Iran Launches a Missile Attack, Israel’s Next Move May Determine Course of War: The Case of Natanz, north of Gaza
American officials have been evaluating the potential for a missile exchange between Iran and Israel. In April, when hundreds of missiles and drones were fired at Israel, the United States, Israel, Jordan, and others played a major role in stopping most of the missiles.
President Biden spoke to Netanyahu to take the win, and Israel avoided hitting the Iranian nuclear facilities themselves as it fired at an air base. The message, though, was clear: Next time, they could aim for assets Iran prizes.
The more extreme scenarios being explored this time, according to the American officials, involve Israel striking at the nuclear facilities, particularly at enrichment sites at Natanz, the heart of the Iranian program. It is at Natanz, north of Isfahan, that Iran has produced its near bomb-grade uranium, which American officials said could be converted to bomb-grade in days or weeks. It would take far longer to produce a nuclear weapon.
In April, Israeli officials said the Iranian attack involved 185 drones, 36 cruise missiles and 110 surface-to-surface missiles fired toward Israel. Iran launched most of them but a small number came from Iraq and Yemen. The weapons used in the barrage were more sophisticated than anything Israel had encountered during the first six months of fighting against Hamas in Gaza.
The attack caused minor damage at one military base and shrapnel seriously injured a 7-year-old girl from an Arab Bedouin community in southern Israel.
Source: As Iran Launches Attack, Israel’s Next Move May Determine Course of War
Israel is at the start of confrontation with the Iranians : Rumley’s view of Tuesday’s missile attack and its implications for an air defense system
Grant Rumley, a former Pentagon official and senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that Iran would likely replicate the April attack with a combination of missiles. He said that this time it was clear that Iran wanted to avoid the failures of April by using missile technology which can quickly overwhelm an air defense system.
Unlike April, when Israel was warned days before the attack, Tuesday’s attack came without warning and had only hours to prepare.
Israel has a freer hand to respond forcefully to Iran’s missile barrage on Tuesday than it did in April, security analysts and former officials say, when its retaliation for the previous Iranian attack was a largely symbolic strike against an air-defense installation in Iran.
In April, Israel was worried that issuing too intense of a response would prompt Iran to order its proxy militias — particularly Hezbollah in Lebanon — to retaliate extensively.
But after launching a bombing campaign that killed Hezbollah’s leader and other commanders last week, along with a ground invasion overnight Tuesday, Israel has weakened Hezbollah, stripping Iran of much of its deterrence against a wider Israeli attack, said Danny Citrinowicz, a retired Israeli intelligence officer who specialized in Iran.
The Biden administration may remind Israel of its responsibilities. The U.S. officials were expected to have less influence because of the American elections.
“This is an escalation whose end is difficult to foresee,” Mr. Citrinowicz said. “Israel’s action will almost certainly trigger another Iranian response. We appear to be at the start of forceful confrontation between us and the Iranians.”
After Iran fired about 180 missiles in an attack that lasted roughly half an hour, Israel was faced with a dilemma as to how powerful a response it would be, according to the retired major general.
Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli prime minister, wrote on social media that Israel was facing “the biggest opportunity in the past 50 years” to change the face of the region.
Bennett said that they should destroy its nuclear project, destroy its major energy facilities and hit the terrorist regime. Now is the perfect time to aim for the head of the wounded sea creature, he said.