Israel’s retaliation
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) fired missiles at Iran last Friday, in retaliation for the barrage of 300 missiles and drones that Tehran had aimed at Israel six days earlier. The strikes targeted an air base near the central city of Isfahan, where a missileproduction complex and facilities for Iran’s nuclear programme are located. Iranian officials played down the attack, and said the explosions heard near Isfahan were the result of “air defence firing at suspicious objects”. It said these had caused no damage, and made no mention of any plans for further strikes. Israel didn’t officially comment on the strikes.
Analysts said that the limited scope of Israel’s attack showed that it had listened to its allies’ pleas for restraint. However, it drew the ire of some of the hardliners in Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition. “Feeble!” was the one-word response of the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, on X/Twitter.
What the editorials said
The world had waited with bated breath for Israel’s response to Iran’s unprecedented missile and drone barrage, said the FT. When it came, there was a “collective sigh of relief”. Netanyahu seemed to have listened to President Biden – who had urged Israel to “take the win” of having thwarted Iran’s assault – and authorised an attack designed to avoid further escalation. Tehran, in turn, didn’t directly blame the attack on Israel. The result is that “a fullblown regional conflict has, for now, been avoided”. Israel’s response was sensibly muted, agreed the Daily Mail. It was limited to military sites and seemingly caused no casualties. But its message would have been clear to the mullahs: “Israel could, if provoked, inflict huge damage.”
The danger hasn’t passed, said The Independent. These “tit-for-tat” strikes have set a precedent and may yet be repeated, given the regional tensions caused by the war in Gaza, the associated activity by Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah, and Israel’s “existential fear” of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon. The risk of “full-scale” war between these “historic enemies” therefore remains all too real.
What the commentators said
Iran’s ayatollahs have been profoundly humiliated, said Richard Kemp in The Daily Telegraph. Last week, they said that “even the slightest Israeli strike” would lead to a “punishing retaliation”. Now, they “seem to be saying they will do nothing”. Israel’s choice of target was significant, said Peter Beaumont in The Guardian. Isfahan is home to Iran’s fleet of US-made F-14 Tomcat fighter jets (acquired before the 1979 revolution) and a hub for the production of weapons, including Shahab 3 missiles that can reach Israel. It’s also near the Natanz uranium enrichment plant, a vital nuclear facility. By striking there, Israel signalled that it could target Iran’s nuclear programme if it chose to. But was this response sufficient, asked Jake Wallis Simons in The Daily Telegraph. Intercepting Iran’s barrage cost Israel $1bn. “If the price for such a major assault is one ‘limited’ jab at an air base, then that is extremely favourable to Iran.”
Netanyahu has spent decades advocating tougher action against Iran, said Anshel Pfeffer in The Times. But he wasn’t convinced by his generals’ calls for a major response to its attack. Polls indicated that – exhausted by the fights against Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon-based Hezbollah – the Israeli public had little appetite for a conflict on another front; and Netanyahu was loath to jeopardise the emergence of a strategically valuable coalition in the region. That Jordan, and reportedly the UAE and Saudi Arabia, helped thwart Iran’s attack is “a big deal”, said Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian. It suggests that an unofficial alliance between Israel and Sunni states that fear Iran is stepping “into the light”, and gives Israel a chance to gain what it has never had: “an accepted place in the Middle East”. To grasp that prize, Israel would have to offer Palestinians a route to statehood. That would be politically fraught, but the potential reward is huge: an “entirely new future” in which Iran is hemmed in by nations that are united in a resolve to stop it “wreaking regional havoc via the militias and regimes it controls”.
What next?
With tensions between Iran and Israel appearing to have eased, attention is now turning back to the war in Gaza, says Paul Rogers on Open Democracy. The Strip’s Hamas-run health ministry reported last week that the Palestinian death toll has now surpassed 34,000. But negotiations between Israel and Hamas over a ceasefire are on hold. The mediator Qatar is “increasingly dubious about prospects for progress”, and the IDF is intensifying its strikes on the southern Gazan city of Rafah, while also stepping up its operations in the West Bank. A swift end to the conflict doesn’t look likely.