What we know so far about Iran's ballistic missile attack on Israel

Iran fired one of the largest such salvos in history on Tuesday evening

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Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Israel on Tuesday night, which involved about 200 rockets, appears to have done little damage despite the destruction the weapons can cause if they hit targets.

Along with an attack on Israel by Iran in April, it is the largest ballistic missile attack in history.

One Palestinian was killed in the West Bank, while several Israelis were injured and hundreds of homes suffered damage from shrapnel. Israel said one of its air bases had been hit, and satellite imagery released on Thursday showed damage to a hanger at Nevatim air base, which hosts Israel's advanced F-35 stealth fighters.

It follows a similar low casualty attack in April, where Iran launched a combination of 300 cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, many of which were shot down by Israel, the US, Britain, France and Jordan.

Both attacks were a response to what Iran says was the crossing of red lines, including Israeli strikes on Iranian generals and diplomatic sites in Syria, the killing of Iran ally and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on September 27 in Beirut. On Wednesday, Iranian government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani claimed Tehran is not interested in a wider war.

Israel will not be mollified by relatively low damage, says James L Regens, a professor of military intelligence who has worked with the US government.

“It’s hard to imagine Israel not doing a massive response. It’s likely to be like the Hodeidah strikes on the Houthi oil facilities and ports, plus possibly nuclear facilities like Natanz, ports plus possibly Tehran," says Mr Regens, also a co-founder of Antiphon Solutions consultancy.

“It's a question of how soon and how massive. I don’t see Israelis waiting because one of Iran’s targets was an airbase for IDF tankers and F-15 and F-35s for long-range strikes. It would be like targeting Altus [Oklahoma] and maybe Whiteman in Missouri,” he says, referring to major US Air Force bases.

Here’s what we know has happened so far, as well as theories on what is likely to have happened – based on established facts – and what might happen next.

Did Iran fire hypersonic missiles at Israel?

According to Iranian claims, some of the missiles launched were Fattah missiles, a weapon announced last year. Iran says these are hypersonic, capable of five times the speed of sound or faster making them hard to intercept. The US, which is spending significant resources developing hypersonic weapons, disagrees, saying that a Houthi “hypersonic” missile fired last month – thought by experts to be a Fattah – was not truly hypersonic.

Most ballistic missiles fly at hypersonic speeds as they plunge from the extremely thin air near the Earth’s atmosphere. By this definition, a Second World War German V2 rocket was hypersonic. Missile defence systems, such as Israel’s David's Sling and Arrow missiles, are designed to intercept these kinds of weapons, exploiting their predictable trajectory.

A Fattah missile on display during the annual military parade marking the anniversary of the outbreak of Iran's 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, in Tehran on September 21, 2024. AFP

The US, by contrast, says hypersonic weapons cannot only fly at five times the speed of sound, but also rapidly change course, something that could break up most flying objects due to the heavy forces when flying at one kilometre per second or faster. This is a major engineering challenge and it is not clear if any country has mastered it.

Despite this, Iran claims the Fattah can manoeuvre slightly as it approaches the target, which missile expert Fabian Hinz says would be useful for evading air defences, but not truly “hypersonic” in the US sense of the term.

Nonetheless, it is better than missiles used in earlier attacks, some of which broke up in flight, according to US officials.

“Iran’s indigenously built ballistic missile force far exceeds their reliance on second-hand Scud acquisitions,” Mark Pyruz, an Iran expert who closely follows security developments in the country, tells The National.

How did Israeli missile defence respond?

The attack is likely to have unfolded in several phases. First, the US apparently warned Israel of the attack several hours before, suggesting Washington had so-called “COMINT” or intercepted communications about the attack.

Unconfirmed reports also claim Iran notified several Arab states.

Intercepted communication is possible, given Israeli-US intelligence sharing, and Iran’s failure to make sensitive information, such as the movements of Ismail Haniyeh before his assassination, secure.

Another possibility is that US satellites observed Iran moving missile launchers, but with coverage of any spot on Earth believed to be no greater than every 30 minutes, detection is not guaranteed. Iran’s Fattah missiles can be well-hidden and run on solid fuel, meaning they are quick to set up.

This means the last stage of warning could be the US Space Based Infrared System which takes infrared images of the Earth every 30 seconds detecting heat sources from missile launches.

Earlier this year, Space Force officer Chief Master Sergeant Tina R Timmerman told The National that information it collects is “disseminated to the combatant commands,” which in the Middle East means US Centcom.

A battery of six Arrow missiles at the Israeli Air Force's Palmahim base in November 2002. Getty

Israel has reportedly had direct access to the system since 2020. Critically, it can predict where missiles will land and when, giving the Israelis, and nearby US ships which reportedly intercepted 12 missiles with the Aegis system, the ability to prioritise targets.

Israel then fired Arrow 3 interceptor missiles, which have proven the ability to shoot down missiles in the “terminal phase” – when they are fastest, and near the apogee, or top of its ballistic arc, known as an exo-atmospheric interception.

Video footage of the attack however, suggests the systems were overwhelmed by the sheer number of missiles, known as a “saturation” attack.

How will Israel respond to Iran?

“One thing is for sure, Israel will hit harder,” Leonardo Jacopo Maria Mazzucco, a researcher at the Middle East Institute tells The National. He refers to an Israeli counter strike to April’s ballistic missile attack on Israel, which knocked out the radar of a powerful S-300 air defence system.

“From an Israeli perspective, it could mean that Iranian nuclear facilities become a legitimate target for precise air strikes in the current stage of the confrontation,” he says. Israel has spent years studying Iran’s air defences, because similar systems are in operation in Syria, while Greece, which also possesses a unit of the S-300 system, has allowed Israeli aircraft to train against it.

S-300 missile systems on display in Tehran on September 21, 2024. EPA

Experts say retaliation could lead to a longer war. “Should the Israelis respond with further escalations, to include targeting assets like energy infrastructure, we might expect the Iranians to further respond in kind. While the damage ratios might not be equal, there may be political and social effects,” says Mr Pyruz. Iran is thought to possess hundreds, possibly thousands more ballistic missiles.

Greg Priddy, a senior fellow at the US Centre for The National Interest, warns that if energy is targeted, it could have grave repercussions.

“There is still a real threat. Iran made that clear, when it pulled a punch in 2019 by only targeting a third of the capacity at Abqaiq, knowing Aramco could route around the damage. The risk to oil is much more damage to onshore facilities than closing the Strait of Hormuz, but Iran's capabilities against ships also have grown a lot in the last 20 years.”

There were competing claims as to who was responsible for attacking Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure in 2019, which varying sources saying the Houthis, Iran, or even Iraqi militias were responsible. A 2020 UN report said weapons used were of “Iranian origin.”

“[US President Joe] Biden would have been wise to press [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu a lot harder for a ceasefire, but he has remained passive, including letting his ‘red line’ on Rafah melt away in the spring. Now that major escalation has arrived, it is clear that US passivity and deference to Netanyahu has served our own interests very poorly,” said Mr Priddy.

Mr Regens says that it will be hard to avoid major escalation.

“Iran seriously overestimated its own strength and ability to control the escalation ladder. The Iranians and their Hezbollah, Hamas and Houthi proxies also assumed Israel would hold back and be restrained by the Biden administration’s overwhelming desire to avoid military confrontations after the Hamas October 7 attack.

Events so far demonstrate this was a major strategic mistake. Israel is much stronger than Iran assumed.”