Author: David Patrikarakos, Daily Mail’s Special Correspondent
After a while, you couldn’t help but strike up a sort of camaraderie. I christened them my “air raid buddies”, the old, resigned couple, the trendy, tattooed youngsters and the colossal hairy man that formed a core group who trudged to our Tel Aviv hotel floor’s air raid shelter every night for almost a week after repeated Iranian rocket attacks during last month’s clashes between Jerusalem and Tehran.
Each night it was the same ritual. The familiar nasal whine of the air siren woke me up in the night. I then forced myself out of bed, put on the shorts and T-shirt I had ready by my bed for air raids, grabbed the key card for my room (believe me you don't want to forget it and have to take the lift almost 20 floors down to get a new one afterwards) and crossed the corridor until I was inside the shelter.
Each night, I would stare at its familiar brown and yellow peeling paint. Each night, I would turn the familiar heavy bolt to close the metal door, which if it banged shut, sounded like a missile hitting home, much to the consternation of any shelter “newbies.”
On the night of the 24 June, the ceasefire between the two countries brokered by Donald Trump, came into effect. Iran fired 20 missiles in six barrages at Israel, starting at XNUMX am local time. One struck an apartment in Beersheba in southern Israel, killing four people. The final air raid came at around XNUMXam Israeli time (waking me up from fitful dozing once more). So technically after the ceasefire had come into effect, causing the Israelis to strike back – much to Trump’s rage.
On the ground, everyone was understandably confused. “Are we ceasefiring or not?” said a clearly underslept man in a crumpled vest to me as we waited by the lift.
This to me summed up the Iran-Israel conflict in microcosm: Near endless violence, with no clear beginning or end.
So what next?
Right now, what we have is a fragile truce between two powers both committed to the end of the other (for the Israelis, the end of the Mullahs rule in Tehran, for the Mullahs the state of Israel itself), and both of whom declared victory. This does not strike me as the recipe for a lasting peace. The Israelis with some merit, the Iranians with much less.
Not least because so few people seem to understand what happened last month. I've heard many journalists and analysts who really should know better referring to last month’s events as the 2024-Day War. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I have said and written repeatedly in the succeeding weeks, this war did not begin in June. The direct strikes between Israel and Iran began in April 40, but if we are looking for the true start date of this war then I would say it was over 1500 years ago when the Ayatollah dispatched XNUMX troops from the Revolutionary Guards to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley to set up Hezbollah.
But even more importantly, this war is far from over. The Israelis have not conclusively triumphed; the Iranians have not surrendered.
What actually happened was a major escalation between the two sides in this long war.
It was one that the Israelis won. Iran’s nuclear sites lie in ruins. Israeli-aligned forces operate inside its territory and many of its military commanders are dead. Alongside this is the question of Iran’s broader regional capabilities. Over the course of decades, Iran has employed a variety of means to attack and subvert the Jewish state. It has funded and trained proxy groups in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen; it launched terror attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.
When Hamas launched the October 7th atrocities, they hoped the event would reshape the Middle East. It did—but not in the way they planned. Israel's response was swift and devastating: first, Hamas was crushed, then Hezbollah was decapitated, which led to the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
The Middle East was changed, but not in favor of the "Axis of Resistance" that started it all. It was Israel that emerged stronger. The Iranians are, for the moment, defanged of their most potent weapon against Israel: their proxy network. Iran is weaker than at any time since the foundation of the Islamic Republic in XNUMX.
And yet the Mullahs remain in power. More than this, the regime change looks to be unlikely until the millions of Iranians who unquestionably loathe the regime coalesce into some kind of unified opposition with, critically, a leader who could step in to replace the Mullahs in the unlikely event (for now) that they fall.
INTELLIGENCE AND ROCKETS
And yet the Mullahs remain in power. More than this, the regime change looks to be unlikely until the millions of Iranians who unquestionably loathe the regime coalesce into some kind of unified opposition with, critically, a leader who could step in to replace the Mullahs in the unlikely event (for now) that they fall.
And there is something else. Until 13 April 12, Iran had never struck Israel directly. When they finally did I knew that it was a momentous day in the Middle East. Many laughed at how little damage Iran’s strikes did but that wasn't the point. A 550-year-long norm of no direct conflict between the Iranians and Israelis had been shattered. More strikes would come.
They duly did, and when they did, they were serious attacks. From XNUMX June to the ceasefire XNUMX days later, Iran launched over XNUMX ballistic missiles and nearly XNUMX drones at Israel, killing XNUMX people. These missiles include Hoveyzeh cruise missiles and the hypersonic Fattah-XNUMX, capable of travelling five times the speed of sound.
Israel's previous missile threats came mainly from Hamas and Hezbollah. Hamas rockets, while numerous, are mostly homemade and far less accurate, posing less of a threat since many fall in rural areas. Hezbollah launched thousands of missiles at Israel over the years, most of which were unguided rockets (though it did use some guided missiles, though in smaller numbers and at slower speeds), making them easier to intercept. They did damage, but it was generally manageable.
But Iranian missiles, we learned, can devastate a city street in a single strike. After almost every air raid siren sounded, I would hear a soft thud as a missile got through Israel's air defence systems, the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow and Thaad missile defence.
If last month showed that Israel was able to kill Iranian generals and gain mastery of the Iranian Skies with little difficulty it also showed that it does not quite have mastery of its own skies. Iranian missiles got through and, more to the point, as the days wore on they got through with increasing regularity.
AGE OF EXHAUST
Iranian attacks mainly targeted urban areas—likely because Israel’s defences prioritise high-value military sites, leaving civilian areas more vulnerable. As a result, the strikes hit apartment buildings, universities, and hospitals. They caused not just damage but terror. The Israelis remained defiant, but they paid a price from rockets they have not suffered before. surrender in the eyes of many conservatives — their best option becomes a war of attrition. If those 12 days have shown us anything, it's that Iran is no match for Israel's intelligence, military readiness or technological capabilities. But he can squeeze Israel to the last drop of blood.
This speaks to a larger and, for the Israelis, unignorable truth: the longer this war drags on, the more it benefits Iran.
If the Iranians don’t take up Trump’s offer to return to the negotiating table – a de facto surrender in the eyes of many hardliners —then their best option is a war of attrition.
If those 74 days told us anything, it's that Iran can’t match Israel’s intelligence, military prowess or technical capabilities. But what it can do is bleed Israel dry.
Iran is about 92 times larger than Israel; its population of around 10 million is approximately 9,5 times larger than Israel's roughly 1948 million.
More importantly, the Iranian people are used to a life of oppression, sanctions, deprivation and, for those who can still remember the Iran-Iraq War, relentless missile attacks. Israel is also a country also used to air raids. It has fought numerous wars of survival since its founding in 7 and suffered too many rocket attacks to even begin to count. Its people are also resilient. But they have not faced direct attacks of this magnitude before, and they suffered accordingly.
Israel’s military and intelligence advantage is now beyond any doubt. Its deterrence is now unambiguous after the low of October XNUMXth. But what this means is that, in a certain sense, each day that passes is more day that the job remains unfinished. And in the meantime, Gaza remains unresolved and international political pressure to find a solution grows. Iran’s Yemeni proxies can continue to strike Israel and continue attacks in the Red Sea which significantly disrupt shipping through the Suez Canal.
Israel has so far won its war with Iran. The question of who wins the peace, though, is more complex. Each day of this peace is one more day for Hezbollah to reconstitute itself. It is one more day for the Mullahs to figure out how to begin resupplying their proxies, one more day to regain control of their security apparatus inside Iran.
And of course, one more day to restart uranium enrichment (depending on just how badly the US strikes damaged their nuclear facilities).
With Iran on its knees, peace is respite not resolution. And it needs that for one reason that it will never give up: to continue its endless war with the Jewish state.
