Massive Israeli retaliation expected for Iran attack – but where?

Potential targets could range from oil facilities, ports, air defence sites, assassinations or even Tehran's nuclear programme, experts say

Israeli F-35 fighter over Tel Aviv. The stealth jets are highly likely to be used if Israel decides to bomb Iran directly. AFP

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Israel's retaliation against Iran’s ballistic missile barrage is a certainty but what remains unclear is the scale. “Very massive” and “relatively massive”, are predictions of the nature of the response that Israeli experts have given to The National.

The strikes will happen and probably very soon, with a choice of targets presenting themselves. Military sites, oil production facilities, Iran's nuclear programme, cyber warfare and targeted assassinations are all under consideration.

“There will be a response, because otherwise you normalise the situation where every few months, when Iran feels like it, they fire missile barrages,” said Prof Chuck Freilich, Israel’s former deputy national security adviser. “So this response will be pretty big.”

It was also now clear, he added, that Israel’s response to the April 13 attack from Iran was “an ineffective and insufficient one-off”.

Remains of an Iranian missile from the attack on October 1 in the Negev desert. AFP

Amos Harel, a leading military commentator, agreed it will be “relatively massive considering what has happened”.

“It's a regional war now but that doesn't mean it's World War Three, with divisions lined up on the border,” he added.

The problem for Iran, and indeed the region, is that Israel’s political establishment, including the opposition, is united in its belligerence.

But they know, too, that Iran will counter and Israel's aggression could be tempered in that only one person died in Tuesday night’s assault.

Terminal strike

Israel is always unpredictable in how it retaliates. However, there is a hardening view that it will seek to damage the regime economically with the potentially knock-on effect of fomenting civil unrest.

Handling up to 90 per cent of Iran’s crude oil exports, mostly to China, puts the Kharg oil terminal in its sights with the Abadan refinery, used for domestic requirements, another target.

The sites can be hit with small-scale ordnance with casualties kept to a minimum.

An Iranian oil production platform in the Gulf. Reuters

“If Israel goes that way, then it will just be a couple of facilities, because Israel isn't going to want to affect the global oil market, but it could send a very strong message to the Iranians,” said Prof Freilich, who served under several Israeli prime ministers on the National Security Council.

However, even though US President Joe Biden appeared to give attacking the oil sites attack his backing, leading to a 5 per cent rise in prices on Friday, this has been offset somewhat by Libya's exports coming back online.

Hawkish voices

The hawks inside Israel’s government are pushing hard for a strike against Iran’s nuclear project, which they advocated in April.

“The really big question is whether Israel takes advantage of propitious circumstances to go and hit the nuclear power programme,” said Prof Freilich.

Tal Hagin, an open-source intelligence analyst, said there was “significant warmongering among different Israeli politicians and officials who want a very, very massive response” – including former prime minister, Naftali Bennett – who were saying “we have to take out their nuclear programme”.

An engineer inside Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment plant. AFP

This is something Israel has planned for a long time, yet it remains an exceptionally challenging task that will almost certainly be opposed by the US.

The key sites of Natanz and Fordow, where Iran is enriching uranium, are deep underground, and while Israel’s US-supplied 900kg bombs could seal off entrances and destroy support structure, they would require bespoke American ordnance to finish the job.

This would be the GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrator, weighing 14,000kg and at six metres in length nicknamed the “bunker buster”. However, Israel has neither the aircraft to deliver it nor the weapon itself.

Mr Harel, who writes military analysis for the Haaretz newspaper, said while there are “more and more hawkish voices” advocating a nuclear facility strike “this has to be co-ordinated with the United States and I don't think it's on the cards”.

Ballistic targets

To disable Iran’s missile capability would be another option, with a mass bombing probably conducted by some of the 39 stealthy F-35s flown by Israel’s air force.

In April, a strike damaged Iran’s Russian-supplied S-300 air defence missile system but this time the attack could be on a much larger scale, targeting batteries around the country, including Tehran.

The list could also include ammunition bunkers, launch pads, headquarters and fuel tanks as well as bases belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

An Iranian military vehicle carrying the S-300 air defence missile system. AFP

Alternatively, the Israelis might seek to implement their grimly successful assassination programme going after top-level nuclear scientists, IRGC members or politicians. The threat has been high enough for supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to be reportedly removed to a safe location before he delivered a sermon in Tehran on Friday.

Naval bases could also be hit alongside ports key to Iran’s exports. Alternatively, Israel might not target anything in Iran, instead selecting IRGC sites in Syria or Iraq.

“Given the very low fatalities [from Tuesday], that lessens the demand for an aggressively kinetic response,” said an Israeli security source. “There’s a realistic possibility of painful and difficult but relatively low-casualty electronic attacks on Iranian military and critical national infrastructure.”

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivering a rare Friday sermon at a mosque in Tehran on Friday. AFP

Bombs for change

Factored into Israel’s calculations will be whether it can apply enough but not too much force to rock Iran’s already deeply unpopular regime.

“I don't think anybody believes that just by attacking a number of targets you can topple the regime, but you can create a sense of threat and maybe start something in Iranian society,” said Prof Freilich. “That's what the regime is really worried about, by making it look weak you empower people to take to the streets, that you set something in motion.”

However, he admitted a strike by Iran’s arch enemy could be “problematic” by also having a unifying effect on the population.

In this cycle of retaliation, the question remains how Iran will counter-respond, with veiled threats that Israeli civilian areas could be targeted next carrying weight given that a handful of missiles penetrated Israel’s air defences on Tuesday.

“The concept of swapping blows every now and then, and millions rushing to bomb shelters, I think we'll see more and more of that,” said Mr Harel.