AFP spoke with five experts about Iran's calculations, Israel's choices and fears of escalation.
- Why did Iran order missile strike? -
The Islamic Republic is seen as having suffered a series of Israeli-inflicted humiliations over the last year which have left its strategy of building up allies across the Middle East in tatters.
An Iran-backed alliance known as "the Axis of Resistance" includes the Palestinian group Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Yemen's Houthi rebels, and other Shiite Muslim armed groups in Iraq and Syria.
Israel has pressed an offensive against Hamas in Gaza since October last year when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack, while the group's political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran in July.
In Lebanon, exploding pagers and air strikes have severely weakened Hezbollah, while its leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed by an Israeli missile in a Beirut suburb last week -- along with an Iranian general.
After an Israeli strike on Iran's consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus in April, Tehran retaliated for the first time, firing 300 missiles and drones at the Jewish state, almost all of which were intercepted.
Tuesday's attack saw another 200 missiles fired, again with little military impact, meaning they were largely "symbolic", according to K. Campbell, a US military intelligence veteran with a history of working on Iran.
"All air defense systems have a saturation point, and Iran seems to have purposely stayed below the Israeli air defense saturation point," Campbell told AFP.
"I don't think Iran wants a big regional war," Jon Alterman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think-tank, said.
- How might Israel react? -
James Demmin-De Lise, an author and political analyst who has written a book about Israel and anti-Semitism, said he thought Israel would seek to press home its advantage.
"Iran is now thoroughly weakened, as its proxies have been decimated," he said, predicting a "rather dramatic power shift" with Israel possibly even eyeing regime change in Tehran.
A senior European diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were real fears of an "extension of the conflict."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "team is a bit euphoric, thinking 'we've got Nasrallah, we're going to change the Middle East,'" the source said.
Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett argued on Wednesday for a more targeted military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
But Israel is already fighting on two fronts: in Gaza -- where more than 41,000 Palestinians have died, according to the Hamas-run health ministry -- as well as in southern Lebanon where troops began a ground operation to target Hezbollah on Monday.
Would it risk provoking a third war?
"Israel has had a lot of successes in the last two weeks, which they wouldn't want to jeopardize," Alterman from the Center for Strategic and International Studies said.
He said Israel would have to choose between "two instincts of lock in a gain, or double down on a strategy that's been giving results."
- What are the 'off-ramps'? -
The UN Security Council is set to hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the Middle East, but the global body is widely seen as ineffective and divided.
The only foreign power with potential sway over Israel is the United States but President Joe Biden's adminstration has shown itself to have only relative influence.
In a statement the day after the killing of Nasrallah, Biden reiterated US support for "Israel's right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Huthis, and any other Iranian-supported terrorist groups."
But Biden has also been pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza and had declared himself against any Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon -- to no avail.
"President Biden will most likely step in to negotiate but I doubt he will have much influence," said Jordan Barkin, an Israeli political analyst and former magazine editor.
The US also lacks direct relations with Iran, meaning any diplomatic move to defuse tensions would need European or Middle Eastern involvement.
"Everything will depend on the Israeli reaction and everything will depend on the advice and the efforts made by the American administration which has no interest at this time of becoming embroiled in a regional war," said Hasni Abidi, director of the Geneva-based Centre of Study and Research for the Arab and Mediterranean World (CERMAM).
Israel deploys Iron Dome, Slings and Arrows against rockets and missiles
Paris (AFP) Oct 2, 2024 -
Israel's Iron Dome air defence system is just one part of a multi-layered missile shield that the state has deployed and which again proved its worth against Iran's missile barrage Tuesday.
The Israeli army said it intercepted a large number of the incoming missiles -- 180 according to the army, while Iran said it had launched 200.
Where Iron Dome offers short-range protection against missiles and rockets, its counterparts David's Sling and successive generations of Arrow missiles are Israeli-American tech built on billions in US aid to halt ballistic missiles.
- Iron Dome -
Thousands of rockets fired by Hezbollah and Hamas have been intercepted by Iron Dome since it entered service in 2011.
Developer Rafael says the system can stop up to 90 percent of incoming projectiles.
Iron Dome can bring down rockets and missiles over a range of 70 kilometres (43 miles).
It saw action in both of Iran's attacks on Israel this year, on April 13 and on Tuesday.
Israel began work on Iron Dome following its 2006 war in Lebanon, with the first battery deployed in March 2011 in Beersheba, 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Gaza.
Nine more of the mobile units have since been deployed around Israeli territory, according to a US Senate report from March last year.
Each battery is made up of three launchers, each stocked with 20 interceptor missiles.
They are launched only if the battery's radar detector and computer calculate that an enemy missile is headed for an inhabited or strategic zone.
While Israel developed and began building Iron Dome, it struck a production deal with the United States in 2014 that led to a 2020 joint venture between Rafael and US-based Raytheon (now RTX).
The US military acquired several Iron Dome batteries in 2019.
- David's Sling -
Named after the Biblical story in which shepherd David defeats the giant warrior Goliath armed only with a sling, the second layer of Israel's defence targets long-range rockets and cruise missiles at ranges of between 40 and 300 kilometres.
Each launcher holds up to 12 missiles designed to destroy targets by colliding with them, rather than detonating an explosive charge -- known in military jargon as a "hittile".
Developed jointly by Rafael and Raytheon and operational since 2017, two David's Sling batteries cover all of Israel's territory.
Finland said in November that it would acquire a David's Sling system for 317 million euros ($350 million).
- Arrow -
With technological roots going back to the US Strategic Defence Initiative launched by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, Arrow II and III were developed jointly by US-based Boeing and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).
Arrow II, whose first successful interception test came in August 2020, has a range of up to 500km (310 miles).
With a range estimated at 2,400 km, Arrow III goes further by targeting incoming ballistic missiles outside Earth's atmosphere, more than 100 km above the surface.
Israel tested Arrow III successfully in January 2022.
Both systems were fired on Tuesday against Iran's missiles, with IAI claiming success.
Germany said in September 2023 that it would buy Arrow III systems worth an estimated $3.5 billion as part of its European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI).
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