Israeli and American strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader five months ago. Israelis are now exactly as afraid of a nuclear Iran as they are of turning on each other, according to new polling.
The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), an Israeli think tank whose research shapes public debate on the country’s security agenda, published the findings Monday. They come from three linked surveys, and they point to an uncomfortable pattern: killing Ali Khamenei did not calm Israeli nerves about a bomb. It may have unsettled them further, because almost nobody at home believes the war that killed him actually succeeded.
Israel’s Twin Fears Draw Level
INSS asked 921 members of the Israeli public in February and 968 in July to pick the three scenarios, out of 14, most likely to threaten the country over the next five years. A separate panel of 147 experts, drawn from research institutions, academia, the defense industry and government, answered the same question in February. Every sample was weighted so Arab citizens made up 20% of respondents, matching their share of Israel’s population.
By July, 39% of the public named violent conflict between Israeli social groups as a top-three threat. Exactly 39% named Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon. In February the two had not yet converged: internal violence led at 42%, nuclear Iran followed at 40%. Both slid, and they landed on the same number.
Other fears moved in both directions. Concern about a large-scale missile attack on the home front eased from 38% to 35%, and worry that Israel’s democratic character could be undermined dropped from 34% to 31%. Fear of a prolonged war dragging on across one of Israel’s fronts climbed from 23% to 27%, and worry about international isolation and sanctions rose from 21% to 26%.
A War Only Fifteen Percent Call a Win
The context is Operation Roaring Lion. Israeli and American strikes killed Khamenei in Tehran on February 28, 2026, destroying his residence and killing his daughter, daughter-in-law, grandchild and son-in-law alongside him. The campaign picked up a fight that had gone quiet after a ceasefire in June 2025.
To thoroughly degrade the Iranian terrorist regime and remove existential threats to the State of Israel over time.
That was the Israel Defense Forces’ own framing of the operation’s goal at the outset. Iran’s Assembly of Experts, under pressure from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), then elevated Khamenei’s 56-year-old son, Mojtaba Khamenei, a hardline figure with deep IRGC ties, as the new supreme leader.
Here is what Israelis actually think of the outcome. INSS’s June 2026 national security survey found just 15% believe Israel won the war. Thirty-seven percent think Iran won it. Forty-three percent call the result indecisive. Sixty-six percent say the memorandum of understanding the United States later struck with Iran actually hurts Israel. Only 26% think Israel’s security situation has improved since the operation began; 41% think it got worse.
Independent analysts read it the same way. A commentary from the Royal United Services Institute frames the campaign as having hit its military targets without settling the underlying political question in Tehran. Iran, in other words, was damaged. It was not defeated.
Here is the sequence, month by month:
- February 17 to 22, 2026: INSS fields its first public and expert survey waves, before the war reaches its most intense phase.
- February 28, 2026: Israeli and American strikes kill Khamenei in Tehran, triggering Iran’s leadership succession crisis.
- April 9, 2026: Iran marks 40 days of mourning for Khamenei as INSS fields a flash survey roughly seven weeks into the operation.
- June 2026: INSS’s survey finds only 15% of Israelis consider the war a victory and 66% call the resulting U.S. brokered memorandum harmful.
- July 2026: A second general-public wave shows fear of Iran’s bomb and fear of internal violence tied at 39% apiece.
That is the mechanism. A public that does not believe it won the war has little reason to believe the war solved the nuclear problem.
The Verification Blackout
There is a harder reason the fear has not faded: nobody can currently prove what happened to Iran’s uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) lost access to all four of Iran’s declared enrichment sites after February 28, 2026, and has not been able to verify the size, location or condition of Iran’s stockpile since. Its own Board of Governors report states plainly that the agency stopped all verification activity in the country under its safeguards agreement.
Before the strikes, Iran had already amassed 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, a short technical step from weapons grade, according to the Arms Control Association. American and Iranian officials say enrichment has not resumed. Inspectors have no way to confirm it.
That gap shows up directly in the polling. In July, 43% of the Israeli public thought Iran was likely or highly likely to obtain a nuclear weapon, up from 36% in February. Only 26% of experts agreed the outcome was likely, less than a third of what the public now fears. On damage, the public actually eased slightly, from 73% in February calling a nuclear Iran seriously damaging to 67% in July, while 58% of experts agreed. The public, in short, has grown more convinced Iran will get the bomb and, at the same time, very slightly less convinced that outcome would be catastrophic.
The Experts Are Afraid of Something Else
Ask the 147 experts what actually threatens Israel most, and Iran barely tops the list. Their leading concern was the erosion of Israel’s own democratic character, at 67%, more than double the public’s 31%.
| Threat Category | Public, February | Public, July | Experts, February |
|---|---|---|---|
| Undermining of democracy | 34% | 31% | 67% |
| Violent conflict between social groups | 42% | 39% | 58% |
| International isolation and sanctions | 21% | 26% | 44% |
Experts and the public roughly agree that internal violence is dangerous. They diverge sharply everywhere else. Experts rate international isolation as a top-three threat nearly twice as often as the public does, and rate democratic backsliding more than twice as often. INSS’s research team, drawing on all three surveys, concluded that Israel’s exposure comes less from external military threats alone than from the interaction between eroding democratic legitimacy, fraying social cohesion and weakening international standing.
Almost nobody, expert or otherwise, worries about climate change or infrastructure damage. Both scored 5% or 6% among the public in both waves and just 3% among experts, the lowest-ranked scenarios on the list.
How Bad Could Internal Violence Get?
Most Israelis think intergroup violence is a live danger, expect serious damage if it happens and doubt the state could contain it. Sixty percent believe there is currently a real risk of civil war level bloodshed inside the country, and most think the state is not ready for it.
- 69% of respondents across all three survey waves expect heavy or very heavy damage if violent conflict between social groups actually breaks out.
- 64% of the public rates the state’s level of preparedness for such a conflict as low or very low.
- 77% say the violence would shake their own personal sense of security.
- 51% expect it would seriously disrupt the functioning of state authorities.
The strain shows up in daily life, too. Israel has run repeated hospital bunker drills testing home front readiness over the past year, evidence that preparedness fatigue runs alongside the fear itself rather than replacing it. On the northern front, the shift toward fiber-optic drones in the war of attrition against Hezbollah helps explain why worry about a prolonged, grinding front war rose four points between February and July.
Sixty-three percent of the public believes solidarity within Israeli society is either absent or exists only to a limited extent. That figure lines up with a separate, behavioral trend: Israel’s own passport applications hitting a record high as Israelis keep leaving. A society that doubts its own cohesion in a poll is also, in measurable numbers, applying to leave it.
The Palestinian Question Splits Three Ways
Set apart from the ranked list, INSS asked directly how large a threat the Israeli-Palestinian conflict poses. Fifty-five percent of the public called it a large or very large threat in July, barely changed from 53% in February. Experts rated it far higher, at 78%.
Asked which specific outcome worried them most, the public split three ways.
- A bi-national state granting Palestinians full citizenship worried 35% the most, the single largest share.
- A two-state solution was the leading concern for 24%.
- Full annexation without granting Palestinians citizenship worried another 24% most.
No single outcome commands even a plurality close to half. INSS fields its next national security wave later this year. Its numbers so far show a country that, five months after killing the man who ran its most feared enemy, rates that enemy’s bomb no more dangerous than itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Was Operation Roaring Lion?
It was the Israeli military campaign against Iran that resumed fighting paused since a June 2025 ceasefire and culminated in the February 28, 2026 killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in Tehran. The Israel Defense Forces described its goal as degrading Iran’s regime and removing long-term existential threats to Israel.
Is Iran Still Enriching Uranium?
American and Iranian officials say enrichment has not resumed since the war. But the IAEA has had no access to any of Iran’s four declared enrichment facilities since February 28, 2026, so that claim cannot currently be independently verified.
Who Is Mojtaba Khamenei?
He is the 56-year-old second son of the late Ali Khamenei, elevated to supreme leader by Iran’s Assembly of Experts under pressure from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He is widely described as a hardline figure with close ties to the Guard.
How Reliable Is the INSS Threat Survey?
INSS weighted each survey wave to match Israel’s population, including 20% representation from the Arab community, and drew on 921 general-public respondents in February, 968 in July, and a separate panel of 147 experts from research, academia, the defense industry and government in February.
