Will Netanyahu 'take the fight directly to Iran' after massive missile strike across Israel?
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with the heads of the country's security establishment on Wednesday following Iran's firing of 181 missiles into Israel amid fears that a lethal regional war is around the corner.
Fox News Digital spoke to military and Iran experts about the growing chance of a wider confrontation between the Jewish state and the clerical regime in Tehran breaking out.
"After the Iranian missile attack against Israel there is no questioning anymore the basic understanding that Iran is the greatest generator of terror and death in the Middle East. Until now, Israel has been playing a whack-a-mole game with Iran’s proxies – fighting Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and others," Yaakov Katz, the author of "Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power," told Fox News Digital.
Katz, who is a senior fellow at the global think tank Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), added, "With Iran again attacking Israel directly, the time has come to take the fight directly to Iran. The ayatollahs there need to be made to pay a price."
The headline by military analyst Amos Harel in the left-wing Haaretz paper read on Wednesday: "After an unprecedented Iranian attack, we are in a regional war."
The Islamic republic has been recognized as the center of Mideast volatility, terrorism and jingoism for decades. In 2010, Saudi Arabian King Abdullah told the United States to "cut off the head of the snake" by launching military strikes to eradicate Iran’s reported nuclear weapons facilities.
Iran’s strikes on Israel forced nearly 10 million people to find safety in bomb shelters on Tuesday. The barrage of aerial warfare was the first time in Israeli history that the country’s densely populated cities – Tel Aviv and Jerusalem – in the center of the biblical nation, faced such devastating attacks. The Israelis did not panic and stayed relatively calm under the pressure of the largely surprise attack.
The only fatality from the Iranian barrage was the murder of a Palestinian man in the West Bank (known in Israel by its biblical regional name of Judea and Samaria).
"Tonight Iran attempted to kill thousands of Israeli men, women and children but thanks to our miraculous defense system Iran failed miserably. Tehran is hurting after seeing its proxies in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen get crushed by Israel. Tehran made a huge mistake tonight and will pay a heavy price at the time and place of our choosing," Lt. Col. Yoni Chetboun, former deputy speaker of the Knesset and an IDF special forces operator in reserves, told Fox News Digital.
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Chetboun was a decorated special forces operator from the second Lebanon war, when Israel fought the Iran-backed terrorist movement Hezbollah in 2006.
Prior to Iran’s military strike on Israel in April, Fox News Digital reported that the Biden-Harris administration released billions in sanctions relief to Iran that will flow into its proxies' war machines, according to experts.
The topic of funneling billions to Iran’s regime surfaced during the vice presidential debate on Tuesday. Republican Sen. JD Vance said, "Iran, which launched this attack, has received over $100 billion in unfrozen assets thanks to the Kamala Harris administration.
"What do they use that money for? They use it to buy weapons that they're now launching against our allies. And God forbid, launching against the United States as well."
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Lisa Daftari, an expert on Iran, said, "The conflict between the Iran regime and Israel did not commence today, in April, or on Oct. 7 of the previous year. Its origins trace back to 1979, when the mullahs ascended to power, promulgating a doctrine that demonized the ‘Great Satan,’ a term for the United States, and the ‘Little Satan,’ referring to Israel.
"Over the past 45 years, the Iran regime has persistently targeted American and Israeli interests, orchestrating terror proxies to execute its strategic objectives against both nations. More recently, U.S. policies that have enriched the mullahs have facilitated billions of dollars on establishing a formidable encirclement around Israel, via the regime's various proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza and the West Bank."
In April, Iran’s regime launched a sprawling aerial attack, with over 300 suicide drones and missiles, on Israel. Jerusalem countered the Iranian swarm of missiles with a targeted strike against military installations in the Iranian province of Isfahan.
Daftari, editor-in-chief of the Foreign Desk news website, added, "Israel's recent military actions signal a departure from the more restrained posture observed in April, when the nation's defense capabilities against missile threats were deemed a victory. The recent strategic strikes in Lebanon underscore Israel's heightened efforts to neutralize enduring existential threats."
She noted that it historically has engaged in tit-for-tat-like responses but noted, "Israel is now poised to take decisive measures aimed at neutralizing this looming risk, with its focus now entirely on the regime in Tehran."
David Wurmser, a former senior adviser for nonproliferation and Middle East strategy for former Vice President Dick Cheney, told Fox News Digital, "This is a war between Israel and Iran which began as a direct war on April 14. The war is a twilight struggle between a nation run by a tyranny that seeks to extinguish the other. Either Iran or Israel, but not both, will emerge from this war not only as victor but survivor."
He said the so-called "ring of fire that Iran built around Israel not only had an aggressive aim – to choke Israel to death by initiating a violent war of attrition and isolation, including closing ports and ending international airlines' flying to Israel – but also acted as a defensive deterrent against Israel, shielding Iran from any potential Israeli proactive action against Iran. With the destruction of Hezbollah, the strategic linchpin of the proxy network at the center of that ring of fire, as the greatest threat Israel faces, Iran was left fully exposed to the full weight of Israeli power."
He echoed the strong language of Israel’s military and political leadership, which "promised to inflict severe pain on the regime of the Iran's supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei… Iran will surely now feel the vulnerability as the Israelis without fear any more of Hezbollah or Iran will take the war from the defensive to the offensive against Iran’s regime, " said Wurmser.
He added "The mistake Iran made, as do its proxies and its minions in the West protesting on campuses, is not that they underestimate Israel’s capabilities and its unity, but that they internalized their own ideology that Israel is a fake, fragile colonial entity rather than a deeply rooted civilization. Israel has shown that despite its mistakes and setbacks, its internal strength transcend that of any of their neighbors."