Will Israel retaliate to Iranian missile attack?

While Israel will choose its place and time to retaliate to Iranian provocation, Tehran has nothing more than ballistic missiles to fire at Tel Aviv.

Published on: Apr 15, 2024, 12:10:33 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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New Delhi: After Israel with US support successfully defended Iranian missile attack last Saturday through its super-efficient ballistic missile defence (BMD), the bloody war between the two eternal rivals will be played through non-state actors rather than a direct counter from Tel Aviv as there is no strategic objective for horizontal escalation for either side.

Iranian ballistic missiles intercepted by Israel over Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem

The Iranian attack, which was visible at least two days before the actual firing of ballistic missiles and drones, was a counter to the Israeli attack on its Damascus consulate annex in which 16 people including one senior Quds force commander were killed. The visible movement of Iranian missiles and drones gave enough notice to the US, Israel and Jordan to prepare the BMD against the oncoming strike.

The question that needs to be asked is how many Iranian ballistic missiles, cruise missiles or Shahed 136 drones reached Israel ? Fact is that at a speed of 165 kilometer per hour, it takes an Iranian drone or loitering ammunition at least nine hours to reach Israel. And by that time it can be blown out of the sky. How many ballistic missiles reached Israel? Fact is that a few of the ballistic missiles reached Israel but were taken care of by state of the art technology through Iron Dome, Patriot and David’s Sling BMDs.

While Israel will choose its place and time to retaliate to Iranian provocation, Tehran has nothing more than ballistic missiles to fire at Tel Aviv. It does not have an Air Force or even a Navy to take on the military superiority of Israel with all the planes at least 30 years old and no spare parts available. So the best option for the Tehran regime after it has satisfied its domestic audiences through April 13 retaliation is to use proxies like Hezbollah, Houthis,. Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Kaitab Hezbollah to attack Israel. But can the Iranian proxies take on Israel from Lebanon now and subsequently get annihilated in the process by losing power in Beirut.

Israel on the other hand has multiple platforms to deliver force to Tehran as the latter has no missile defence worth its name. It can deliver destruction to Tehran through missiles, drones and bomber jets without any credible counter in Iranian airspace. But this will lead to horizontal conflagration in the Middle-East, something which the US or its allies in the Middle-East will not allow. Simply put, both have scored points before their domestic audiences and the political objectives have been satisfied.

While the Israel war on Gaza is about Hamas releasing hostages kidnapped by terrorists on October 7, a full-fledged Israel-Iran war will be an upheaval in West Asia which the world cannot afford. Hence, in the near future, Iran will continue to use proxies to keep the Middle-East region unstable with Israel countering them with force through top end military technology and firepower. But the first round of the Israel-Iran war seems over.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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