child as the concrete walls shake.
Yes, we are grateful. Grateful for the bravery. Grateful for the coordination. Grateful that tyrants are being challenged rather than appeased. But gratitude is not triumphalism. Gratitude bows its head; triumphalism puffs out its chest.
A Jew must say what is uncomfortable: we do not measure success by how loudly we cheer, but by how soberly we assess the moral cost. Every missile intercepted is a miracle of engineering. Every civilian spared is a mercy. But every escalation reminds us how fragile civilization truly is.
A cornered enemy is dangerous because it has nothing left to lose. That is precisely why our side must never lose its soul. We fight tyranny not to become a mirror of it, but to prevent it from swallowing the innocent.
So pray.
Pray for the soldiers who stand in harm’s way. Pray for the families who wait by their phones. Pray for wisdom among leaders who must make decisions measured not in headlines but in lives. Pray that restraint accompanies strength.
Celebration will come when the sirens fall silent—not for a night, not for a week, but for good. Until then, we stand with our brothers and sisters. We ache with them. We refuse to look away.
And we remember: the most dangerous moment is not when the enemy advances confidently—but when it realizes it is cornered.
