Fateful days for Israel as war with Iran looms - opinion

• Published date: 12 April 2024
• Author: YAAKOV KATZ
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The situation might have escalated into an all-out war with Iran, Hezbollah or both, making the Gaza war seem like a long-lost memory in a matter of just a few days

The situation is tense on all levels of the government and the IDF. On the one hand, the general assessment is that Iran does not want an all-out war and it is with that assessment that the IDF reportedly came to the security cabinet when recommending that missiles be fired at a building in Damascus to kill Iranian General Mohammad Reza Zahedi.

Israel assumes that Iran would prefer to contain the situation

While Zahedi became the highest-ranking Iranian military official to be killed since the January 2020 assassination – by the United States – of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, the assumption in Israel was that Iran would prefer to contain the situation. Yes, Iran would respond, but Israel assumed that it would not want an all-out war.

The reason for Iran's need to respond is Zahedi's high rank and role. He was a senior Quds Force commander, in charge of units in Lebanon and Syria and appears to have been a critical figure in the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps' alliance with Hezbollah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The scenarios for how Iran might respond vary, and each carries a variety of risks. At the top level is the option that Iran will attack from Iran itself. In this case, it will be hard for Israel not to retaliate also against targets in Iranian territory, something that has a high degree of potential to lead to additional blows between the sides and a wider conflict.

On the other side of the spectrum is the possibility of an attack via proxy. Here it will depend on which proxy attacks and what exactly they attack. If, for example, Hezbollah fires missiles into Haifa or Tel Aviv then we can assume that Israel will be compelled to attack Beirut and then the path to war is short.

If however, Hezbollah or another proxy – the Houthis in Yemen or Iranian militias in Iraq – attack a military base then the question will be more what is hit and who is hurt or killed. There is also always the option of an attempted attack against an Israeli consulate or embassy overseas.

Israel will naturally need to respond in any case, but when the attack is against a base and there is not real damage or casualties then the response can also be symbolic to wrap up the entire round.

PROOF OF how severe this threat is was provided on Wednesday by US President Joe Biden who took a break from his...