Smoke from an Israeli airstrikes rises above the city’s southern suburbs on October 1, 2024 in Beirut, Lebanon.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

On April 1, 2024, when Israel bombed the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus killing Brig. Gen. Mohammed Reza Zahedi and other officers, Iran saw the war coming towards it. In December 2023, Israel had killed another senior general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Sayyed Razi Mousavi, in a strike in Damascus. In retaliation, Iran launched a missile attack towards what it called a Mossad base in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. It was a token response. But the April 1 attack marked a flagrant violation of Iran’s sovereignty. On April 14, Iran launched an unprecedented direct attack on Israel, by firing over 300 drones, cruise and ballistic missiles.

Iran wanted to change the rules of the game in its hostile engagement with Israel. The message Tehran was trying to send was that if Iranian sovereignty is breached or its officers were targeted, Iran would respond directly. And the message was well-received in Jerusalem in April. Israel’s retaliation for the Iranian attack was a meek, unclaimed air strike. But the situation would change in the following months, with two key developments in Iran.

In May, President Ebrahim Raisi, whose political and security views aligned with those of Iran’s conservative establishment, was killed in a helicopter crash. Masoud Pezeshkian, a moderate who preferred engagement with the West and restraint in West Asia, was elected President in June. In Iran’s transition, Israel found an opportunity to test its resolve.

Israel’s double strike

On July 30, Israel killed Fuad Shukr, a senior commander of Hezbollah and a close confidant of Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s Secretary General, in an air strike on a Beirut suburb. A few hours later, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s Doha-based political chief who was in Tehran to attend Mr. Pezeshkian’s swearing-in ceremony, was killed in the Iranian capital. In two strikes in two geographies, Israel hit three of its enemies — Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas — within 24 hours. Both Iran and Hezbollah vowed retaliation. Iran later reportedly decided to hold back its fire to give Gaza peace talks a chance. But Gaza ceasefire talks reached nowhere with Israel continuing to pound the enclave, killing hundreds of Palestinians every week. Iran, wary of triggering a wider war, still did not respond. Hezbollah, on the other side, fired some 300 short-range rockets, after Israel carried out air strikes, most of which were intercepted. Immediately after the rocket attack, Nasrallah said the retaliatory strikes were complete, signalling that he did not want escalation.

By that time it was evident that neither Iran nor Hezbollah wanted an all-out war with Israel. Iran wanted the axis, mainly Hezbollah and Houthis, to continue to bleed Israel through rocket, drone and missile strikes. Nasrallah, when he started firing rockets in the aftermath of the October 7 attack, wanted to keep some military pressure on the Israeli troops in the north at a time when they were waging a full-scale invasion of Gaza in the south. But Israel was ready for a wider war, for a number of reasons.

One, it knew that the Arab countries would do nothing besides issuing statements. It has absolute deterrence against its neighbouring Arab states. Two, if Israel’s actions trigger a wider war with Iran, Israel knew that the U.S. would come to its defence. In the early stage of the conflict, the U.S. had moved its carrier strike groups to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. When Iran launched its first direct attack on Israel on April 14, it was the U.S. that put together a defensive coalition which intercepted most of the projectiles. Three, a larger war, with direct support from the U.S. and its allies, would be an opportunity for Israel to hit Iran’s critical infrastructure and weaken the regime in Tehran.

Two approaches

So the two sides that were in the conflict had two different approaches towards the conflict. Iran wanted the axis to fight Israel. The axis (Hezbollah) wanted a limited war. But Israel was ready for escalation. And when Israel sensed reluctance on the side of its rivals, it decided to go with full force. Israel had been preparing since 2006 for the next war with Hezbollah. When Hezbollah expanded more like a conventional military force, particularly since its involvement in the Syrian civil war, Israel was preparing like a militia to attack Hezbollah. Once it decided to escalate the war, it first exploded the pagers and walkie talkies, indiscriminately targeting Hezbollah’s ground functionaries, its communication system as well as Lebanese civilians—these are tactics typically used by militias and terrorist entities. And then, Israel launched waves of massive air strikes on Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah’s senior commanders (also killing 1,000 people in a week). And then, the IDF went for Hassan Nasrallah, dealing the heaviest blow to Hezbollah.

It was a bottom-up attack, aimed at degrading the most powerful non-state actor in the world. And when Hezbollah was still in shock, Israel launched its fourth ground invasion of Lebanon. It wants to push Hezbollah to the north of the Litani River and create a buffer along the Israeli-Lebanese border, something which Israel had tried to do and failed in the past.

Next stage

It’s to be seen whether Hezbollah would be able to quickly regroup itself and fight back, like it did in 2006, or whether Israel, which is yet to meet its declared objectives in Gaza even after a year of fighting, would be able to achieve its goals in Lebanon. But a bigger question, irrespective of the result of Israel’s Lebanon invasion, is what would be the next stage of the conflict. Israel’s real target is Iran.

As of now, Iran’s strategic reluctance has not been rewarding. Nasrallah was a central figure in Iran’s axis and Hezbollah was a key constituent of Iran’s forward defence doctrine. When Iran waits, Israel is going with full force against its axis. And the weakening of the axis would invariably weaken Iran’s deterrence and embolden Israel further. If Iran responds with force, that would provide a perfect excuse for Israel to launch direct strikes on Iran, dragging the U.S. also into the conflict. There is no off-ramp.

Israel launched more deadly strikes on besieged Gaza on Thursday as Western governments unveiled sweeping sanctions against Iran’s military drone programme in response to the country’s unprecedented attack on its arch-enemy Israel.

World powers have been watching nervously since Israel vowed to retaliate against Iran for the weekend assault, with fears soaring that escalating tit-for-tat attacks could push the region towards wider war.

Further stoking tensions, Iran warned on Thursday that if Israel struck Iranian atomic sites during its expected retaliation, Tehran would in turn target Israeli “nuclear facilities”.

And more than six months into the bloodiest-ever Gaza war, the Israeli army said it had bombed dozens of targets in the territory, as Qatar said efforts to broker a truce have stalled.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to destroy Hamas over its October 7 attack that started the war, has stressed that Israel “reserves the right to protect itself” against Iran.

The Islamic Republic last weekend carried out its first-ever attack to directly target its regional foe but Israel, backed by its allies, intercepted most of the 300 missiles and drones and suffered no deaths.

Iran’s attack was retaliation for an April 1 air strike, widely blamed on Israel, which levelled its consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards.

‘Middle East on a precipice’ 

The international community has urged de-escalation since Iran’s attack, which came after months of violence involving Israel and Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

“The Middle East is on a precipice,” UN chief Antonio Guterres warned on Thursday. 

“One miscalculation, one miscommunication, one mistake, could lead to the unthinkable — a full-scale regional conflict that would be devastating for all involved,” he told the UN Security Council.

The United States, Israel’s top ally and military supplier, has made clear it won’t join any Israeli attack on Iran, instead unveiling new sanctions on Thursday against the country’s military drone programme.

“We are holding Iran accountable,” US President Joe Biden said, adding that he had discussed ramping up economic pressure on Tehran with other leaders at a G7 meeting in Capri, Italy.

The US sanctions target 16 people and two entities involved in producing the drones used in Iran’s attack, as well as companies providing parts to the country’s steel industry. 

Washington added that the United Kingdom would impose sanctions on Iran’s drone and missile programme, which was also the target of promised sanctions announced by the European Union on Wednesday.

Israel has yet to reveal how or when it will carry out its promised retaliation against Iran.

US broadcaster ABC News, citing three unnamed Israeli sources, reported that Israel had “prepared for and then aborted retaliatory strikes against Iran on at least two nights this past week”.

Among the range of possible responses considered by Israel were an attack on Iranian proxies in the region or a cyberattack, the sources told ABC.

A high-ranking Iranian general warned Israel against attacking Iran’s nuclear sites.

If this did happen, then “the nuclear facilities of the regime will be targeted and operated upon with advanced weaponry,” said Ahmad Haghtalab, the head of Iran’s Nuclear Protection and Security Corps.

However, Tehran has also sought to calm tensions through indirect diplomatic channels with its other major adversary, the United States.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, in New York for a UN meeting, said Iran had “tried to tell the United States clearly” that it is “not looking for the expansion of tension in the region”.

Focus turns away from Gaza  

Israel has faced growing global opposition to the relentless war that has reduced vast areas of Gaza to rubble, while its 2.4 million people have suffered under an Israeli siege that has blocked most water, food, medicines and other vital supplies.

Guterres said Israel’s offensive had created a “humanitarian hellscape” for civilians trapped in Gaza. He said that Israel had made “limited progress” on allowing more aid into the territory, calling for more to be done.

Yet Iran’s attack on Israel “is succeeding in taking the focus, particularly the media spotlight, off of the Gaza famine and the Gaza war,” Roxane Farmanfarmaian, a Middle East and North Africa specialist at Cambridge University, told AFP.

The war started after Hamas launched their unprecedented attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

The militants also took about 250 hostages. Israel estimates 129 remain in Gaza, including 34 who are presumed dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 33,970 people in Gaza, mostly women and children. according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

UN Security Council vote 

Gaza’s civil defence said Thursday it had recovered 11 more bodies in the southern city of Khan Yunis during the night.

Also bombed by Israel was the far-southern city of Rafah, where Gaza rescue teams recovered the corpses of eight family members, including five children and two women, from a single house, the civil defence service said.

A separate strike hit Rafah overnight, killing at least 10 people, relatives and neighbours told AFP as they searched for the remains of victims.

“All of a sudden, a missile hit them,” said neighbour Abdeljabbar al-Arja, who spoke of finding the arms and feet of women and children.

“This is horrifying, it’s not normal,” he said. “The entire world is complicit.”

Talks toward a ceasefire have stalled, said Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, despite months of effort also involving US and Egyptian mediators.

Qatar is undertaking “a complete re-evaluation of its role” as mediator because the country had been targeted by “point-scoring” by politicians, he said.

The UN Security Council was expected to vote soon on the Palestinians’ bid to become a full member state of the United Nations.

However, the veto-wielding United States has repeatedly expressed opposition to such a move.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Syrian state media reported that Israeli airstrikes on Thursday hit the international airports of the Syrian capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, damaging their runways and putting them out of service.

State news agency SANA quoted an unnamed military official as saying that no one was hurt in the attacks.

The Israeli military declined to comment.

They would be the first Israeli strikes on Syria since the militant Palestinian group Hamas carried out its deadly attacks in southern Israel.

The airstrikes came a day before Iran’s foreign minister was scheduled to visit Syria to meet officials over the volatile situation in the region.

Israel has targeted airports and sea ports in the government-held parts of Syria in an apparent attempt to prevent arms shipments from Iran to militant groups backed by Tehran, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Thousands of Iran-backed fighters from around the region joined Syria’s 12-year conflict helping tip the balance in favour of President Bashar Assad’s forces.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, including attacks on the Damascus and Aleppo airports, but rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations.