Israel’s promise to retaliate for Iran’s massive missile attack on Tuesday has raised fears of further escalation in the Middle East, prompting diplomats to look for ways to avoid a full-scale regional war.
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AFP spoke to five experts about Iran’s intentions and Israel’s potential options for a response.
Why did Iran shoot at Israel?
Israel is fighting on several fronts in the Middle East against Iranian-backed groups united in an alliance that Tehran calls an “axis of resistance”.
This includes the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and other Shiite Muslim armed groups in Iraq and Syria.
Israel has been at war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip for a year and is accused of killing its leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran in July.
In Lebanon, he faces Hezbollah, which has opened a front against Israel in support of Hamas. Israel is accused of being behind deadly explosions of the Islamist movement’s communications devices in mid-September and carried out a series of airstrikes in Lebanon that weakened the group.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed by an Israeli missile in the southern suburbs of Beirut on September 27, along with an Iranian general.
In this context, Iran fired 200 missiles into Israeli territory on Tuesday, a large number of which were intercepted, according to Israel.
This is his second attack against the country. On April 13, Iran had already fired 300 missiles and drones at Israel, almost all of which had also been intercepted, in response to an Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
According to K. Campbell, a veteran of American military intelligence, Tuesday’s Iranian attack was “symbolic.”
“All air defense systems have a saturation point, and Iran appears to have deliberately stayed below the saturation point of Israeli air defense,” he told AFP.
“I don’t think Iran wants a big regional war,” said Jon Alterman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
How might Israel respond?
James Demmin-De Lise, a writer and political analyst, believes that Israel is seeking to strengthen its advantage. “Iran is now very weakened because its proxies have been decimated,” he said.
“We are about to see a pretty dramatic shift in power,” he added. “In this case, I believe Israel will launch decisive attacks against Iran, probably in the hope of overthrowing the Islamic regime.”
On Wednesday, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett recommended a decisive strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.
But Israeli forces are already engaged in Gaza, where more than 41,600 Palestinians have been killed according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, and in Lebanon, where troops have been carrying out ground incursions targeting Hezbollah since Monday.
“Israel has achieved many successes over the past two weeks, which it would not want to jeopardize,” said Mr. Alterman, adding that Israel would have to choose between “holding on to a gain or redoubling its efforts in a strategy that produced results.
What issues?
Faced with the ongoing escalation, the UN is widely seen as ineffective and divided.
The United States is the only foreign power that could exert influence over Israel, but President Joe Biden’s administration has shown it has only relative influence.
The day after the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, Mr. Biden reiterated his country’s support for “Israel’s right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and any other terrorist group supported by Iran” .
But the US president also pushed for a ceasefire in Gaza and said he was opposed to any Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon.
“President Biden will most likely step in to negotiate, but I doubt he will have much influence,” said Jordan Barkin, an Israeli political analyst and former magazine editor.
The United States does not have direct relations with Iran, meaning any diplomatic move to defuse tensions would require the involvement of Europe or the Middle East.
“Everything will depend on the nature of this Israeli response, and everything will of course depend on the advice and the effort made by the American administration which has no interest at this moment in engaging in a regional war,” affirmed Hasni Abidi, analyst and director of the Center for Studies on the Arab and Mediterranean World in Geneva.
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