Iran Missile Attack on Israel Leaves Biden With Few Options

As Iran launched a massive barrage of ballistic missiles into Israel on Tuesday, President Biden's hopes of ending the war in Gaza before leaving office and holding off a wider regional war in the Middle East seemed dimmer than ever. The attack from Iran came after Israel had expanded its war against Iran’s proxies in the region, launching a brazen series of assaults to dismantle Hezbollah’s leadership on its northern border and hitting Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen.

Now, Biden’s caught between his promise to bring the war in Gaza to an end, and continuing to support Israel’s defense in an escalating conflict on another front.

The President spent much of Tuesday in the Situation Room, the cramped, wood paneled command center in the basement of the West Wing, as U.S. intelligence came in that Iran was preparing to launch a missile attack on Israel in retaliation for the death of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general. 

Biden ordered that the U.S. military help Israel defend itself from Iran. As Israelis scrambled to bomb shelters, Israel and U.S. forces were able to largely intercept the volley of nearly 200 missiles. “The attack appears to have been defeated and ineffective,” Biden told reporters in the White House on Tuesday afternoon. “Make no mistake, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel.” 

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan described the attack as a “significant escalation by Iran.” The escalations are likely to continue. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Iran “made a big mistake” and “will pay for it.” 

Here’s the events that led up to Iran’s most recent bombing campaign against Israel.

No ceasefire deal in Gaza

Since Hamas’s gruesome massacre inside southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed, the Biden administration has tried to broker a deal between Israel and Hamas that would bring home the scores of hostages still held in Gaza. But, so far, Hamas has refused to release the hostages and Israel has refused to withdraw its forces from Gaza, saying its military campaign will press on until it has destroyed Hamas’s ability to launch attacks from Gaza. Since last October, the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 40,000, health officials in the territory say.

While those negotiations were underway, Iran’s proxy force on Israel’s northern border, Hezbollah, has continued to launch thousands of rockets from its bases in southern Lebanon into northern Israel, preventing some 60,000 Israelis from returning to homes within range of Hezbollah’s rockets.

Read more: Exclusive: Netanyahu at War

The pager attacks

For months, Israel largely held off on escalating the war with Hezbollah. Then over a period of days starting Sept. 17, Israel triggered the explosion of thousands of pagers and walkie talkies used by Hezbollah leadership inside Lebanon, killing more than 40 people and largely wiping out the terrorist group’s communications. Over the next several days, the Israeli Air Force dropped hundreds of bombs targeting Hezbollah’s military infrastructure and leadership inside Lebanon. 

Last Thursday, as the United Nations general assembly met in New York, the U.S. and France urged Israel to sign onto a 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel rejected the plan. The next day, shortly after Netanyahu delivered a searing speech at the U.N., an Israeli strike hit Hezbollah’s underground headquarters in the Dahieh suburb south of Beirut, killing Nasrallah, the militant group’s leader.

What Israel could do next

Iran previously made a direct attack on Israel in April with a barrage of missiles and explosive drones. The Israelis launched a return attack inside Iran, hitting a radar system close to where Iran is developing its nuclear weapons program. It was a sign to Tehran that Israel can evade Iran’s missile defenses and knows the locations of sensitive targets. 

Both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have signaled their commitment to helping Israel defend itself. Israel will continue to rely on U.S. weapons to ward off Iranian attacks. Israeli officials have been frustrated that the U.S. hasn’t done more to deter Iran’s cooperation with Russia on weapons development in recent years and are pushing American officials to work harder to intercept Iranian black market oil shipments that bring Tehran additional revenue.

As Israel showed with the pager attacks in September, it has innovative ways to go on the offense. It is possible that Israel will show off other new capabilities, including with cyber weapons, in the coming weeks and months, says Jonathan Schanzer, the senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish think tank in Washington, D.C. “Israel is very likely going to have to increase the pressure, increase the price before they can de-escalate,” Schanzer says.

Biden would still like to bring the war to a conclusion through diplomacy. “I think the chances of that are probably quite low,” Schanzer says.

Asked by reporters in the White House Roosevelt Room on Tuesday what the consequences for Iran would be for its missile attack on Israel, Biden said, "That remains to be seen.”