Annika Ganzeveld, Andie Parry, Siddhant Kishore, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm ET

Iran and its Axis of Resistance will most likely conduct a coordinated, large-scale drone and missile attack on Israel in response to Israel killing Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. CTP-ISW previously outlined this scenario as one of the most dangerous courses of action that Iran could pursue. Iranian state media reported on August 4 that Iran and the Axis of Resistance will conduct a “quadrilateral operation” against Israel. The operation would reportedly involve Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iranian-backed Iraqi militias conducting coordinated strikes on Israel at the same time as Iranian forces. Iranian state media added that Hezbollah seeks to attack Israel to retaliate for Israel killing a senior Hezbollah officer in Beirut on July 30, while the Houthis seek to retaliate against Israel for the IDF airstrike on July 20 that hit Houthi military targets in al Hudaydah, Yemen. The leader of Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, Akram al Kaabi, published an image on August 4 signaling his intent to participate in an attack on Israel. Three anonymous US and Israeli officials told Axios on August 4 that Iran and the Axis of Resistance could conduct their coordinate attack as soon as August 5.

Iran and the Axis of Resistance will probably conduct an attack that is more escalatory than the drone and missile attack that Iran conducted against Israel in April 2024. Iran and its allies fired around 170 one-way attack drones, 120 ballistic missiles, and 30 cruise missiles at Israel in the April 2024 attack. Iran designed this strike package of over 300 projectiles to inflict serious damage on Israel and sought to thereby establish deterrence. But the United States, Israel, and their allies intercepted the vast majority of projectiles, so that the Iranian attack did significantly less damage than Tehran intended.

Key Takeaways:

• Iran and its Axis of Resistance will most likely conduct a coordinated, large-scale drone and missile attack on Israel in response to Israel killing Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. CTP-ISW previously outlined this scenario as one of the most dangerous courses of action that Iran could pursue.

• Iran could modify the April 2024 attack model in at least four ways to increase the likelihood of inflicting serious damage on Israel. Iran could fire more projectiles at Israel, change the number of locations targeted, or conduct a series of attacks over an extended period. Iran could also order simultaneous attacks on US forces.

• Iran has dismissed calls from Western and Arab countries to temper its response to Israel killing several senior Axis of Resistance leaders, including Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh, in recent days. Iranian state media and officials have also called for targeting senior Israeli officials as part of the retaliation. 

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ISW–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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