Retaliate or Restrain: What Will Israel’s Next Move Be After Iran's Attack?

The assault was in retaliation to an Israeli attack on the Iranian diplomatic mission in Damascus on 1 April.

With its strike, Iran has upended a carefully crafted unwritten rule, and it has alarmed the world.

(Photo: Chetan Bhakuni/ The Quint)

Limited assault, reluctant strike, or tactical failure – no matter how one describes Iran's surprising drone and missile assault on Israel in the late hours of 13 April to early hours of 14 April, the attacks have crossed a carefully maintained threshold in the Middle East by its key players.

The assault was a retaliation for an Israeli attack on the Iranian diplomatic mission in Damascus on 1 April. Iran said that seven officers of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) military force had been killed in the attacks.

In other words, the main regional players and the rivalries plaguing the region have till now been careful to refrain from attacking each other directly. Instead, each has used its proxies to inflict a cost or exact revenge.

This has been till now as true of the Arab-Iranian rivalry as it has been of the Turkish-Arab rivalry, or the Iran-Israel one. Now, with its strike, Iran has upended this carefully crafted unwritten rule, and it has alarmed the world.

However, Axios reported, at the time of writing this article, that Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday that Israel has no choice but to respond to the unprecedented missile and drone attack launched by Iran over the weekend.

Israel's war cabinet is set to meet for the third time discuss its response to Iran's attack. The Israeli military's Chief of Staff Lt Gen Herzi Halevi said the attack would not go unanswered.

What Iran’s Attack on Israel Entailed

According to reports, more than 300 missiles and drones, including the "Shahed" suicide drone were launched by Iran on Israel, most of which Israel is said to have intercepted with US, British, and French help.

No doubt Iran has felt the need to act with repeated Israeli assaults on Iranian targets in Syria. Iran's regional allies in the region also joined the attack with Yemen's Houthi rebels and Lebanon's Hezbollah raining drones and missiles on Israel.

On the eve of the assault, Tehran seized an Israeli-linked ship in the Strait of Hormuz. Yet, even with such direct action, Iran has kept the window open for no further escalation of the conflict but for de-escalation.

"The matter can be deemed concluded," Iran's mission to the United Nations said in a post on X after the operation began late Saturday, but warning of greater force if Israel would choose to retaliate.

Retaliate or Restrain?

It is entirely in Israel's hands now to use restraint or escalate the conflict.

Clearly, Israel is in flux now. Its war in Gaza has been necessitated by the brutal Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 which resulted in the death of 1,170 Israelis, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. Hamas also took some 200 odd persons, mostly civilians, hostage which included women and children, even toddlers.

Yet, Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has been disproportionate even by the standards of the region.

Latest reports from Hamas-run Gaza's Ministry of Health say Israeli attacks have killed at least 33,729 Palestinians and wounded 76,371 since 7 October. Gaza has almost been flattened. Schools, hospitals, and places of worship have been destroyed, and UN and other international aid workers, and humanitarian convoys fired upon.

The international community, including Israel's friends, has been calling for restraint and ceasefire since the early days of the conflict and yet till now, only two humanitarian "pauses" have taken place.

Consequently, the support and goodwill that Israel received from the international community initially dissipated.

The normalisation process taking place between Israel and the Arab world has stalled, for the first time charges of genocide were initiated against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), countries like Russia and China with which Israel shared close relations have condemned its actions, even the US has begun sanctioning Israeli entities illegally present in the West Bank. And all countries have been calling for a ceasefire.

The Cost of War on Israel’s Economy and Resources

The war is extracting a cost from Israel too.

The Bank of Israel estimated in November that the war would cost about USD 53 billion through 2025 based on forecasts of increased defence and other spending against a backdrop of lower tax revenue.

According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the call-up of 360,000 reservists – Israel’s biggest mobilisation since the 1973 Yom Kippur War – is placing considerable pressure on Israeli public finances.

The Israeli government estimated that those costs reached USD 41 million per day in the early stages of the fighting. Scaling that to reflect the duration of hostilities since then suggests that the extra personnel costs could have reached some USD 4.2 billion through January.

It concludes with, "What is clear is that Israel and the wider region are headed for more challenging financial times as a result of the conflict. Last year, Israel’s central bank lowered its 2024 growth forecast to 2% from 3% and has said it does not expect GDP to recover to pre-war levels for more than a year."

There are other ripple effects, like the cost of military hardware, heightened production, labour shortage, etc.

International Response to the Attack on Israel

The International community has also been affected. The disruption in Red Sea shipping by the Houthis has disrupted supply chains, increased freight cost and time, and pushed up prices of commodities. In January this year, more than 500 container ships that would have sailed through the Red Sea to and from the Suez Canal, were adding two weeks to their routes to travel around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, according to Flexport.

Soon after Iran's strikes, oil prices shot up.

In March this year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that the volume of trade that passed through the Suez Canal had dropped by 50 per cent year-over-year in the first two months of the year, and the volume of trade transiting around the Cape of Good Hope surged by an estimated 74 percent above last year’s level.

In the midst of it all, practically fighting a multi-pronged war, Israel escalated the situation by targeting the Iranian Embassy in Damascus.

Targetting diplomatic and consular missions is a grave violation of the UN Charter, the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. It may be that Israel expected that typically Iran would respond as it usually is wont to – with harsh rhetoric and through its many proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and maybe even in Gaza.

The world is urging restraint on Israel. US President Joe Biden has said that while Israel has the right to retaliate, the US will not be part of the retaliation should Israel choose to do so.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has urged restraint from Israel and asked it not to escalate the situation while saying Israel had the right to. The G7 has called on Israel not to escalate the situation. Russia and China, while expressing concern, have said that Iran had acted within its rights under international law and asked Israel not to escalate by retaliating.

They have reiterated the implementation of the UN Security Council resolution 2728 that calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. The Arab countries allies of the US in the region, like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, and Oman have been reported to have asked the US not to use their territories to launch any attacks against Iran or its proxies in the region.

However, the popular mood, according to Israeli analysts, is for an Israeli reprisal. Israel’s policy has always been the use of disproportionate force to act as a deterrent for the future. Yet, not all this has prevented increasingly stronger Hamas attacks nor has Israel been able to free all the hostages.

Israel is standing at a crossroads in its years of existence as a modern state. In an unenviable position, it will have to make hard choices. The challenge it may have to grapple with is that it is part of the region.

(Aditi Bhaduri is a journalist and political analyst. She tweets @aditijan. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)