How Iran Could Strike Back at Israel

The killing of Hamas‘ political chief in Tehran has sparked calls for revenge from the highest levels of Iranian leadership, which has blamed the apparent assassination on Israel.

While Israeli officials have declined request for comment regarding their alleged involvement in the killing of Hamas Political Bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh early Tuesday, the attack comes amid a war raging between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and a growing region-wide crisis that has increasingly drawn in both the United States and Iran, along with its Axis of Resistance allies.

Just one day earlier, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed the killing of Fouad Shukr, a top military official of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. The strike followed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s promise to pursue a “severe response” to Hezbollah’s claimed involvement in a deadly rocket attack Saturday against the town of Majdal Shams, located in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights.

Hezbollah has denied any role in that attack but has since vowed retaliation amid the killing of its senior leader. Now, Haniyeh’s death has only escalated already flaring tempers surrounding the worsening Middle East conflict that previously led to the first-ever direct exchange of attacks between arch foes Iran and Israel in April.

As Tehran mulls the scope and scale of its plans to avenge Haniyeh and save face over his slaying on Iranian soil, Tehran-based analyst Amir Hossein Vazirian told Newsweek that Iran has “three options” to reply to the attack.

The Iranian Triad

The first option would entail what Vazirian called a “direct operation” in the vein of the large-scale Iranian missile and drone attack known as “Operation True Promise” conducted against Israel in April. The barrage was ordered in response to the killing of Iranian military officials at Iran’s consular building in Damascus, Syria.

Israel reportedly responded with a quiet strike against an air base near Iran’s nuclear facility of Natanz, though neither side officially acknowledged Israeli involvement.

The second option identified by Vazirian constituted what he referred to as an “indirect operation” for Iran, using “its proxies, especially Hezbollah and the Houthis,” a Yemeni movement also known as Ansar Allah that has also engaged in regular attacks from Israel throughout the war in Gaza.

The third option that Vazirian described is a “hybrid operation” that would involve both a direct Iranian attack on Israel as well as simultaneous strikes by Axis of Resistance factions.

“I think Iran and other members of the Axis of Resistance can attack the biggest city of Israel, Tel Aviv, and even Haifa,” Vazirian said. “It’s important to attack Israel symbolically and its port in this context.”

Ultimately, he argued that one of the most decisive factors in determining the level of Iranian response would be based on the methods used by Israel in its alleged assassination of Haniyeh.

If the killing was conducted from afar with a device such as a quadcopter, “maybe Iran decides to respond indirectly.” On the other hand, if the attack was conducted from within Iranian territory, as early reports suggest it was, “Iran will probably attack Israel directly.”

Still, he believed that a total war was not directly sought by either side.

“I don’t believe Iran will follow along with an all-out war against Israel and Israel won’t follow a full-blow war against Iran alone,” Vazirian said. “I think it’s like a chess game and both Iran and Israel are trying to dominate the principal of the game in order to continue the balance of power in the region and in the current war in the region.”

Javad Heirannia, director of Persian Gulf Studies at the Tehran-based Center for Scientific Research and Middle East Strategic Studies, described “a complicated situation” for Iran as “Netanyahu wants to expand the war in order to drag Iran into a regional war and subsequently bring America into the conflict.”

“On the one hand, Iran must give a deterrent answer to Israel,” Heirannia told Newsweek. “On the other hand, a strong response could widen the war, which would benefit Netanyahu.”

Security Woes

Heirannia also pointed out that “this issue can overshadow the nuclear negotiations between Iran and America; An issue that Masoud Pezeshkian has emphasized a lot for the lifting of sanctions.”

Haniyeh’s slaying just hours after attending Pezeshkian’s swearing-in ceremony marked an ominous start to the new president’s term, which comes just over two months after his predecessor, President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash following a trip to the border with Azerbaijan. Official investigations concluded no foul play in the incident, though not without lingering suspicions.

Heirannia pointed out that Haniyeh’s assassination in the Iranian capital has once again demonstrated a “gap in Iran’s intelligence and security apparatus,” one Israel has previously exploited to undermine the Islamic Republic.

“This gap has existed during the past years with the assassination of Iran’s nuclear scientists and the sabotage of Iran’s military and nuclear facilities by Israel,” Heirannia said. “Iran must fix these gaps.”

Joe Truzman, senior researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of its Long War Journal, also noted how perceptions over Iran’s apparent vulnerability would likely fuel the Iranian response to Haniyeh’s killing.

“Israel has once again demonstrated the holes in Iran’s security,” Truzman told Newsweek, “and the regime has decided that it must take action in attempt to restore the deterrence it had against the Jewish State.”

And yet the issue is further complicated, he argued, by Shukr’s killing, which adds an entirely new dimension to the plans for retaliation among both Iran and its Axis of Resistance allies. The desire to pursue a larger-scale attack could potentially push the region past the brink of an even bigger conflict that would overshadow the war that has already devastated Gaza.

“The outcome of the response from Hezbollah, Iran, and the broader Axis of Resistance is critical,” Truzman said. “This situation has the potential to escalate into a full-blown regional war, making the current situation in Gaza seem relatively minor in comparison.”

Still, he noted that both Iran and Hezbollah have “signaled their preference for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire” and he believed this overarching strategy was unlikely to change, even if an escalation in some form was all but guaranteed.

“We might see Iranian proxy groups get the green light from Tehran to carry out a significant uptick in attacks against U.S. personnel in the region, commercial shipping in the Red Sea, and Israeli territory aimed at pressuring both the U.S. and Israel into reaching a truce with Hamas,” Truzman said.

Where the U.S. Stands

The killing of Haniyeh and the subsequent response by Iran could also have the opposite effect on the deadlocked talks toward realizing a Gaza ceasefire and prisoner swap deal promoted since May by President Joe Biden.

“The biggest impact would be on the cease-fire negotiations to end the tragic conflict,” Sina Azodi, a visiting scholar at the Institute of Middle East Studies at George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs, told Newsweek. “The attack has the potential to kill those talks, and Egyptians have already expressed skepticism about whether Netanyahu is indeed interested in them.”

He too felt Iran may avoid replicating its “Operation True Promise” combined attack on Israel and was more likely to operate through its regional militia partners. At the same time, he noted, “Hezbollah is already engaged in an escalating conflict with Israel, so the question is whether Iran would risk getting Hezbollah involved or not.”

“If we track Iran’s previous responses,” Azodi said, “I’d argue that they would opt for a response that has the loudest political message, with the least physical damage.”

But with questions surrounding Netanyahu’s intentions, Azodi echoed Heirannia in arguing that “Israel is goading Iran to take an action” that could drastically expand the nature of the conflict that has already spurred multiple fronts across the region.

“We should keep in mind that the Israelis are trying to drag the U.S. into a direct war with Iran,” Azodi said. “This one also has the potential to turn into a regional conflict that pulls the U.S. with it.”

Speaking Tuesday aboard the Spearhead-class USNS Millinocket expeditionary fast transport during a visit to the Philippines, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated, “If Israel is attacked, we certainly will help defend Israel.”

At the same time, he said the Pentagon would “do everything we can to make sure that we keep things from turning into a broader conflict throughout the region.”

The U.S. has already indirectly entered the crisis. U.S. warships have repeatedly intercepted missiles launched by Ansar Allah against Israel and commercial vessels accused of trading with the country, while U.S. warplanes have conducted numerous rounds of sorties against the positions of the Yemeni movement, which has vowed to press on with its unprecedented offensive until Israel halted its campaign in Gaza.

The U.S. has also launched several rounds of strikes against another Axis of Resistance faction, the Islamic Resistance of Iraq. The umbrella of militias waged a monthslong campaign of rocket and drone attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and neighboring Syria that was largely halted after the deaths of three U.S. soldiers at the Jordan-Syria border drew an especially intensive set of strikes against its positions.

But with the region still reeling from Shukr’s killing in Beirut and hours before the news broke of Haniyeh’s death in Tehran, the U.S. launched new strikes overnight Monday that one U.S. defense official told Newsweek targeted “combatants attempting to launch one-way attack uncrewed aerial systems (OWAUAS).”

“Based on recent attacks in Iraq and Syria, U.S. Central Command assessed that the OWAUAS posed a threat to U.S. and Coalition Forces,” the U.S. defense official said. “This action underscores the United States’ commitment to the safety and security of our personnel. We maintain the inherent right to self-defense and will not hesitate to take appropriate action.”

As angry crowds gathered Tuesday in Beirut, Tehran and other cities across the region over the two assassinations blamed on Israel, fury was also directed toward the U.S. at a funeral procession for slain fighters in Baghdad.

A Question of Self-Defense

Meanwhile, Iranian officials have also affirmed that the Islamic Republic “will not hesitate to exercise its inherent right to self-defense, as enshrined in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter to respond decisively and promptly” to the killing of Haniyeh, according to a letter shared with Newsweek by the Iranian Mission to the United Nations on Tuesday.

The statement was accompanied by calls for retaliation among various Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Pezeshkian and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

As such, Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official and senior adviser on Arab affairs, argued that “it’s not a question of if, but rather how, Iran will respond.”

He argued that Hezbollah would likely factor into the operation given its direct desire to strike back at Israel over Shukr’s death.

“Hezbollah is likely to retaliate and is looking for a type of operation that will be proportional to the attack on Beirut in the sense that it will be a military target of great significance to Israel, perhaps Israel’s military headquarters in Tel Aviv,” Melamed told Newsweek. “It is unlikely that Hezbollah will target civilian infrastructure.”

Melamed cautioned, however, that both Iran and its allies “will have to calculate their response very wisely, risking that overstepping could devolve the situation into a full-scale war that is not in their interest.”

“Should Iran attempt to coordinate an integrated attack by multiple proxies,” Melamed said, “then it’s likely the full-scale war threshold will have been met not only between Israel and those proxies but also between Israel and Iran.”

“For Iran,” he added, “the strategic dilemma is how to restore its deterrence without risking an all-out war.”