Iran’s historic attack on Israel on the night of April 13-14, 2024, and again on October 2, 2024, showed that the Hebrew state and its allies would not last long in the face of high-intensity aggression. Here’s why, as we wrote on April 17.
If Iran dared to defy Israel on April 13 and again on October 2, it’s because the mullahs’ regime has calculated all the consequences. Certainly, the 170 or so drones, 30 cruise missiles and 110 ballistic missiles sent by Iran and its proxies (Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis) in the direction of the Jewish state were intercepted “99%” by the Iron Dome, according to the Israeli army, with the support of the United States, the United Kingdom and France. There were therefore no casualties, as Iran had hoped. On the other hand, on October 2, several of the 180 ballistic missiles aimed at Israeli military installations did hit their target. The message to both Israel and the international community was received 5/5: Israel, despite its bomb, is not invincible.
Drones and missiles against THE bomb
Indeed, these attacks against the Hebrew state were intended as a “calibrated” response to the raid launched on April 1ᵉʳ against an annex of the Iranian embassy in Damascus. The raid left eleven people dead, including seven Revolutionary Guards. But also to the elimination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, killed on Iranian soil on July 31. If the retaliation was “calibrated”, this means that Iran has the means to go far beyond these first two salvos of drones and missiles. This includes the Fattah II hypersonic missile, which can reach speeds of 18,000 km/hour and reach Tel Aviv in 400 seconds! Instead of seven hours.
In fact, the hundreds of drones and missiles launched on April 13 and October 2 were almost all destroyed in flight, although a few did hit their targets. Scott Ritter, former US intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector in Iraq, told Lebanese TV station Al Mayadeen that Iranian missiles had struck air bases.
The example of Ukraine
He adds that Israel’s defense, in a single night, cost over a billion dollars. It cannot repeat the experience ad infinitum. If Iran has the number of missiles and drones needed to maintain this level of action for a week, it will have exhausted Israel’s ability to defend itself,” he says. Look at what happened to Ukraine when it exhausted its air defenses: it has nothing to defend its airspace and Russia tears it to pieces. Iran will rip Israel to shreds when it runs out of air defenses,” says Scott Ritter.
Last but not least, Iran’s armed forces are far from negligible. And while it does not yet possess nuclear weapons, it does have cutting-edge military equipment-some of which remains secret-and a particularly well-trained army.
This is undoubtedly what prompts Joe Biden to preach de-escalation. For neither the United States nor NATO can fight on several fronts at once: the Middle East, Ukraine, Asia… Volodymyr Zelensky understands this. He is sounding the alarm and asking for more weapons and dollars at a time when Russia is in the process of destroying its army.
Israel dropped by the international community?
Add to this the fact that, since the war waged against Hamas in Gaza in October, Israel has lost, if not the support of the West, at least the esteem of a large part of world opinion. For nothing can justify the massacre of 35,000 Palestinians, including more than 12,000 children. Nothing can justify the displacement of 1.5 million people, the deliberate bombing of hospitals, schools and refugee camps.
On December 29, 2023, the South African government lodged a complaint with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for genocide. More recently, Bolivia joined this complaint.
On April 16, 2024, following another Israeli army strike on Lebanon in which Hezbollah commander Ismail Youssef Baz was killed, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described Israel as a “terrorist state”. For him, Benjamin Netanyahu is “the main culprit” behind Iran’s attack on Israel.
Russia and China sided with Iran in this confrontation. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi declared that “China strongly condemns the attack on the consular section of the Iranian embassy in Damascus” (on April 1ᵉʳ). And regards the April 13 attack on Israel as “an act of self-defense”.
As for Vladimir Putin, he wished, without laughing, “that all parties would show reasonable restraint to avoid a new cycle of confrontations that would have catastrophic consequences for the entire region”.
The Middle East remains a powder keg. But Iran has shown that Israel is not invincible.
Selon la Chine : L'Iran exerce son droit légal de défense contre Israël https://t.co/94WZgOKwur
— Marcel D. (@DubreuilhMarcel) April 17, 2024