It was shortly before 2 a.m. when Israel launched its air defense interceptors to counter a barrage of Iranian drones and missiles. Sirens and explosions rang out in Jerusalem, the southern Negev and the northern border region.
The Israelis, who had waited anxiously for several hours after being warned that the arsenal of projectiles was heading their way, rushed to safe premises or bomb shelters.
After more than four decades of hostility between the main enemies, Israel was for the first time the target of a direct attack by Iran. It brings the Middle East one step closer to a full-blown regional conflict that Western and Arab leaders have feared since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack sparked Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza.
All eyes are now on how Israel – still enraged, traumatized and in the midst of war after the Hamas attack – will respond to the unprecedented attack on its territory.
Iranian retaliation has been announced since a suspected Israeli attack targeted the Islamic Republic’s consular building in Damascus on April 1, killing top Revolutionary Guard commanders and hitting what Tehran considers sovereign territory. But when it happened, the attack was much larger than expected: more than 300 drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles launched from multiple fronts toward Israel.
With U.S. support, the Israeli military said the air defense was capable of neutralizing “99 percent” of projectiles. Physical damage appears limited and no deaths have been reported.
But by launching such a massive barrage, the Islamic Republic sent a message that it was willing to risk its own security by confronting Israel directly, and potentially dragging the United States into the fight. This deals a blow to Western and Arab hopes of defusing regional hostilities and ending the war in Gaza.
For six months, Iran’s leaders have made it clear that they seek to avoid direct conflict with Israel and the United States, or a full-blown regional conflagration, even as they sow knives and fuel instability.
Instead, Iran appears content to project its hostility toward Israel through the so-called Axis of Resistance, the Tehran-backed network of regional militants that includes Lebanese Hezbollah, militias in Iraq and in Syria, the Houthi rebels in Yemen and Hamas. According to analysts, Iran’s priority was to ensure the survival of the Islamic regime by keeping the conflict at bay.
There were even signs that Tehran was seeking to de-escalate regional hostilities since late January, when three US soldiers were killed when Iranian-backed militias launched a drone attack on a US base on the Jordan-Syria border.
Iraqi militias, which launched more than 160 drone and rocket attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria after October 7, had ceased attacks on U.S. forces since February, although they continued to claim attacks against Israel. In January, Iran held indirect negotiations with the United States in Oman.
But Tehran’s calculations changed after the April 1 strike against its diplomatic mission in Damascus.
The strike showed Israel was raising the stakes in its long-running shadow war with Iran, and it dealt another humiliating blow to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards. More than 10 military commanders and advisers had already been killed by suspected Israeli strikes against Syria since October 7.
In Tehran, the Damascus strike, which killed seven members of the guards, including two senior commanders, was seen as too much Israeli provocation. Just as Israel sought to reestablish its deterrent after being blindsided by the Hamas attack, the Islamic regime now seeks to do the same, not wanting to appear weak to its domestic constituencies or regional proxies.
But rather than deterring, the result will likely be an escalation of violence. The key will be how and when Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government responds, and whether the United States, desperate to contain tensions but determined to provide “ironclad” support for Israel, can hold back its ally .
Following the October 7 attack, the mindset in Israel was not that Hamas posed an existential threat, but that Iran and its proxies did so if the Jewish state appeared weak and vulnerable .
From Israel’s point of view, Hamas did not act in isolation. Rather, it views Tehran as the puppeteer of the Palestinian Islamist group and other anti-Israeli militant groups in the region, which have launched multiple attacks against Israel since October 7.
In the months that followed, Israel’s goal was to restore its military deterrence and signal to Iran that the unwritten rules in the Middle East had been upended: it would not only strike Hamas in Gaza, but he was also ready to intensify his efforts to weaken other Iranian countries. He supports activists who threaten the Jewish state.
At any other time, the intense border clashes between Hezbollah and Israel would have been considered a conflict in its own right. Israeli strikes have killed more than 250 Hezbollah fighters, a number similar to those killed in the 2006 war against the Jewish state.
But in the current context, it has so far been considered contained, even if both sides have penetrated deeper and deeper into their respective territories, beyond the invisible red lines.
Iran’s assault on Israel was in fact an attempt to restore the old rules of the game. But the problem will be that it will provide even greater motivation for Israel to further escalate the conflict with Hezbollah, by far the strongest proxy. most powerful and important in Iran.
Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East at Chatham House, said Iran had played games, but believed that if it had not launched the attack, Israel would have continued to try to degrade Iranian forces and those of its proxies, particularly Hezbollah.
“Without trying to reaffirm the red lines and regain some of the deterrent capability, there was no end in sight to Israel’s slow-paced degradation campaign,” Vakil said.
Much will depend on Israel’s response, she said. If he decides to “continue escalation and strike nuclear facilities, we are in whole new territory.”
If a real regional conflict broke out, it would have considerable repercussions. Lacking Israel’s conventional weapons, Iran has long developed an asymmetric warfare strategy, using the Guards and Axis of Resistance to strike at its enemies and their allies.
During previous episodes of heightened tensions, Iranian hardliners have often threatened to disrupt shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a third of all maritime oil cargoes pass. Iranian forces seized an Israel-linked container ship near the strait on Saturday.
The Middle East has been in a downward spiral since October 7. The situation has become even more abrupt and much more dangerous.
