Israel’s options: Pre-emptive strike or retaliation?

Any feasible preemptive action against Iran or Hezbollah, real-time intelligence, and detection of concrete threats are essential.

By Yaakov Lappin, JNS

Israel is engaged in intensive preparations for a range of imminent threats from Iran and Hezbollah—preparations for options that could include both pre-emptive strikes and rapid attack responses.

Both Iran and its flagship Lebanese proxy of Hezbollah have vowed to revenge assassinations—in Tehran on July 31 of Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’s political bureau, and in Beirut on July 30 of Fuad Shukr, a senior member of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council whom Israeli defense officials have described as the organization’s chief of staff.

The Israeli Air Force is preparing for a range of scenarios, from one-time strikes to simultaneous longer conflicts in multiple arenas, involving Iran, Lebanon, as well as Iranian-backed militias in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

Iran’s own arsenal includes a diverse array of ballistic and cruise missiles, and drones capable of targeting critical military and civilian infrastructure within Israel, as Iran’s attack consisting of 300 projectiles on April 14 (120 of which were ballistic missiles) demonstrated.

Then, the vast majority of the projectiles and UAVs were intercepted by Israeli and allied air defense systems.

Hezbollah, for its part, has an array of Iranian-supplied precision missiles, such as the Fateh-110 ballistic projectiles, as well as some 65,000 rockets with ranges of up to 80 kilometers, and some 5,000 medium-range rockets with ranges of between 80 and 200 kilometers, according to estimates by the Alma Research and Education Center.

Hezbollah also possesses some 2,500 drones, according to the center.

The IAF’s strategy includes maximum readiness of multi-layered air defense systems, consisting of the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow 2 and 3 systems (the Iron Beam laser interception system is due to come online in the coming months), while preparing a range of offensive capabilities.

The latter include long-range strike options for Iran, and precision attacks on targets much closer to home, located across Lebanon, to disrupt enemy infrastructure, launch capabilities, and command centers.

Real-time intelligence and detection

Speaking to JNS, Western sources assessed on Monday that for any pre-emptive action against Iran or Hezbollah to be feasible, real-time intelligence and detection of concrete threats are essential.

In the case of Iran, a pre-emptive strike against threats detected in real-time is significantly more difficult due to the flight time from Israel, which is estimated at between 2.5 and three hours, as well as the mission planning required.

Israel’s intelligence coverage of Iran, a country around 80 times larger than Israel, is likely extensive but could still miss the movement of targets such as some mobile missile launchers. Iran’s sheer size and distance from Israel would mean that even if a target is detected and about to be struck, it could continue to be on the move, and Israeli aircraft could be searching for updated target locations en route to the attack.

In Lebanon, Israel’s pre-emptive options are significantly more within reach.

In both arenas, even if it does not pre-empt the enemy, Israel can exact a price and target hostile assets that it has yet to strike, as part of any response to Iranian and Hezbollah attacks.

In Lebanon, targets could include Hezbollah ammunition depots and precision-guided-missile storage and launch sites.

Israel also has “eye-for-an-eye” type response options, such as striking energy systems in Lebanon if Israel’s offshore gas rigs are targeted by Hezbollah.

The July 20 IAF strike on the port of Hudaydah in Yemen following a deadly Houthi suicide drone attack on Tel Aviv could provide clues on targets that could be hit in Iran, if the Iranian attack results in serious casualties or damage in Israel.

The Houthi port was classified by the IDF as dual-use infrastructure (civilian-military), setting a precedent for similarly categorizing ports in Iran that are used to export weapons and store fuel as legitimate military targets.

Due to Iran’s heavy reliance on oil and natural gas revenue, which finances the activities of the Iranian axis in the region, future Israeli operations in the Islamic Republic might target not only military sites and missile bases but also critical infrastructure such as ports, for example the strategic port of Bandar Abbas.

The Western sources recalled how, in April, it took Iran some two weeks to retaliate for the April 1 airstrike in Damascus that killed IRGC Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi and six other Iranian military operatives.

Zahedi was the Iranian Quds Force commander for Syria and Lebanon.

The sources advised against taking at face value reports that describe devastating Iranian and Hezbollah responses to Israeli action, describing them as likely scare-mongering.

American pressure

Israel and its enemies are both capable of striking the other, but the main challenge for Jerusalem is political, in the form of intensive American pressure to rein in its offensive military actions, rather than the ability to move tons of bombs over distances, the sources argue.

Tehran, for its part, suffers from a security issue—the more it coordinates attacks with its proxies and allies, the more their secrecy is compromised, the sources note.

Nevertheless, Iran could divide up the attack missions by giving itself the role of launching the first strike, and then handing off subsequent waves to proxies, the sources assess.

The sources also pointed to the weakening of the Western U.S.-led coalition in the region, a factor that helped trigger Israel’s large-scale attack on the Houthis in July.

Counteracting pressure from Washington is the perception of American weakness in the region, a perception that gives Israel more room for maneuver, the sources say.

Back on April 19, when, according to international media reports, the IAF struck an air defense radar in Isfahan, Iran, which guards the uranium facility at Natanz, Israel chose the most minimal response option, signaling its capabilities but no more.

That could change in any future Israeli response to Iran.

Ultimately, the sources say, the main danger emanates from Hezbollah in Lebanon more so than from Iran.

The number of missiles Iran can dispatch in a single barrage depends on how many operational launchers it has, and Iran’s ability to dramatically increase the number of missiles it launches compared to its April 14 attack appears limited in this regard.

The scale of Israel’s response to Hezbollah will also be a key indicator of events to come.

The United States does not want Israel to enter into a full-scale conflict with Hezbollah.

Yet Washington’s passive-defensive policy against the Iran-backed Houthis, attacking only visible threats and not pre-emptively, failed to have a noticeable impact and weakened America’s posture, while emboldening the Iranian-led axis.

In the event of an escalation developing into a full-scale war—a scenario that is by no means inevitable—Israel could seize on the opportunity to strike Iran’s nuclear program sites in addition to targets such as missile bases and ports.

A full-scale war in Lebanon would, in parallel, necessitate the IAF dropping between 60,000 and 100,000 munitions on Hezbollah targets.

In Syria, tens of thousands of Shia militia members operate under the command of the IRGC, with Hezbollah also active in southern Syria, and these too would need to be targeted by the IAF.

HezbollahIAFIran attackpreemptive strikes