Israel 'badly misjudged' Iranian response to consulate bombing: Report

News Desk - The Cradle

Tel Aviv's reckless attack caught US planners by surprise and ignited a forceful response from Iran that saw the launch of hundreds of drones and missiles

Israeli and US officials who spoke with the New York Times (NYT) say the leadership in Tel Aviv “badly misjudged the consequences” of their attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on 1 April, which received an unprecedented response from the Islamic Republic.

“The Israelis had badly miscalculated, thinking that Iran would not react strongly,” NYT cites several US officials and one senior Israeli official involved in high-level discussions after the attack as saying.

According to the sources, Israel started planning for the attack two months earlier, and the war cabinet approved the plans on 22 March. However, the US was not informed until moments before the attack was launched, in what is described as “a relatively low-level notification.”

After flattening the Iranian consulate in Damascus and killing Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi alongside two other Iranian generals and several Syrian nationals, Tel Aviv “outlined the range of responses” officials expected from Iran.

The intelligence assessments reportedly changed on a near-daily basis, first expecting “small-scale attacks by proxies and a small-scale attack from Iran,” to eventually consider the launch of “no more than 10 surface-to-surface missiles at Israel.” However, expectations grew as the days passed, with officials in Tel Aviv reaching the conclusion Tehran would launch “60 to 70 surface-to-surface missiles.”

As Tel Aviv awaited the Iranian response, officials in the Islamic Republic publicly vowed retaliation, but, in private talks with intermediaries, they also informed the US that Iran did not seek open war with Israel. This included Turkiye informing US officials that the Iranian retaliation “would be proportionate to the Damascus strike.”

“[The US] had been kept in the dark about an important action by a close ally, Israel, even as Iran, a longtime adversary, telegraphed its intentions well in advance,” the NYT report says, highlighting the “uncomfortable” position Tel Aviv had put Washington in.

When the day of the retaliation finally came, western officials say the Islamic Republic launched 185 drones, three dozen cruise missiles, and 110 ballistic missiles seeking to overwhelm the air defenses of Israel and its allies as it targeted a handful of military bases involved in the Damascus attack.

According to the report, 75 of the projectiles entered Israeli airspace. On Wednesday, Israeli military expert Or Fialkov denied claims made by authorities in Tel Aviv that said “99 percent” of the Iranian drones and missiles had been intercepted, putting the figure closer to 84 percent. 

Following the attack, Tehran summoned the Swiss ambassador to an IRGC base to “convey a message that the United States should stay out of the fight and that if Israel retaliated, Iran would strike again, harder and without warning.”

The Islamic Republic also denied a US request made by mediators to allow Israel to make a “symbolic strike” inside its territory. On Thursday, a top IRGC commander warned Israel against targeting its nuclear facilities, saying the country could “revise” its nuclear doctrine.