Any Iranian response to Israel’s attack is unlikely to involve further missiles being aimed at Israeli territory and could instead come through Iranian proxies in the region, an analyst has said.
Robert Clark, a fellow at the Yorktown Institute and director of the defence and security unit at Civitas, told Sky News “there are still ways in which Iran can respond that are below the threshold of conflict or escalation”.
“I think that almost certainly there will be an Iranian response, but more than often we can see this through their wide use of proxies,” he said.
Iran has built a network of proxies across the Middle East, including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
Mr Clark said Tehran was “unlikely to send more ballistic and cruise missiles into Tel Aviv, into Jerusalem directly”.
“That’s by no means certain. But I think the scale of the damage that we can see… does provide the ability for the Iranian regime to provide a much more curtailed response.”