On 23 October, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Galant visited theHatzerim Air Base to meet with the pilots of the 69th Squadron, which is the spearhead of the Israeli Air Force. While there, he stated that “everyone will understand your strength and the process of preparation and training. Any enemy that tries to harm the State of Israel will pay a heavy price.”
The meeting took place five days after leaked Pentagon documentsprovided important details about the Israeli Air Force’s preparations to carry out an attack on Iran. These included the preparation of 56 air-launched ballistic missiles, including 16 Golden Horizon missiles, most likely the version used by the Israeli Air Force of Air Lora missiles that have penetration warheads to attack targets underground, or the American designation of the Blue Sparrow Missile.
The documents also mentioned 40 “Rocks” missiles with a 250 km maximum range.
The documents, dated 15-16 October, also showed that on 15 October a training scenario for a long-range mission with three refuelling aircraft and one early warning aircraft was carried out, similar to the operation against the Houthis in Yemen at the end of September.
The most interesting information was that covert operations by RA-01 unmanned aircraft had been carried out, a type that has not been revealed until now but specialises in intelligence surveillance and spying missions. These aircrafts can be used to monitor Iranian air-defence signalsin addition to photographing Iranian units and identifying their exact location in order to provide targeted coordinates. The aircraftsare long-range and capable of flying at high altitudes.
The important details about the methodology of the strikes gave rise to conflicting media reports that they would be postponed. This was later denied, and the Israeli attacks occurred last Saturday with the “Days of Repentance” Israeli air operation against Iran.
The first tactical objective was to secure the route of the flights, which involved Israeli aircraft targeting an air-defence radar facility in the Syrian city of Homs from the direction of Lebanon. This could have been a deceptive strike to attract the attention of the SyrianAir Defences in the north. Simultaneously, an early warning radar was hit in the southern city of Sweida and other areas in central Syria from the Golan direction.
The Syrian Air Forceregularly engages with Israeli missiles and focuses on tracking Israeli formations moving south towards Iran. As a result, Israel has worked hard to weaken Syria’s southern air defences, whether by direct strikes or by taking advantage of the Civil War in the country and the rebels’ neutralisation of these radars in recent years.
According to the Israeli newspaper the Jerusalem Post, Israel’s preliminary strike on radar targets in Syria was aimed at “blinding” Iran’s capabilities, quickly escalating into an offensive targeting Tehran, Iran’s capital, and another strategic location.
This large-scale assault involved over 100 aircraft, including F-35 Adir stealth fighters, travelling approximately 2,000 km from their bases. According to foreign reports, the strikes focused on Tehran and Karaj, with the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) stating that each wave targeted military sites exclusively, mitigating further conflict risks.
More than 100 Israeli aircrafts of various types were involved, and these are usually organised into large mixed formations as part of the COMAO-Composite Air Operations doctrine, which typically consists of 30 to 50 aircrafts at a timeattacking target areas divided among two to three formations.
A single COMAO consists of small formations that have different missions, such as an early warning aircraft, a spy aircraft, a G-550 (Eitam/Oron/Shavit), aircraft specialising in air combat, attack packs of aircraft capable of carrying missiles and bombs, electronic jamming aircraft, and rescue planes.
The latter formations are augmented with aircraft carrying reconnaissance equipment or reconnaissance drones to assess and analyse the results of air attacks.
The Israeli Walla website claimed that Israel informed Iran before the strikes through mediators, but the Israeli prime minister’s office said the report was “false” and “absurd.”
The Israeli strikes destroyedseveral buildings in the Parchin and Khodjir complexes near Tehran that are involved in solid-fuel rocket engine production, according to the Israeli Axios website. There were no oil-industry or nuclear targets.
However, the most important strikes were against what the US Wall Street Journalsaid were “Iranian aerial-defence systems, including S-300s, according to an Israeli official. The systems were supplied to Tehran by Moscow. ‘The message is that we don’t want an escalation, but if Iran decides to escalate and attack Israel again,’ the official said, having taken out the S-300s would increase the range of freedom of movement in the Iranian skies.”
The Iranian Armed Forces said on Saturday that “Israel’s attacks had targeted radar air-defence systems in Khuzestan, Ilam, and Tehran, causing minor damage.”It said that repairs were underway and that Iranian Air Defences had succeeded in neutralising most of the Israeli missile and drones.
It is known that Iran depends mainly on Russian missile-defence systems, and Al-Ahram Weekly asked Mike Mihajlovic, an expert in air-defence systems and a former operator, to explain what was involved.
“It was a three-stageattack, and Israel used combined drone and cruise missile attacks,” Mihajlovic said.
“The first wave is to activate the air defences with decoys and sporadic armed drones and missiles to deplete the missile stocks. The second will be the more armed one. The third wave is possibly with bombs and aeroballistic missiles, but that will depend on the efficiency of the first two waves.”
“Israel can launch a massive standoff attack. Without entering into Iranian airspace, Lora ballistic missiles can pinpoint targets.”
Many conclusions can be gathered from this complex situation, including the Israeli response, which was limited because of US pressure. Nevertheless, the response was real, and it was meant to send a threatening message to Iran that any targets can be hit within the country.
The operation was officially announced to confirm this, unlike the limited Israeli strike in April, which was not officially announced. This may also have lowered the intensity of the Israeli strikes, which had been expected to be on the scale of the Iranian missile attacks on Israel at the beginning of October.
However, there should now be Iranian recognition of the weakness of its air defences, not only at the system level, but also at the crew level, as compared to the Syrian crews, who succeeded in shooting down many Israeli munitions despite their continuous attrition. This lesson has also been learned by the Israelis, who have ordered a second US THAAD air-defencebattery to arrive in Israel soon.
The most reasonable assessment of what is happening now is that the parties to the conflict were able to reach a controlled level of escalation to avoid more catastrophic consequences.
There is a similarity between the Israeli and Iranian publics campaigning to convince their respective governments to use destructive force against the other party in order to feel victorious, with neither in fact using destructive force anything like the heinous destruction that is occurring in Gaza and Lebanon.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 31 October, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: