The Wall Street Journal reported today (Friday) that Iran understands it cannot afford a large-scale confrontation with Israel at this stage, but still wants to respond to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. As a result, Western sources estimated that the Iranian attack would occur in the coming days but "would not be larger than the previous attack in April."
According to the report, Tehran assumes that a large-scale confrontation with Israel would also lead to intervention and a response from the U.S., while Iran is still dealing with the severe economic crisis within the country. The fear of Israeli intelligence agencies also contributes to the regime's concerns.
For this reason, Iran and Hezbollah prefer to attempt to strike important targets in Israel without causing excessive damage that would lead to war. The report also mentioned that Western officials believe the extensive diplomatic pressure exerted on Iran in the past week helped delay Tehran's response and may have also mitigated it.
