After Israeli strike in Iran, both sides appear to downplay incident (2024)

An Israeli official, who confirmed the strike on the condition of anonymity to discuss the government’s thinking, said it was intended only to convey to Iran that Israel has the ability to hit targets inside the country. U.S. officials also were unusually silent, a tactic, some of them said, that was intended to encourage all parties to move on without further violence.

While both sides appeared to downplay the incident and the prospect of further escalation seemed to be easing, analysts said each side had mismeasured the other in recent weeks, and that it was too early to declare that a regional war that could pull in the United States and other world powers had been averted.

A person familiar with official discussions about the attack, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss it publicly, said the strike was “carefully calibrated.”

Tensions have been soaring for weeks following Israel’s deadly April 1 strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, Syria, raising fears of a wider conflict. Late Saturday, Tehran launched its first direct attack on Israel with hundreds of missiles and drones — though nearly all of them were neutralized. Friday’s response by Israel appeared to many experts an effort to put a final exclamation point on the interchanges without provoking yet another response from Iran.

Seeming to hint that Iran did not plan any immediate retaliation, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said that “what happened last night was not a strike.”

“They were more like toys that our children play with — not drones,” he told NBC News on Friday.

But he suggested that Iran could still respond if Israel continues military action.

“If Israel takes a decisive action against my country and this is proven to us,” he said, “our response will be immediate and to the maximum and will cause them to regret it.”

Iranian state media said that air defense systems intercepted “three small drones” in Isfahan province. The area is home to sensitive facilities — an Iranian military base and key nuclear labs — but the attack appeared to be only a pinprick, given Israel’s long-range military capabilities.

“When you consider some of the options, which have been discussed, such as an attack on the Iranian nuclear program, or even some kind of special forces assault, it doesn’t seem to me like this is actually a major escalation,” said Charles Miller, a security expert at Australian National University. “It seems that actually both sides want to be seen to be doing something without actually undertaking the risks of doing anything that’s too provocative.”

Iran’s attack on Israel last weekend came with significant warning and was probably designed to look spectacular while keeping death and destruction to a minimum, analysts said, although some of them said it was a risky gambit.

“The Israeli strike and Iran’s initial response suggests that both sides can claim some measure of satisfaction without taking it further: The former shows it is undeterred by the weekend attack and has capacity to retaliate directly; the latter by minimizing its impact,” said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project and senior adviser at the Crisis Group.

Regional leaders sought Friday to calm tensions. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi condemned “all actions that threaten dragging the region into war,” urging world leaders to maintain focus on the “inhumane war in Gaza.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Iran’s nuclear program, said none of its nuclear sites were damaged.

Israel also apparently kept the United States in the loop during the attack. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told reporters that Israel provided notice to Washington about the strike. “The United States were informed the last minute, but there was no involvement on the part of the United States,” he said at a Group of Seven meeting on the island of Capri.

Tajani said the apparent small size of the attack was “the result of the efforts of the G-7.”

Israel, which had signaled it would respond militarily to Iran’s launch of attack drones and ballistic and cruise missiles, had been under pressure from the Biden administration and other allies to show restraint.

U.S. officials at multiple government agencies said they had been instructed not to speak publicly about the strike, underscoring the situation’s extreme sensitivity, with officials cautious about inserting the United States into a still-smoldering confrontation.

“I’m not going to speak to any of the reports out there. I’m just not going to do that,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a news briefing.

Officials at the National Security Council, the Defense Department, the State Department and other agencies all declined to comment on the operation, with some characterizing the directive as a gag order. The back-and-forth between Israel and Iran has undermined other U.S. priorities, including the Biden administration’s campaign to limit Israel’s potential offensive against the city of Rafah in Gaza and tricky negotiations with Hamas over a cease-fire and a hostage release.

Hawkish Israelis had been calling for a harsh military answer to Iran’s attack on Israeli soil, even though Israeli, U.S. and Jordanian forces intercepted more than 99 percent of the weapons that were launched successfully. A 7-year-old Israeli girl from a Bedouin family who was injured by falling debris in the south was the only casualty.

It was unclear Friday whether the apparently limited action over Iran would satisfy those demands.

Israeli officials mostly kept silent in the hours after the attack on Iran, but Tally Gotliv, a far-right legislator from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, posted an apparent reference to the strike on social media: “This is a morning in which the head is held high with pride. Israel is a strong and powerful country. May we regain the power of deterrence.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a far-right leader who had called on Israel to go “crazy” on Iran in response, posted a one-word comment on X that translates as “weak.”

The Israeli military did not warn civilians to seek shelter Friday or to take extraordinary precautions as the country prepares for the Passover holiday.

In Iran, broadcasters displayed serene images of the targeted city beneath headlines reading “the situation is normal.”

For a time, Iran suspended flights from a number of airports shortly after reports of explosions, according to state media. The news reports did not explain the cancellations, but airspace in the region was similarly closed last weekend when Iran launched drone and missile attacks on Israel. Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization lifted the restrictions by 10 a.m. and cleared scheduled flights to resume, state media said.

Some analysts warned it could be premature to conclude that calm has been restored. The attacks crossed the previous “red lines” that existed between Israel and Iran, said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” Miller said. “The question becomes now, what is the impact on each side’s calculation of the other side violating those red lines?” Such assessments are hard to make because of the lack of dialogue between Israel and Iran, Miller said, adding a level of uncertainty to the situation.

Harris and Birnbaum reported from Washington, and George from Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. Frances Vinall, Kelsey Ables and Andrew Jeong in Seoul, John Hudson in Capri, Italy, Nilo Tabrizy in New York, Shira Rubin in Tel Aviv, and Dan Lamothe, Alex Horton, Bryan Pietsch and Mikhail Klimentov in Washington contributed to this report.