Israel is weighing a significant retaliation against Iran in response to recent missile strikes that targeted Israeli territory, with potential operations aimed at Iranian strategic infrastructure, including oil, gas, and nuclear facilities.
The consideration for military action follows Iran’s launch of approximately 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday night. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “Iran made a big mistake tonight, and it will pay for it”, vowing that “whoever attacks us, we will attack them”.
Netanyahu convened a meeting with Israel’s security chiefs at military headquarters in Tel Aviv today to deliberate on the situation. According to Axios, citing unnamed Israeli officials, the meeting concluded with an agreement that Israel would respond militarily, though specifics of the retaliation remain flexible and open-ended.
Likely retaliation plans could involve strikes on Iran’s critical energy infrastructure, targeting its oil and gas rigs, or conducting direct assaults on nuclear facilities. An attack on Iran’s oil facilities could have severe repercussions for the country’s economy, given that Tehran ranks as the third-largest oil producer among the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and is heavily reliant on energy exports.
Concerns loom over how Iran might respond to such attacks. An Israeli official noted, “We have a big question mark about how the Iranians are going to respond to an attack, but we take into consideration the possibility that they would go all in, which will be a whole different ball game.”