Iran's Attack on Israel: Is the Middle East About to Go to War?

In the dark, calm hours of the night on Saturday, the thirteenth of April, 2024, air raid sirens sounded off across Israel. Around the world, alerts chimed and cell phones flared to life, alerting any person with even the most basic access to modern media that an attack was coming. Dozens of drones had lifted off from Iran and were on their way on a long, slow march across the Middle East, with Israel directly in the crosshairs.

For many, the attack was both perplexing and deeply worrying, launched by a far stronger and more fearsome adversary than the Hamas organization Israel was supposed to be fighting in Gaza. For those who had watched this conflict closely, it was the moment long dreaded—the moment that posturing, rhetoric, proxy warfare, and even direct attacks on each other in third nations boiled over into an attack that could become the opening salvo in a new international war: Israel on one side, Iran on the other.

The Attack: Drones, Cruise Missiles, and Ballistic Missiles in Waves

Iran’s assault on Israel commenced on the evening of Saturday, April 13th, local time, with the launch of roughly 170 drones from Iranian airspace. The drones were a widely used, Iranian-designed model called the Shahed 136—suicide drones that attack in waves against ground targets. Each is equipped with up to 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of explosives, intended to crash directly into a target and detonate in the process.

Cruising at a top speed of just 185 kilometers per hour, not much faster than 100 miles per hour, they would take several hours to get all the way to Israel. The Israeli Defense Forces, or IDF, sounded the alarm, and not only Israel but several surrounding nations either closed down their airspace at that time or had already done so in anticipation of the attack. As the drones closed in, Iran launched a second-wave attack: over thirty cruise missiles, which fly in a relatively straight shot over long distances, and over 120 ballistic missiles, which climb high into the atmosphere before falling downward toward their targets.

Both ballistic and cruise missiles fly far faster than the Shahed drones, and Iran had timed its launch to bring those missiles crashing down on Israel slightly after the arrival of the drones. It is a tactic rapidly rising in popularity among 21st-century warfighters, and one that the Institute for the Study of War has since claimed to be a near-carbon-copy of tactics that Russia has used against Ukraine in its ongoing war. The incoming drones and cruise missiles are meant to occupy an enemy’s air defense systems, costing them valuable interceptor rockets that take time to reload, while the faster, harder-to-hit, and deadlier ballistic missiles arrive during a critical moment of vulnerability.

The Institute said in their analysis, “The Iranians very likely expected that few if any of the cruise missiles would hit their targets, but likely hoped that a significantly higher percentage of the ballistic missiles would do so.” Iran-allied groups, from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Houthis in Yemen to militias in Iraq, all launched their own rockets at Israel, according to IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari.

Israel’s Multi-Layered Air Defense and Allied Interception

When the combined attack came within range, Israeli air defenses roared to life. Standing against the missiles and drones was Israel’s vaunted, multi-layered defensive shield—a highly advanced interlocking system of long-, medium-, and short-range systems meant to bring down a wide array of aerial threats in and around Israeli airspace. At long range, Israel’s Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 systems used detachable warheads to intercept Iran’s ballistic missiles, doing so at altitudes that ensure that even if a nuclear warhead was mounted to one of the missiles, it would have been disposed of far enough from the Earth’s surface to render its effect harmless.

In medium range, Israel used David’s Sling, a system that can launch intercepting missiles against all of the munitions Iran used, at a range of 100 to 200 kilometers (62 to 124 miles). The drones and missiles that made it through Arrow and David’s Sling had to face the Iron Dome, Israel’s globally exalted last line of aerial defense, which fires missiles to dispose of short-range threats in midair. Also at Israel’s disposal were American-made Patriot air defense systems, and the aircraft of the Israeli Air Force, including over two hundred F-15 and F-16 fighters and dozens of advanced F-35s.

A final element of Israel’s defense, the so-called Iron Beam laser defense system, has not yet gone operational and thus was not used. Israel’s allies took part in the defense as well; the US, the UK, France, and Jordan each took down numerous incoming targets using warplanes and air defenses, while the French Navy provided radar coverage for the affected area. Against such a comprehensive air defense, Iran’s assault was largely unsuccessful.

Of the roughly 200 Shahed drones and cruise missiles, not a single one is believed to have impacted its intended target inside Israel. Of Iran’s ballistic missiles, just a small handful were claimed as successful hits by Iran. According to Iran itself, the intended targets were Israel’s Nevatim Airbase and an intelligence center in a mountain cluster called Mount Hermon, as well as the Ramon Airbase in Israel’s south.

According to Israel, five Iranian ballistic missiles struck the Nevatim airbase and four hit the Ramon airbase, but the extent of the damage was limited to a hit on a parked C-130 transport aircraft, a runway that hadn’t been in use, a few empty storage hangars, and scattered locations around the airbases where not much was happening. Iran has claimed far more substantial damage, but no evidence of that damage has been made public. There were no deaths due to the attack, in Israel or anywhere else, although several people sustained minor injuries from shrapnel and a seven-year-old Bedouin girl living in Israel was seriously injured.

Was the Attack Meant for Show—or Was It Real?

The relatively limited destruction led many news outlets to conclude that the attack had been meant for show, making brazen flyovers of third nations but choosing points of impact where not many people would be put at risk. Critically, though, most international experts have now concluded that this particular attack was not meant to be a simple expression of token retribution. There was real potential for a less dangerous strike, one that Iranian leaders could show their people to say, “see, we’re doing something,” while crafting the strike in a way that would let Israel repel it easily, thus signaling that Iran didn’t want to take this matter any further.

It is not an uncommon feature of global flashpoints to see an attack launched in order to pacify hardliners at home and defuse tensions abroad at the same time. But the tactics Iran chose, the weapons it relied on, and the sheer scale of the attack all indicate that this was real. Although Iran chose slow-flying, easy-to-spot Shahed drones for its attack, the addition of large numbers of ballistic missiles indicates that Iran telegraphed its attack not to allow Israel a chance to repel it, but to soak up Israeli air-defense capability and allow at least some missiles to get through.

The attack was not meant to do massive or disproportionate amounts of damage, but it was meant to work—and it failed. Given how many Shahed drones were used, Iran has now blown past the historical record for the biggest drone strike ever, even if it was largely not successful in achieving its tactical aims. Not only that, but it is the first time since 1991—thirty-four years—that Israel has been attacked directly by the military of another global nation.

The Israeli Strike on Damascus That Triggered Iranian Retaliation

On the first of April 2024, Israel launched an airstrike against an Iranian consulate building in Damascus, Syria, part of a larger compound that also housed the Iranian embassy there. The consulate that was struck included the living quarters of Iran’s ambassador to Syria, but that was only collateral damage. The real target was a meeting happening inside the consulate building, between several members of non-state militias allied with Iran and seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.

Among their number was Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, alongside his deputy, Brigadier General Mohammed Hadi Haji Rahimi. All seven IRGC soldiers were killed, alongside seven other associates of military organizations that Israel considers its enemies, and two civilians. The attack was a major blow to Iran, not just because it directly targeted an Iranian diplomatic target in a third nation and thus flagrantly broke one of the few rules of the international order that most of the world actually sticks to.

Even more important were the deaths of Brigadier Generals Zahedi and Rahimi, two senior commanders of Iran’s Quds Force. The Quds Force is Iran’s premier special-operations, military intelligence, and unconventional warfare branch, and they prop up a range of Iran-allied organizations around the world, from Hamas in Gaza to the Houthi rebels in Yemen to Hezbollah in Lebanon and more. Zahedi and Rahimi are the most senior Revolutionary Guard Corps members to be killed since America’s 2020 assassination of Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani, a strike that has had ripple effects that many international observers have cited as directly leading to Israel’s current war against Hamas.

Since Israel’s strike, it had been no secret that an Iranian retaliation was going to come sooner rather than later. Iran publicly vowed revenge, and Israel-allied nations around the world, including the United States, took care to express to Iran and the global public that they had not had any advance notice of the strike. Western nations applied intense pressure to Iran in order to deter an attack, while Israel threatened direct retribution on Iranian soil if it were made the target of a retaliatory strike.

Iran directly cautioned the US against intervening and passed a threat from Iran’s Swiss embassy to America’s that US military bases could be attacked in the Middle East if the US took part in an Israeli defense. That was a sore spot for the US, after three American reservists were killed and thirty-four were wounded in a strike on an American base near the Jordan-Syria-Iraq border in January. Regional nations that host American bases also lodged requests that America not use their territory to launch a counterattack.

Finally, Iran warned nations of the region three days before the attack, knowing full well that those warnings would eventually reach the Americans and the Israelis.

The Shadow War: Iran’s Axis of Resistance and Decades of Proxy Conflict

The history of religious, ethnic, and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East goes back a very long time, but among the by-products of that long and troubled history is a shadow war between Iran and Israel that has gone on for decades. A long-running, three-way cold war in the Middle East—between Israel, Iran, and Saudi Arabia—has seen all three nations battle economically, diplomatically, and via proxy warfare to build their control and influence over the Middle East as a whole. While Israel tends to fight that cold war through mostly economic and diplomatic means, relying on its strong relationship with the global West and its immense military strength relative to the rest of the region, Iran has taken a different tone, building what it and its own proxy forces refer to as the Axis of Resistance.

That axis is made up of numerous non-state actors: Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and a network of other militias in Iraq and Syria. The Syrian government also relies heavily on Iran, and the Iraqi government is getting increasingly cozy with Tehran. Iran provides those groups with financial, military, and intelligence support, primarily relying on its Quds Force—the same organization that the prominent Iranian generals killed in Israel’s first-of-April airstrike helped to lead.

With that context, Iran’s attack becomes clearer for what it really was: the clearest indication that this long cold war is at risk of going hot. Iran has pulled the strings behind attacks on and resistance against Israel for years, and especially since the start of the Israel-Hamas War. Hamas solicits strong, direct support from Iran, while Hezbollah in southern Lebanon has traded near-daily fire with Israel since that war kicked off, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen have embarked on a large-scale campaign against global maritime shipping.

Israel has fought back, retaliated, and launched a large-scale counteroffensive against Hamas in the wake of its terror attack on October the seventh, 2023. But even Israel’s direct strike on the Quds Force leaders took place in a third nation and could be interpreted as something other than a direct attack on Iran on its own soil. Now, Iran has chosen to shatter the thin veneer of indirect conflict that still existed.

Israel’s Options: Draw Down, Respond Proportionally, or Escalate

With Iran’s attack concluded, it fell on Israel to decide what to do next. Three basic options presented themselves: Israel could draw down the conflict, respond proportionally, or escalate. Drawing down would involve launching either a less severe strike than Iran’s—say, a limited attack on low-level Quds Force members operating abroad—or no military response at all.

According to conventional geopolitics wisdom, that would signal to Iran that Israel would like to take steps toward both nations deciding not to attack anymore. A proportional response would see Israel attempt to craft an attack that matches what Iran did, sending the signal that this is not over but Israel does not intend to go to war over it. An escalation would involve an even larger retaliatory response, telling Iran to get ready for full-scale hostilities.

In the wake of the attack, most of the global response focused on both telling Iran how bad an affront to the international order its attack was, and telling Israel just how bad it would be if the situation escalated further. Iran’s strike was strongly condemned by Israel’s allies, including the UN, the UK, Canada, Japan, and the nations of Europe. Nations generally more open to engaging with Iran declined to offer any support, with China and Russia both urging restraint and Turkey and Saudi Arabia exerting pressure on Iran to wrap up its retaliation.

Even direct allies of Tehran held off on calling for further escalation. Although Israel’s allies remained committed to its national defense, with the US insisting that its commitment to the military defense of the nation is “ironclad,” even the US stressed that its active support of Israel does not include support of further Israeli strikes against Iran. The US flat-out denied that it would participate in an Israeli retaliation; quoting a senior American official who spoke to ABC, “We believe Israel has freedom of action to defend itself, in Syria or elsewhere.

That’s a long-standing policy and that remains. But no, we would not envision ourselves participating in such a thing.” US President Joe Biden reportedly emphasized to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel can claim its successful defense against the Iranian assault as a victory, and that it does not stand to gain anything further by continuing to engage in a cycle of escalation.

Political Dynamics in Israel and the Coalition Question

One indicator of Israel’s likely direction came from Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, a man who is both a longtime political opponent of Prime Minister Netanyahu and a current ally in the political coalition governing Israel’s military action in Gaza and abroad. The day after the attack by Iran, Gantz stated that Israel would indeed respond to Iran, “in a way and at the time that suits us.” Although Gantz is a war hawk in his own right, he is generally perceived to be less inclined to major military actions than Netanyahu, implying that if he is on board, the PM probably is too.

Israel and Iran traded barbs at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, seeming outwardly unmoved by any talk of a complete drawdown. At that meeting, Israel’s UN ambassador called Iran both “the number one global sponsor of terror” and a “pirate state,” while Iran’s ambassador defended his country’s actions as a proportional response it had no choice but to undertake. Israel further claimed that it “reserves the right to retaliate.”

On Iranian state TV, IRGC generals were careful to express that any retaliation to this strike, not just an escalatory response, will prompt a much larger attack from Iran. Iran had indicated in advance how it intends to interpret an Israeli response, drawing a hard line in the sand that signals Israel’s next move will now decide just how big this thing gets. For months, many experts around the world have speculated that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s motivations for pursuing such a massive and heavy-handed retaliation against Hamas are at least partially political in nature.

Netanyahu is unpopular among the Israeli public, especially at this phase of the war, and he is likely to face political challenges once the war ends. In order to stay in power, he must both placate partners within Israel’s hard right who want an even bigger military response and work with Israel’s larger opposition movement toward a ceasefire and the return of hostages still being kept prisoner by Hamas. What this latest attack has shown is that Israel’s support gets a lot less qualified when it enters into larger hostilities with Iran.

The West rallied behind the Netanyahu government after the Iranian attack in a way rarely seen since the start of the Israel-Hamas War. For a consummate political survivalist like Netanyahu, that would be a massive boon to his future prospects.

Iran’s Miscalculation and the Specter of Regional War

It is likely that Iran is coming to grips with a miscalculation around just how effective its aerial weapons were going to be. Unlike Russia’s use of similar tactics against Ukraine, these hundreds of drones and missiles were not enough to overwhelm Israel’s much more robust system of air defenses, and while the involvement of other nations certainly made Israel’s job easier, there is no clear indicator that Iran would even have been successful if Israel was defending alone. A majority of Iran’s aerial weapons were dealt with outside Israeli airspace, and those that came closer did relatively little damage when measured relative to the size of the attack Iran launched.

It is unknown just how many drones Iran has in its arsenal, but it burned nearly two hundred of them in this assault, along with almost a hundred ballistic missiles. If it is going to launch a more successful attack, it will need to devote far more firepower. There is also the foreign-relations angle to consider.

After months of posturing, Iran finally presented a situation to the nations of the world that would force them to show where their loyalties lie—and the result, at least broadly, was not in Iran’s favor. The participation of nations like Jordan and France in Israel’s defense, and the active involvement of the US after it was warned about potential retaliation against its own bases by Iran, indicate that Israel would have major military support on its side if the conflict grows. Meanwhile, Iran’s friends and acquaintances on the global stage have not come to its defense with nearly the strength Tehran might have hoped.

Tehran does have the ability to cause immense upheaval across the Middle East and would almost certainly have the support of its many non-state-actor allies in the case of larger hostilities—but the idea that it could pose major problems to Israel on Israel’s own territory is rather hard to believe. A potential war between Israel and Iran could take many forms, but none of them are particularly encouraging. At a bare minimum, both nations have the capacity to inflict major damage upon the other, drawing in elements from across the Middle East for a war that would turn very bloody, very fast.

Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan all risk being drawn in directly, while the wealthy Gulf states and Turkey could be forced to take part. Finally, there is the potential for a war to rapidly accelerate the nuclearization of Iran, where Tehran is believed to have the breakout capability to assemble multiple fission bombs in the span of weeks if it chose to do so. That would pit two nuclear-armed nations on either side of an active conflict and set off a regional arms race that could quickly draw in Saudi Arabia and Turkey as well.

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