Early signs suggest Iran playing down calibrated Israeli attack

Iranian television airs live footage of Isfahan to show the city remains undisturbed

- Jonathan Eyal

Details of the Israeli strike on Iran remain patchy. But even at this very early stage in the latest Middle East crisis, certain conclusions can be drawn with some degree of confidence.

First, it is clear that, despite appeals from US President Joe Biden and other world leaders, Israel felt it had to retaliate for the April 13 Iranian attack on the Jewish state.

Mr Biden argued that since Israel and the militaries of its Western backers, which included the US, Britain and France, had succeeded in intercepting the overwhelming majority of the drones and missiles Iran fired at Israel and since Israel suffered no fatalities in that attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should simply "declare victory" and avoid the risk of a wider regional war by retaliating against Iran.

But Israeli officials have said all along that doing nothing was not an option, partly because this was the first attack on Israel from Iran's territory and partly because the sheer size of Iran's strike - consisting of more than 330 missiles and drones necessitated a response.

Mr Netanyahu evidently concluded that restoring Israel's military credibility in the Middle East was worth more to him than listening to advice from Washington.