Israel rocked as Iranian military says missile capability ‘unscratched’

Benjamin Netanyahu’s (and his allies) lust for renewed war against Iran may have suffered a setback after one of Iran’s most senior military commanders warned his regime that Israel’s attacks on Iran, which Netanyahu claimed had destroyed half of Iran’s missile capabilities, had left them unscathed.

Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, deputy leader of the IRGC’s response during the “12-Day War” that followed Israel’s unilateral and coordinated attacks on Iranian leaders, scientists and facilities that also killed more than a thousand civilians, said that Israel’s aggression had not even damaged three percent of the strike capability that left large parts of Israeli cities devastated by Iran’s retaliation.

“Not even a scratch, not a thin line the size of a fly’s feather, has been made on the body of our missiles,” he said, adding that none of the country’s “missile cities” were damaged and launch operations resumed quickly after attacks.

In an interview on Iranian TV, Naqdi said that none of Iran’s ‘missile cities’ had been damaged and that launch operations had resumed as soon as the attacks paused, adding that:

Not even a scratch, not a thin line the size of a gnat’s whisker [literally ‘fly’s feather’], has been made on the body of our missiles… The 50 percent they claimed was not only wrong, but they were unable to destroy even 3 percent of the launchers.

In an attempt to hide the effectiveness of Iran’s retaliatory attacks using drones, conventional and hypersonic missiles, the Israeli government banned journalists, including foreign journalists, from filming or reporting on damage caused, but footage and images still leaked out.

Israel’s ambitions shattered

Naqdi’s claims come as a further blow to Israel’s ambitions for a ‘Greater Israel’ theft of land from neighbouring states, particularly Iran, after Iranian spies were able last month not only to hack Israel’s ‘secret’ nuclear programme but published footage of themselves walking around nuclear facilities and published data of Israeli scientists, demonstrating that Iran could do to Israel what Israel did to Iran in June if it chose. This was (at least) the second time that Iran successfully hacked Israel’s nuclear facilities last November and obtained information on a nuclear scientist and a senior military official, as well as of a serving Israeli ambassador.

For more than thirty years, Benjamin Netanyahu has used claims of imminent Iranian atomic weapons as a tool to try to provoke the US and its allies to attack Iran. Before Iran’s heavy retaliation led to the US pressing for the end of the ’12-day war’ and Israel acquiescing, US president Donald Trump ordered an unauthorised attack on Iran’s supposed ‘nuclear facilities’, but they were reportedly empty and the US bombs did little damage.

Netanyahu used back channels with Russia earlier this month to tell Iran that he is not planning to attack it, to which the Iranian’s responded drily that he is “capable of deception”. Iran has now signed a $6bn deal with Russia for forty-eight ultra-manoeuvrable SU-35 air superiority warplanes.