Amin Soltani, Andie Parry, Annika Ganzeveld, Kathryn Tyson, Kelly Campa, and Nicholas Carl



Information Cutoff: 2:00pm ET

Several Iranian military leaders boasted on May 1 that they could strike Israel with a drone and missile attack much larger than what they launched on April 13 and thus inflict greater damage on Israel. IRGC Commander Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami suggested that Iran could have launched two or three additional waves of drones and missiles against Israel and that each successive wave would have reduced the efficacy of US and partner air defenses. IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajji Zadeh similarly asserted that his service used “only 20 percent of [its] strength” in the April 13 drone and missile attack. CTP-ISW has previously assessed that Iran modeled its April 13 attack on recent Russian attacks in Ukraine and that Iran designed its strike package to defeat Israeli air defenses, even though the United States and its partners intercepted around 99 percent of the projectiles. Iranian leaders are almost certainly studying the April 13 attack to learn lessons and understand how to defeat US and partner air defenses in the future.

Several senior Iranian military officers, including Salami, separately framed the April 13 drone and missile attack as successful in that it demonstrated Iranian willingness to now attack Israel directly. These statements echo similar remarks from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on April 22, during which he praised senior military commanders for their role in the attack and said that “the willpower of the Iranian nation and armed forces” matters more than how many munitions Iran launched or how many munitions hit their target. These statements are also consistent with Salami and other regime officials saying in recent weeks that Iran has adopted a new policy of targeting Israel directly in retaliation for Israeli attacks on Iranian interests.

Key Takeaways:

• Iran: Iranian military leaders emphasized that they could hit Israel with a drone and missile attack much greater than what they launched on April 13. Iranian leaders are likely studying their April 13 attack to learn lessons and understand how to more effectively penetrate US and partner air defenses.

• Gaza Strip: Hamas is considering an Egyptian-proposed ceasefire deal and has requested clarification on some of its contents. Egyptian officials expect a Hamas response to the deal in the coming days. Hamas has not changed its maximalist demands since December 2023.

• West Bank: Jordan accused Israeli settlers of attacking a humanitarian aid convoy traveling through the West Bank to the Gaza Strip. The IDF afterward imposed a “closed military zone” where the attack occurred.

• Yemen: The United States conducted a preemptive strike targeting a Houthi uncrewed surface vessel in Yemen. The United States determined that the vessel posed an imminent threat to US forces and nearby commercial traffic.

Click here to read the full update.

ISW and CTP has launched an interactive map of Israeli ground operations to accompany our daily campaign assessments of the Israel–Hamas war. This product complements the daily static maps that ISW-CTP produces with high-fidelity and, where possible, street-level assessments of the war in Israel.

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