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Israel planned and cancelled two strikes against Iran over the past week, officials said, as a former colonel said the targets for the planned retaliation could range across the Middle East.
Israeli deliberations continued on Thursday over a response to Iranian air strikes on Saturday night, with foreign diplomats now accepting that some form of response is inevitable and seeking to contain escalation and prevent full-scale war.
Israel’s war cabinet had prepared plans for the air force to bomb targets in Iran within hours of the Iranian attack, which were abandoned after a call between Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden, the New York Times reported, citing US, Israeli and Middle East officials.
Tel Aviv has since cancelled a second set of strikes against Iran, Israeli sources said.
A wide range of options for retaliation have been discussed over three consecutive days of Israeli war cabinet meetings, including attacks in Iran and against Iran’s allies in the region, cyber attacks, and assassinations.
Israel’s allies will need to “find a creative way to harm Iran in a significant manner” to avoid Israeli strikes against Iran, said Professor Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute.
Miri Eisin, a former IDF colonel and senior intelligence officer, and incoming head of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, said Israel’s next move was likely to target the Iranian regime inside or outside of its borders.
“It’s about direct action against Persian-speaking Iranians,” said Dr Eisin. “I say that because you have Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. This is not about the country Iran. It is about the regime, its leaders, their statements and actions against us.”
Israel is already in a “multi front war” across several countries in the region at varying degrees of intensity, she added, suggesting that Hezbollah forces “could be one of the Israeli targets against the Iranian challenge”.
She does not believe the plan has been finalised. “If they had made a decision then they wouldn’t be meeting every day,” she said, suggesting that Israel would seek to balance the wishes of allies with a perceived need to restore deterrence, which could involve attacks on Iranians abroad.
Israel has rebuffed pressure from allies not to retaliate, with Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron stating: “It’s clear that the Israelis are making a decision to act”, after meeting Israeli leaders in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
The US has reportedly offered to support an Israeli operation in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza, in exchange for limits on the Israeli retaliation against Iran, according to Qatari newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, which cited Egyptian and Western diplomats.
“[Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu was able to obtain American facilitation for the military operation in Rafah… in exchange for retreating from carrying out a large-scale military operation against Iran,” a Western source was quoted as saying.
The US and several European governments, including the UK, have discouraged Israel from attacking Rafah, where the majority of Gaza’s 2.2 million population are living in dire conditions after mass displacements from other parts of the enclave during the war.
But the new imperative to avoid hostilities between Iran and Israel spiralling into a major regional war has changed Washington’s calculation, according to the report, potentially giving Israel a green light to carry out the long-planned operation in Rafah.
Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that the operation will go ahead. Israeli media recently reported that the government had obtained tens of thousands of tents from China to house refugees displaced from Rafah.
Senior US and Israeli officials met virtually yesterday to discuss Israel’s plans for Rafah.
Yossi Mekelberg, a Middle East analyst at Chatham House, said that international pressure on Israel to limit a response was balanced by domestic pressure to take significant action, including from far right elements of Mr Netanyahu’s governing coalition.
“There is pressure on Israel to retaliate from within the government, and it is a very precarious government,” he said.
“Many have warned that you cannot have a government that relies on so many fickle characters who have an agenda beyond rational thinking.”
Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday that Israel has “freedom of action” while meeting fighter pilots at an air base on Thursday. “Our missions will not be reduced – they are only going to increase,” he said, adding “the ranges, which opened to 1,500km, change the world picture”.
The distance between Israel and Iran’s capital Tehran is roughly 1,500km.
Israel’s military planners were reportedly surprised by the strength of Iran’s response and accepted that the attack on its consulate in Damascus, Syria was a “miscalculation”.
IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi has suggested that the response could come after Jewish festival Passover concludes on 30 April.
Iran has warned of a “massive” retaliation to any Israeli attack. Ahmed Haghtalab, Iran’s commander of nuclear security, said on Thursday that Iran could review its nuclear doctrine if it is attacked, raising the prospect of Tehran pursuing nuclear weapons.
Senior IRGC officials are thought to have gone underground in anticipation of Israeli retaliation, a US official told ABC News, while an Iranian spy ship suspected of guiding Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea is returning to Iran, tracking data showed.
