The Big Question: Will Israel Hit Back at Iran?

Iran wanted to impress on its partisans that it had stood up to Israel and fought back, and has restored deterrence. But not so fast.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain
The Daily Beast

Tehran did not heed President Joe Biden’s warning to not “strike Israel” and launched 200 explosive drones and ballistic missiles against the Jewish state on Saturday. The attack was the only direct Iranian offensive on Israel ever, and the first by a state since 1991.

Yet despite hours of live media coverage, the damage that Iran has inflicted on Israel seems to have been insignificant. The question has thus become: Will Israel now grasp an opportunity it has long waited for and respond?

Iran’s attack came to avenge an air strike—widely acknowledged to be from Israel—on Damascus that killed seven senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) generals, including Mohamed Zahedi. Israel believes that Zahedi helped mastermind the October 7 Hamas attack, which led to the murder of 1,200 Israelis. Hamas confirmed the Israeli claims when it eulogized Zahedi, crediting him with building Hamas’s military wing and helping plan the October 7 attack.