"My impression is that the majority of legal analysts see [Israel's attack] as a case of 'prohibited self-defense'," Matthias Goldmann, a law professor and international law expert at EBS University Wiesbaden, told DW.
"Because the requirements for self-defense are rather strict. They require an imminent attack that cannot be fended off in any other way. If you apply that requirement, you come to the conclusion that there was no attack imminent from Iran."
The timing alone makes that clear, Goldmann and others argue. On 12 June, the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, issued a statement saying that Iran was not fully cooperating with it. But Israel has not presented any evidence as to why they believed a nuclear threat from Iran was so close and US intelligence suggests Iran was possibly three years away from a bomb.
There have been years of threatening rhetoric between Iran and Israel but it's deemed highly unlikely that Iran would fire a nuclear weapon at Israel later this month.
"Look back at the Cold War," Goldmann suggested. "Both sides had nuclear weapons and relied on the principle of mutually assured destruction — where you don't use your nuclear weapon because you know the counterstrike would be fatal. That's why the mere fact of possessing nuclear weapons in itself cannot be considered an imminent attack."
Israel itself already has an unspecified number of nuclear weapons but never signed the UN's Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and does not allow international inspections.