Fear of “the extension of the conflict” | From response to response

Tensions in the Middle East rose another notch on Tuesday following a new barrage of missiles aimed at Israel from Iran, the second such attack in months. The Israeli armed forces have already promised Tehran to make it “pay the price”.

Sirens sounded across central Israel early Tuesday evening, shortly after the Israeli army launched a ground operation in southern Lebanon.

Daniel Kresser rushed to his neighborhood air raid shelter across Tel Aviv shortly before 8 p.m. local time. “The sky was full of air defense missiles,” he told The Press.

Ten minutes later, he heard the first detonations. “It sounded much louder than the missiles coming from Gaza” during the attack on October 7, 2023, he describes.

Despite the approximately 200 missiles fired by Iran, the offensive reportedly left only one dead, a Palestinian in the West Bank, and two seriously injured in Tel Aviv. However, several missiles reportedly hit the ground, including one less than a kilometer from Mossad headquarters, and caused significant damage.

The majority of the missiles were, however, intercepted by the “Iron Dome” defense system with the help of US Navy destroyers which, on the orders of President Joe Biden, lent support to the Israeli authorities.

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About an hour after the attack began, the army called on the population to come out of the shelters. But Daniel Kresser didn’t want to stray too far from his. “We have the feeling that it could continue into the night,” said the man who lives in the Shapira neighborhood in south Tel Aviv.

Retaliation

Quickly, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the armed militia of the Republic of Iran, confirmed that this attack was intended to be a response to the assassination of the leaders of Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas, Hassan Nasrallah and Ismaïl Haniyeh.

The first was killed last Friday in the incessant bombings that Israel has been carrying out since mid-September against Hezbollah in Lebanon, in response to the latter’s fire on the north of its territory.

This front was opened by Hezbollah the day after the attack by its ally, Hamas, on October 7 against Israel.

Tuesday’s attack is a “decisive response” to Israel’s “aggression,” Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian said.

Fifty-five people were killed and 156 injured in Israeli airstrikes on the Land of Cedar over the past 24 hours, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

A form of climbing

In the evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Iran had made “a serious mistake” by attacking his country and that Israel was determined to “hold its enemies accountable”.

“The Air Force continues to operate at maximum capacity and tonight we will continue to strike in the Middle East with force, as has been the case for the past year,” the Air Force spokesperson said. the Israeli army, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.

This is the second such attack carried out by Iran in less than six months. On April 13, in response to a deadly strike on its consulate in Damascus attributed to Israel, the Islamist republic directed some 350 explosive drones and missiles at the Hebrew state.

This first direct attack, however, did little damage. A young girl was injured in the south of the country.

Israel had received signals several days in advance that this attack was imminent and was able to prepare accordingly, which is not the case for Tuesday’s attack.

What’s more, it only targeted an air base while Tuesday’s attack “targeted a large part” of the territory, underlines professor at the department of Middle East history at Tel Aviv University Meir Litvak .

“They were not drones, but heavy missiles,” he adds, convinced that this is a form of escalation on the part of Iran.

What answer?

The whole world is now anticipating the Israeli reaction to the Iranian attack which risks setting the tone for the rest of the conflict, according to the experts consulted.

Last April, this response took the form of an attack on an air base near Isfahan, a city surrounded by some of Iran’s most sensitive nuclear facilities.

This time, the most extreme response scenarios involve Israel directly striking these nuclear facilities, particularly the Natanz enrichment sites, the heart of the Iranian program, according to US officials cited by the New York Times.

This would have the effect of triggering a “large-scale war”, believes Meir Litvak. However, already mired in its conflict in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, Israel “does not want a new front” of war, he adds.

Condemnations and gunfire

On Iran’s side, the objective is not clear either, believes the director of the Observatory on the Middle East and North Africa of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair, Sami Aoun.

Is the Iranian regime’s goal simply to launch these missiles and call it a day or does it intend to start a big war?

Sami Aoun, Middle East expert

Sami Aoun suggests in particular that Iran could simply seek to “boost the morale” of the pro-Iranian factions through which it normally attacks Israel: Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen.

This is evidenced by the heavy gunfire that resonated in the streets of Beirut on Tuesday evening to highlight the attack on Israel, he said.

Meanwhile, the European Union, Spain, Britain and Japan, among others, condemned the Iranian attack as UN chief António Guterres deplored the “extension of the conflict” in the Middle East.

The UN Security Council is due to hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the escalation of hostilities in the Middle East.

With The New York TimesCNN and Agence France-Presse