Israel will hit back at Iran, but how?

Analysts have little doubt that Israel will strike back, but they point to huge risks for Jerusalem and its alliances.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greets US President Joe Biden upon his arrival at Tel Aviv on October 18, last year. Picture: AFP

Israel is almost certain to retaliate at some stage against Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile attack, but the questions are how and when, ­security analysts say.

Analysts have little doubt that Israel will strike back, but they point to huge risks for Jerusalem and its alliances, and implications for the wider Middle East.

Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran are arch-foes that have been fighting a shadow war of assassinations, armed strikes and sabotage for years, often through allied and proxy forces.

Saturday’s attack by Iran “rewrites the relationship” between the two, said security consultant Stephane Audrand. “Traditionally, Israel has a zero-tolerance policy when its ­national soil is struck by another state,” he said.

Mr Audrand said he believed Israeli realities dictated its hawkish Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, “cannot not react”.

Tamir Hayman, a former head of Israeli military intelligence who leads the Institute for National ­Security Studies, also said Israel was sure to hit back at some stage.

“An Israeli response will come, on Iranian soil,” he predicted on social media platform X.

Sima Shine, a former Mossad agent who heads the INSS Iran program, said “if Israel retaliates, it will be done within the same framework: targeting military sites, not civilian areas, and probably not economic targets”.

Mr Audrand said to limit the risk of further escalation, “the Israelis would need to confine themselves to strikes on conventional sites, on sites from which missiles were launched, on drone factories”.

Menahem Merhavy, an Iran specialist at the Truman Institute of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said Saturday’s Iranian ­attack seemed to have been calibrated to avoid “a significant and meaningful number of casualties on the Israeli side”.

Iran struck Israel “in a controlled manner”, agreed Hasni Abidi of the Study and Research Centre for the Arab and Mediterranean World in Geneva.

Professor Abidi argued that Iran’s particular aim was “to avoid suffering such a substantial response from Israel that would jeopardise their nuclear program”.

The Iranian nuclear program has been at the heart of tensions between Israel and Iran for many years, with Israel accusing Tehran of seeking to acquire ­nuclear weapons, a charge that Tehran denies.

Mr Audrand pointed to the fact that Mr Netanyahu, who has long voiced alarm that Iran was seeking an atomic bomb, heads a shaky government with far-right ­coalition partners. He said with Mr Netanyahu playing for his political survival, there was a “risk of ­escalation on the nuclear issue”.

“If Israel responds very forcefully, we’re likely to come to a situation of escalation that can widen,” said Meir Litvak, director of the Alliance Centre for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Professor Merhavy said Israel’s response must take into ­account the positions of its allies who came to help defend it by intercepting many of the projectiles.

“The question is whether Israel will break the rules of the game, so to speak, by attacking openly on Iranian soil,” he said.

Like other observers, Professor Litvak said the risk of a broader war largely depended on Israel’s reaction.

He said it was not in Israel’s interest to trigger a regional war with Iran while it was fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a move that would also antagonise US President Joe Biden’s administration.

He warned that the longer-term consequences for Israel would likely be disastrous.

The role of Israel’s allies – ­including neighbouring Jordan, with which Israel has complex ­relations – in thwarting the Iranian attack is as unprecedented as the drone and missile barrage ­itself.

This showed that Israel was not alone – but also that it could not act entirely independently, said former Mossad agent Ms Shine.

“Israel cannot retaliate, I think, without consulting the Americans,” she said. “It’s not just about consulting, but about getting Washington’s approval.”

Mr Hayman predicted that ­Israel would retaliate on Iranian soil, but advised its leaders to wait and “let the other party agonise in uncertainty”.

“Time is on our side,” he wrote on X. “We can think, plan, and act intelligently – defensive success ­allows it.”

AFP