Israel vowed retaliation for Iran's missile attack, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that Tehran would "pay for it." This triggered speculations regarding the scale of Israel's response and its options.
"In the event of [Israeli] strike on [Iranian nuclear facilities], it would be, first and foremost, a disaster for Israel and its allies... I will say, in general, it will be a big Middle East war... And when America steps back from all of this, it will be a big problem, that will threaten the destruction of Israel itself," Evgeny Mikhailov, veteran Russian military observer and political analyst, told Sputnik.
The effect of explosives on the nuclear materials stored at Iran’s facilities likely possessing low-enriched uranium would pose a massive public health risk going beyond the country’s borders.
Israel’s attack on Iranian nuclear facilities could widen the conflict in the region while also speeding up Iran’s progress toward building a nuclear device. “Tehran may see the actual weaponization of its nuclear program as the only option left that can guarantee the security of the Iranian regime,” the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists stated.
What Other Issues Prevent Israel From Conducting the Strikes?
The IDF’s munitions used to target Hezbollah and Hamas tunnels would be ineffective against Iran’s highly reinforced nuclear facilities.
“The only conventional weapon that could plausibly achieve this is the American GBU-57A/B massive ordnance penetrator, which can only be carried by large US bombers like the B-2 Spirit,” stated an analytical report published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Thus, Israel’s F-15, F-16 and F-35 fighter bombers would be unable to carry it.
Israel would need to use about 100 aircraft for such an operation (almost a third of its 340 combat-capable aircraft), according to a US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.
Reaching Iran’s nuclear sites would involve flying over the sovereign airspace of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Syria and possibly Turkiye, posing diplomatic hurdles.
The distance to the Iranian sites in question is more than 1,000 miles (1609 km), requiring tricky refueling mid-air.