The Iranian Attack Against Israel: Strike and Counter-Strike

On the first of October 2024, Iran attacked Israel with approximately 180 Fateh-110 ballistic missiles targeting Mossad headquarters and three airbases including the Nevatim airbase in southern Israel and Israeli military outposts near Gaza. This is Iran’s second direct attack against Israel since the outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip.

President Masoud Pezeshkian defended Iran’s “The True Promise 2” attack as “legitimate self-defense” in response to Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31 and, on September 27 in Beirut, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, Iran’s deputy commander of military operations.

Iran’s counter-attack was launched less than a day after Israel announced the start of its ground operations in Lebanon and as Hezbollah was reeling from structural, logistical, and organizational challenges due to previous Israeli strikes that targeted its leaders and weapons storage sites. Though Israel and United States downplayed the impact of the October attack, both countries threatened a reciprocal response. Israeli officials even presented a list of potential targets: nuclear facilities, oil production platforms, and other strategic sites in Iran.

The recent Iranian attack is different than its compound attack on April 14 in several ways. For instance, in the first attack 99% of the airborne weapons were shot down, according to the Israeli military, but in the October 1 it only took 15 minutes, a record time, for the missiles to hit their targets inside Israel, resulting in relatively few interceptions of the missiles.

Additionally, the targeted sites in this attack were directly linked to the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon. The attack also achieved an element of surprise, as Iran had maintained complete silence regarding its response to Nasrallah’s assassination. The United States and Israel detected signs of the impending strike only hours before its execution.

Despite its successful execution, the attack raises fundamental questions about its objectives and expected outcomes, especially since it did not halt Israel’s momentum on various fronts, particularly in Lebanon, which is Iran’s top priority. However, it reflects the reality that Iran’s option to delay its response now comes with increasingly high costs to its national security, especially as Israeli rhetoric against it intensifies.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an unprecedented video message to the Iranian people: Iran and Israel will be at peace when Iran is “finally free,” which he promised will “come a lot sooner than many think” because “there is no place in the Middle East that Israel cannot reach.” Thus, Iran’s strike aligns with Israel’s hostile discourse while also sending a clear message aimed at depriving Israel of the initiative and dominance. Moreover, the Iranian attack could have been far more destructive to Israel had Tehran not chosen to confine it to specific military targets.

The turning point between Israeli-Iranian relations is linked to the repercussions of the attack. Iran continues expressing its desire to prevent the war from expanding, but the potential Israeli response will be a decisive factor in shaping the upcoming regional landscape. It is likely that Israel will launch an airstrike through direct aerial incursions or long-range missiles launched from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. However, it is almost certain that a retaliatory airstrike by Israel will provoke a third Iranian attack in response, all but guaranteeing the likelihood of a strike-counterstrike conflict expanding across the region.