Escalation with Iran could be risky: Israel is more vulnerable than it seems

In the aftermath of Iran’s attack on Israel on Tuesday night, Israeli officials claimed their defences had stood firm. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Iran had launched more than 180 missiles, but few details about the damage were released and the US’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the attack “appears to have been defeated and ineffective”.

But as Israel prepares its retaliation, analysts believe those initial reports could have been misleading – and could change the calculus of Israel’s response if it fears getting into a bout of protracted “missile ping-pong” with Iran, especially should Tehran choose softer targets in the future.

Satellite and social media footage has shown missile after missile striking the Nevatim airbase in the Negev desert, and setting off at least some secondary explosions, indicating that despite the highly touted effectiveness of Israel’s Iron Dome and Arrow air defences, Iran’s strikes were more effective than had been previously admitted.

Experts who analysed the footage noted at least 32 direct hits on the airbase. None appeared to have caused major damage, but some landed close to hangars that house Israel’s F-35 jets, among the country’s most prized military assets.

While those missiles did not appear to hit planes on the ground, they would nonetheless have a deadly effect if fired at a city such as Tel Aviv, or if directed at other high-value targets such as the Bazan Group’s oil refineries near Haifa – potentially creating an ecological disaster next to a big Israeli city.

“The core fact remains that Iran has proven it can hit Israel hard if it so chose,” writes Decker Eveleth, an analyst with the research and analysis group CNA, who analysed the satellite images for a blogpost. “Airbases are hard targets, and the sort of target that likely won’t produce many casualties. Iran could choose a different target – say, a densely packed IDF ground forces base, or a target within a civilian area – and a missile strike there would produce a large number of [casualties].”

Another problem for Israel is the economics of a protracted series of tit for tat strikes with the Iranians. Israeli air defence stocks are both expensive and limited, meaning that the country may become more vulnerable to Iranian strikes as the conflict goes on.

“Given that Israel seems to have already publicly committed to striking Iran, this is likely not the last time we will see exchanges of missiles,” writes Eveleth. “My concern is that this will be, in the long term, an exchange that Israel won’t be able to afford to make if this becomes a protracted conflict.”

In the longer term, Israel may target Iranian ballistic missile production lines and infrastructure in order to prevent attacks. Benjamin Netanyahu has long argued that the Iranian ballistic missile programme is as dangerous to Israel as its nuclear programme is.

Israel’s counterattack appears to be imminent. Ynet, an Israeli news outlet, has reported that Gen Michael Kurilla, the commander of US Central Command (Centcom), is expected to arrive in Israel within the next day. Joe Biden and his security adviser Sullivan have said they will be in direct consultations with Israel over its military response. And local journalists have been briefed that the response to the Iranian strike is imminent, perhaps to be timed just before or after the 7 October anniversary of the Hamas attacks.

The target options include Iranian military facilities – including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military sites or command and control centres – and energy infrastructure, such as oil refineries, which could lead to a similar strike on Israel. There is also the option of a direct strike on Iran’s nuclear programme, which Tehran has warned is one of its red lines and which Biden has warned Netanyahu not to do.

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‘It’s hard to imagine that Israel would do an attack that would be symbolic and limited, because that’s what it did in April, and Israel would now have to do something one or several degrees higher than what it did in April,” said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the NGO Crisis Group, during a recent episode of the organisation’s podcast Hold Your Fire.

He warned of a “ballistic missile ping-pong between Israel and Iran that at any moment can spiral out of control, can result in casualties in Israel that would then result in further escalation, and that could then pull the United States in” – resulting in Iranian allies targeting US forces and bases in the region.

In the attack, Vaez said, Iran had “used their most advanced weapons, and they have sufficient stockpile of being able to do that for months. That would be the world we’ll be ­living in unless somebody pulls the plug on this cycle of escalation.

“The only person with that power is the president of the United States, whose track record doesn’t give us a lot of hope.”