Since Friday, the same dramatic exchange has been repeated more than half a dozen times in the skies of Israel: a barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles rains down on the country. A series of Israeli defensive interceptors soar to shoot down most, but not all, of the incoming missiles.
A key question is how long each side can hold out, and the answer could affect the duration of the conflict.
Israeli intelligence estimated that Iran had some 2,000 missiles capable of traveling 1,900 km to reach the country, but a significant portion were destroyed when its secret agents in Iran and its warplanes launched a surprise attack Friday morning, sparking the conflict.
Since then, Tel Aviv military officials say the regime has launched approximately 400 missiles from its remaining arsenal, and that Israeli strikes have eliminated 120, or one-third, of Iran's missile launchers. Moreover, Israeli officials announced on Monday that they had achieved air superiority over Tehran ahead of schedule, meaning they could further limit the ability of Iranian forces to carry out launches.
The intensity of Iran's bombing already appears to be decreasing dramatically. After launching more than 150 missiles on the first night of the conflict on Friday, Tehran's armed forces launched only 10 on Tuesday afternoon.
“Iran has a very, very difficult calculation to make because it has a limited number of missiles, and given the rate of fire, it can’t replenish them in real time,”said Fabian Hinz, a military analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Hinz noted that even the 150 missiles launched Friday night were fewer than the 200 Iran launched at Israel in October in retaliation for Israel's killing of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.
Still, Israeli analysts warn that more than half of Iran's arsenal remains intact and that an unknown number of missiles may be hidden in underground storage.
And while Israel has significantly degraded Iran's attack capability, mounting a defense has been very costly.
The Marker, a major local financial newspaper, reported that missile defense costs Benjamin Netanyahu's government up to 1 billion shekels, or approximately 285 million dollars, per night.
As a result, observers say, a long war of attrition between Israel and Iran may not be possible, at least not at its current intensity.
Without U.S. resupply or increased involvement of U.S. forces, some assessments project that Israel could sustain its missile defenses for 10 to 12 more days if Iran maintains a steady pace of attacks, said one person briefed on the White House and Tel Aviv intelligence assessments, adding that starting later this week, the Jewish state’s systems would only be able to intercept a smaller proportion of missiles because of the need to ration defensive munitions.
“They will have to select what they want to intercept. The system is already overloaded,” added the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.
Tal Inbar, an Israeli missile expert affiliated with the Missile Defense Alliance in Virginia, noted that Israel had already sought a ceasefire with Hamas in 2014, days before running out of air defense interceptors, showing that its stockpile level is a very sensitive issue and “could even be a factor in a ceasefire” this time as well.
Israel employs a multi-layered air defense system, consisting of its famed Iron Dome, which intercepts low-altitude missiles; the David's Sling and Arrow systems; and the expensive U.S.-supplied Patriot and THAAD missile defense systems.
Inbar said one problem for Israel is that it relies heavily on the relatively expensive Arrow system, which fires missiles costing $3 million each, to counter Iranian attacks.
While the cheap, mass-produced Iron Dome interceptors are useful against the rudimentary rockets launched by Hamas, the Iron Dome is as ineffective as “firing a 9mm pistol” against Iran’s heavy missiles that travel through the outer atmosphere at several times the speed of sound, Inbar explained.
On Friday night, Israeli air defenses failed to stop Iranian missiles that grazed the Israel Defense Forces headquarters and ultimately landed in central Tel Aviv. On Sunday night, another enemy projectile knocked out a major oil refinery near Haifa.
And on Tuesday morning, videos shot from nearby and posted on social media, verified by The Washington Post, showed four Iranian missile strikes near the Israeli intelligence headquarters north of Tel Aviv. None of the four appeared to hit the Mossad headquarters, landing hundreds of yards away, but one landed inside Camp Moshe Dayan, a nearby site that reportedly houses the headquarters of Israeli military intelligence and Unit 8200, the country’s main signals intelligence unit.
Iranian state media reported claims by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that it had managed to kill Israeli intelligence and military officials, though that report could not be confirmed. The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
As of Tuesday, the Israeli government said only 35 of the 400 missiles launched by Iran had hit its territory, an interception success rate of more than 90 percent, and left 24 civilians dead and more than 600 wounded.
Meanwhile, Iranian authorities said that as of Sunday, 224 people had been killed by Israeli strikes, according to the latest available figures, although they did not differentiate between military and civilian casualties. In several cases, Israeli missiles and drones have targeted densely populated apartment buildings, killing military officers and nuclear scientists in their homes.
On Monday, Tel Aviv also attacked the headquarters of Iran’s state-run television network after Defense Minister Israel Katz promised that “the mouthpiece of Iranian propaganda would disappear.” In fact, after the maneuver, the Defense Forces confirmed that they had attacked a regime military “communications center,” but offered no evidence of a military presence there.
Jim Lamson, a former intelligence analyst specializing in Iranian munitions and now a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury College, said Iran's missile capabilities will continue to decline because Israel is now attacking its production facilities.
“Assuming their regime doesn’t change, or they don’t agree to give up their missiles as part of a ceasefire, they’re going to have a big problem rebuilding their ballistic missile forces,” Lamson said.
“That’s going to be a great result,” he added.
