One senior official said Israel has “full legitimacy for an unprecedented strike on Iranian soil.”
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
Israel is preparing a “powerful” response to the direct attack Tuesday night in which Iran launched more than 180 ballistic missiles at the Jewish state, government and IDF officials said after the attack was successfully thwarted.
The IDF said Tuesday night that it would carry out “powerful airstrikes throughout the Middle East” after Chief of Staff Maj.Gen. Herzi Halevi had said more vaguely, “We will choose when to exact the price and prove our precise and unexpected attack capabilities.”
The threat could be read in several ways.
According to a Tuesday report in The Wall Street Journal, Tehran had warned Jerusalem in advance via Arab intermediaries what its attack would be, and Jerusalem had responded with the message that it would react with a “direct hit” on such strategic assets in Iran as its nuclear or gas facilities for the smallest damage caused by the missiles.
Two people were lightly hurt by falling shrapnel, several others were injured while running to safe areas, and damage was recorded in several locations, including about a hundred homes that were damaged in Hod Hasharon by the missiles.
Unnamed Israeli officials are talking tough, with one saying “Israel has full legitimacy for an unprecedented strike on Iranian soil—this is the time to strike at the head of the Iranian snake.”
Ynet reported that the possibility of striking Iran’s nuclear facilities is “now on the table of the decision-makers more than at any other point in the last decade.”
It can be assumed, however, that the Americans would be completely against such a move, deeming it too much of an escalation that would cause an all-out war with Iran, something that they have repeatedly warned against.
Hitting Iran’s oil and gas industry, whose products are the only export that is keeping the Islamic Republic’s economy afloat, would also fit the definition of the “severe response” an Israeli defense official said was in the works.
A limited versus an overwhelming strike may get the green light from the Biden administration, which has promised to cooperate with Israel on some kind of retaliation after the president and vice-president “unequivocally condemned” Iran for the attack.
Remaining vague, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told a press briefing after the missile strike that “We have made clear that there will be consequences — severe consequences — for this attack, and we will work with Israel to make that the case.”
Haaretz reported Wednesday that while a political decision has yet to be made as to any military response due to the need to coordinate with the U.S., Israel will be demanding that the global community immediately deepen Iran’s international isolation, declare the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization and impose crippling economic sanctions on the country.