Iran Launches About 180 Ballistic Missiles at Israel

“The United States will continue to stand by our ally Israel in support of Israel’s right to defend itself,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said in a statement in which he promised “to monitor developments in the region closely.”

“Iran and its proxies must be held accountable,” Mr. Schumer added, without offering any details on possible consequences.

Since Hamas militants raided Israel in a fatal and bloody attack almost a year ago, military aid for Israel has been both a bipartisan rallying point and a political cudgel in Congress, where Republicans and Democrats are competing to appear strongest on national security matters in advance of the November election.

Earlier this year, after several failed attempts, Republicans and Democrats approved a military aid package for Israel worth approximately $15 billion, as part of a $95.3 billion foreign aid bill. On Tuesday, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, urged leaders to reconvene Congress and send even more weapons funding to Israel, as part of legislation that would also pour money into disaster relief to address the devastation wrought across the Southeastern United States by Hurricane Helene.

“I want Iran to see great resolve when it comes to Congress’s willingness to assist Israel,” Mr. Graham said in a statement, noting he was already “reaching out to Republican and Democratic colleagues to put a package together as soon as possible.”

Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a Democrat who is vocally pro-Israel, released a statement that suggested he might support such a move.

“My voice and vote follows Israel to ensure they have whatever resources they need — whether that’s military, financial, or intelligence — to prevail over terror,” he said.

But Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, and Senator Schumer gave no indication on Tuesday that they intended to call lawmakers back to Washington from the campaign trail ahead of an election in which control of both chambers is being hotly contested.

Many Republicans demanded instead that the Biden administration step in more forcefully.

“The Biden-Harris administration must provide Israel with any and all military support they need as they defend themselves against Iran’s unprovoked attack,” Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Alabama and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.

“I urge the reimposition of a maximum pressure campaign against Iran and fully support Israel’s right to respond disproportionately to stop this threat,” Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, wrote on social media.

Democratic leaders studiously avoided pushing either President Biden or Israeli leaders toward any particular course of action, pledging solidarity and encouraging de-escalation.

“Iran must immediately cease its attack and have its proxy militias stand down to avoid a broader war that no one wants,” Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.

“The United States will continue to stand alongside and assist Israel as it works to defend itself,” Mr. Reed added. “I urge Israeli leaders to act with prudence and wisdom.”

At the same time, Israel’s critics in Congress questioned the motives of their colleagues who were leaning into the idea of a wider war.

“So sick,” Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, a Democrat who is the first Palestinian American woman in Congress and an outspoken critic of Israel and its military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon, wrote in a social media post that showed how contractors’ stock prices were soaring. “Remember that members of Congress are permitted to own stock in war manufacturing, so when they vote to send more bombs or send our loved ones to war, they profit personally.”

Mr. al-Asali’s death highlighted the vulnerability of Palestinians in the West Bank to Iran’s missile barrages. Unlike those in Israel, Palestinians in the West Bank don’t have an air-raid siren system to warn them of incoming attacks.

Mr. al-Asali, 37, was walking through a Palestinian Authority training base that had been converted into a shelter for Palestinian laborers from Gaza when a large fragment of a missile slammed into him, according to security camera footage reviewed by The New York Times. It appeared the fragment had either fallen off the missile or had plummeted after being hit by an Israeli interceptor.

Mr. al-Asali’s father, Khader al-Asali, said in a phone interview that he had been shocked to discover his son’s lifeless body. “He was unlucky,” he said.

Roughly 600 Palestinians from Gaza, who were working in Israel before the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks, had sought refuge at the base, said Hussein Hamayel, the governor of Jericho.

Mr. al-Asali, 64, said he and his son were construction workers in northern Israel before Oct. 7. He said his wife, six daughters and another son remained back home in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza.

Iran fired about 180 missiles toward Israel on Tuesday evening, the Israeli military said. Many were intercepted by Israel’s air-defense systems, but at least some missiles and missile fragments fell in Israel and the West Bank.

In the West Bank village of Azzun, a missile or a large part of one fell between homes, but there was no explosion, according to residents and the Palestinian police.

Fares al-Hawari, a resident of Azzun, said he didn’t hear a blast. “It sounded like something heavy fell out of the sky, but there was no boom,” Mr. al-Hawari, 27, said by phone, adding that he saw gases rising from the object when he checked it out.

A photo from the scene showed a long, bulky object resting in a grassy yard.

Yehoshua Kalisky, a military technology expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said the image appeared to show the fuel tank of a missile with the explosive warhead already detached.

Col. Louay Arzeikat, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority’s police, said Israel had taken several hours to provide permission for a bomb squad to travel to Azzun to examine the object.

“This kind of delay can lead to the death of citizens,” Colonel Arzeikat said.

COGAT, the Israeli government body responsible for liaising with the Palestinian Authority, declined to respond.

For years, Palestinian officials have criticized Israel’s slow response to requests for permission to send security forces from one part of the West Bank to another.

The Iranian missile attack, Mr. al-Asali said, didn’t serve Palestinian interests.

“May God hold them accountable,” he said. “We don’t want missiles. We don’t want war.” He added: “We want peace. God willing, this war will end.”

Videos verified by The New York Times show the booster section — essentially the back of the projectile, containing the motor and guidance fins — of a large, black missile stuck into the ground in a backyard in Tel Sheva, Israel. Fabian Hinz, an expert in Iranian missiles based in Berlin for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the missile’s distinctive fin pattern matches that of Iran’s Kheibar Shekan and Fattah-1 missiles.

Both types of missiles use the same booster and are therefore difficult to tell apart. But, he said, of known Iranian missiles, “These are the most advanced, no questions asked.”

And while it’s unclear how many of the approximately 180 missiles the Israeli military said Iran fired toward Israel were Kheibar Shekan or Fattah-1s, videos from several sites across Israel and the West Bank show booster sections that appear to be from those types of missiles.

Iranian news media said Kheibar Shekan ballistic missiles were used in Iran’s attack on Israel in April, after Israel struck the Iranian Consulate in Damascus. Tom Karako, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’s Missile Defense Project in Washington, said that “unlike that previous attack, however, more missiles appear to be getting through.” It’s unclear whether the type of projectile may be related to these missiles reaching Israel.

The Kheibar Shekan and Fattah-1 are both new, precision-guided missiles with ranges sufficient to reach Israel if launched from Iran. In a statement on Tuesday night, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said Fattah missiles had been used to destroy missile defense radar systems in Israel. That claim could not be independently confirmed.

But after launching a bombing campaign that killed Hezbollah’s leader and other commanders last week, along with a ground invasion overnight Tuesday, Israel has weakened Hezbollah, stripping Iran of much of its deterrence against a wider Israeli attack, said Danny Citrinowicz, a retired Israeli intelligence officer who specialized in Iran.

“Israel has much more free rein in the Iranian context than in April, as there’s essentially no more threat that Hezbollah would join,” Mr. Citrinowicz said.

The Biden administration may urge Israel to curb its response. But with American elections fast approaching, U.S. officials were likely to have less influence than they did in April, Mr. Citrinowicz said, when they similarly pressed to avoid an attack that could escalate the conflict.

“This is an escalation whose end is difficult to foresee,” Mr. Citrinowicz said. “Israel’s action will almost certainly trigger another Iranian response. We appear to be at the start of forceful confrontation between us and the Iranians.”

But after Iran fired about 180 missiles in an attack that went on for roughly half an hour, Israel’s challenge was not whether to attack Iran, but how powerfully to respond, said Yaakov Amidror, a retired major general who served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser.

The only question, General Amidror said, was “how much can we harm them versus their capacity to harm us.” He added he believed that the damage Israel inflicted on Hezbollah had diminished the threat of Iran’s proxies.

Even an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities — long a source of fear for Israel, which worries about Tehran gaining a nuclear weapon — “should be considered,” General Amidror added.

Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli prime minister, wrote on social media that Israel was facing “the biggest opportunity in the past 50 years” to change the face of the region.

“We must act now to destroy its nuclear project, destroy their major energy facilities and critically hit this terrorist regime,” Mr. Bennett said of Iran. “The tentacles of that octopus are severely wounded — now’s the time to aim for the head,” he added.

“Make no mistake, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel,” Mr. Biden told reporters hours after the attack.

The firm embrace marked a striking shift in tone for a relationship that has become increasingly tense as Israel has marched ahead with aggressive military action since the attacks by Hamas nearly a year ago that American officials fear could escalate into a full-scale, destabilizing war in the Middle East.

For months, Mr. Biden has failed in his efforts to restrain Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military actions in Gaza. Last week, American officials appeared caught off guard by Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to approve the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s longtime leader, just hours after the United States and other countries called for a cease-fire meant to end new waves of fighting between Israel and Lebanon.

The display of cooperation on Tuesday in the face of Iran’s aggression comes just five weeks before Election Day in the United States, where Republicans have accused Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, of failing to support Israel and being too critical of Mr. Netanyahu over the past year.

In a news release headlined “Biden’s Weakness on Iran,” Bobby LaValley, a spokesman for Speaker Mike Johnson, wrote that the Biden administration had allowed Iranian-supported groups to “spread across the Middle East, funding organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas, which have escalated their attacks on Israel.”

Ms. Harris joined Mr. Biden in the Situation Room on Tuesday, taking several hours away from the campaign trail to demonstrate her commitment to Israel’s security. In a statement she delivered to reporters several hours later, Ms. Harris called that commitment “unwavering” and vowed to stand up to aggression from Iran.

“Iran is not only a threat to Israel; Iran is also a threat to American personnel in the region, American interests and innocent civilians across the region who suffer at the hands of Iran-based and -backed terrorist proxies,” she said. “We will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend U.S. forces and interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists.”

The declarations of support for Israel from Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris seemed intended to counter the tension between Washington and Jerusalem over the past year. Just last week, some in the Biden administration privately expressed frustration that Israel had rebuffed the cease-fire proposals.

In his statement to reporters on Tuesday, Mr. Biden said he had not yet talked with Mr. Netanyahu but expected to in the coming hours or days.

“My message to him will depend on what we find — finally conclude is needed,” Mr. Biden said.

Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, said earlier on Tuesday that there had been “meticulous joint planning” between U.S. forces and their Israeli counterparts in anticipation of possible Iranian military action. That followed Mr. Biden’s recent vow to do everything in his power to help defend Israel against potential attacks from its adversaries.

Mr. Sullivan declined to say whether the United States would participate in a possible Israeli counterstrike against Iran. In April, when the United States helped Israel defeat a similar attack by Iran, Mr. Biden told the Israeli government that he would not authorize the use of American forces in a direct strike at Iran, and urged Mr. Netanyahu to “take the win.”

After the missile attacks on Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu made clear that the Israeli military would respond at a time of its choosing. “The regime in Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and to retaliate against our enemies,” he said in a video message.

In his comments to reporters on Tuesday, Mr. Biden declined to say directly what he would advise Mr. Netanyahu to do after the latest Iranian attack. He said that “remains to be seen.”

Mr. Sullivan had earlier told reporters that the United States intended to ensure that “there will be consequences, severe consequences for this attack” by Iran. He declined to say what those consequences would be. But he said members of the Biden administration would engage in discussions with their Israeli counterparts throughout the next 24 hours.

“Obviously, this is a significant escalation by Iran,” Mr. Sullivan said.

Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, said on Tuesday that there had been no warning from Tehran before the attack. Asked whether Israel was dragging the United States into a war, Mr. Miller said that “Israel makes its own decisions” and that “the United States has to make its own decisions about our national interests.”

Pentagon officials said the military effort to defend Israel on Tuesday came from two U.S. naval destroyers, the U.S.S. Bulkeley and the U.S.S. Cole, which together launched a dozen interceptors against the Iranian missiles. Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, said none of the 40,000 American troops in the region were hurt in the attacks.

One U.S. official said the destroyers knocked down “a handful” of Iranian missiles with the dozen interceptors, suggesting that more than one interceptor was fired at each incoming missile from Iran.

Several of the missiles were seen exploding in Israel. Videos from across Israel show dozens of missiles launched from Iran exploding on Tuesday evening, according to a New York Times analysis.

The Times has verified social media videos of explosions in Tel Aviv, along with the aftermath. Two clips capture explosions near the headquarters of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, on the northern outskirts of Tel Aviv. Another verified clip shows a damaged restaurant in the city.

Videos also show missiles exploding in other parts of Israel. In Ramat Gan, east of Tel Aviv, a video filmed outside a shopping mall shows two missiles falling toward the ground, at least one of which explodes on impact. Farther south, in Gedera, a crater was left in the grounds of an elementary school.

A video taken from the Western Wall in Jerusalem and published by the Israeli military shows about a dozen missiles in the distance. It is unclear where those missiles were heading.

Iranian missiles also rained on the Israeli air base of Nevatim, in the Negev desert in the south of the country. In one video, at least nine apparent missile explosions are visible.

In the immediate aftermath of the barrage of missiles, there were no reports of casualties in Israel. One Palestinian man was killed by falling shrapnel in the occupied West Bank.

Missile remnants seen in videos and photographs suggest Iran used some of its most advanced weaponry in the attack.

Riley Mellen contributed reporting.

During the surprise attack, Iran launched about 180 ballistic missiles at Israel, the Israeli military said. Some landed, but most were intercepted, Israel said.

But the Iranian military has also prepared hundreds of missiles to launch from western borders should Israel or its top ally, the United States, strike back, two members of the Revolutionary Guards familiar with the planning said.

“If the Zionist regime reacts to Iran’s operation it will face more fierce attacks,” the Revolutionary Guards said in a statement.

The statement said the missiles had been launched to retaliate for Israel’s assassination last week of Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group. Mr. Nasrallah was the most powerful figure in Iran’s “axis of resistance” — how it refers to its regional alliance of militants — and a close confidant of Mr. Khamenei.

The attack was also intended to avenge the recent assassinations of the political leader of Hamas, the Gaza Strip militant group, and of a top Iranian commander who was with Mr. Nasrallah at the time, the statement said.

Iran’s new president, Massoud Pezeshkian, had been among those urging restraint, but on Tuesday he said the missile strike was a legitimate act of self-defense. He warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel that “Iran is not seeking war but it will stand firmly against any threats.”

He added: “This is only a small glimpse of our powers. Do not enter into a war with Iran.”

For nearly a year, since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Hezbollah and Israel have been embroiled in tit-for-tat attacks. The hostilities started after the Lebanese militants began launching rockets across the border in a show of support for Hamas. In recent days, as Israel intensified its assault on Hezbollah, it was unclear how — or if — Iran, its patron, would respond.

To some analysts, early comments from Iranian leaders, including the supreme leader, suggested that it might not do so, at least directly, lest it find itself in a full-scale war with Israel.

Privately, Mr. Pezeshkian was urging caution, Iranian officials said, warning that Israel was trying to ensnare Iran into a wider conflict. And publicly, the new president was sounding a new tone. Just days before Mr. Nasrallah was assassinated, he had spoken before the United Nations of his desire to defuse tensions.

Iranian conservatives attacked the president and the government in a harsh campaign on social media and Iranian media, saying their calls for restraint were tantamount to treason.

Tuesday’s ballistic missile assault on Israel made clear which side of the debate had won, at least for the moment.

Iran’s senior military commanders had concluded that it was essential to establish deterrence against Israel — and quickly — to turn or at least slow the tide of its onslaught on Hezbollah. Still more important, they argued, Iran needed to act to prevent Israel from turning its attention toward Tehran.

The missiles were launched from Revolutionary Guards aerospace bases in Karaj, Kermanshah and the province of Azerbaijan, the Iranian officials said. They asked that their names not be published because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

The Iranians also wanted to restore credibility with members of the “axis of resistance,” and reverse any perception that Iran or its regional allies were weak.

Ali Vaez, Iran director for the International Crisis Group, said before the missile strike that in Iran, the consensus had moved toward responding to Israel “in order to kill the momentum that Israel has been able to gain for the past few days.”

But the decision could backfire, he said.

“A unilateral Iranian response is still extremely risky because it would provide justification for Israel to strike back on Iran now that it’s much exposed because Hezbollah is on its knees,” Mr. Vaez said. “If Iranians strike Israel it indicates that they calculated the cost of inaction outweighs the risks of taking action against Israel.”

A senior aide to Mr. Pezeshkian said in a telephone interview before the missile attack that whatever the president’s private reservations about war with Israel, he would publicly support any decision Mr. Khamenei made — as he did on Tuesday.

Iran’s shift in strategy, officials said, stemmed from a reckoning among its leaders, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

They decided that Iran had miscalculated by not responding to the killing of the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in July, and the more recent killing of the top Iranian commander, Gen. Abbas Nilforoushan.

The restraint, they believed, had been misunderstood as weakness. Mr. Araghchi has told other officials that western countries had duped Iran when they asked it to exercise restraint and allow for a cease-fire to be negotiated in Gaza, the three officials said.

Mr. Khamenei will lead the Friday Prayer in Tehran this week and deliver a sermon that is expected to set the tone for what will come next, Iranian media reported. Mr. Khamenei usually leads the Friday Prayer only in extraordinary circumstances tied to national security. His last was in 2020 in the aftermath of the U.S. assassination of Qassim Suleimani, a top general revered by Iranians.

After the strikes on Israel, supporters of the government chanted praises to God and posted messages on social media. Crowds gathered outside Tehran University waving Iranian and Palestinian flags and holding signs. “The time for revenge has arrived,” some read, state television reported.

Hamidreza Alimi, one conservative supporter of the government, offered an argument for the missile strike on social media.

“Sometimes you have to go to war to establish peace, you have to fight to have peace of mind,” he said.

This type of missile can fly much higher into the atmosphere than artillery rockets and go much farther, and it hits the ground at high speeds because of gravity’s pull.

The category of ballistic missiles fired on Israel on Tuesday remains unknown. If fired from Iran, the ballistic missiles could be considered medium-range, which can hit targets 620 miles to 1,860 miles away, or intermediate-range, which can travel 1,860 miles to 3,140 miles.

The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, categorizes ballistic missiles by the distance they can travel. Short-range ballistic missiles can travel about 620 miles, while the long-range type, also known as intercontinental ballistic missiles, can hit targets at around 3,410 miles away.

The Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, that the United States shipped to Ukraine are short-range missiles.

Intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, carry nuclear warheads and can be launched from underground silos or underwater submarines to hit targets across the planet. The explosive payload of ICBMs is measured in hundreds of thousands of tons of TNT.

Hezbollah scattered its weapons across Lebanon — the country is “peppered” with them, one Israeli official said — and has been using them since last October to fire mainly into northern Israel.

Israel had been making strikes in southern Lebanon, forcing tens of thousands of Lebanese to flee. But Israeli leaders decided around Sept. 17 to destroy as much of the arsenal as possible, so that the 60,000 or so Israelis who had fled northern Israel because of the persistent fire could return, two Israeli officials said. The Israeli Air Force began devastating strikes the next week.

Hezbollah, with help from Iran, took three decades to build up most of its stockpile, estimated to be anywhere from 120,000 to 200,000 projectiles. After the initial attacks, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, asked Iran and Syria to replenish the arsenal, the Israeli officials and an American official said. That contributed to Israel’s decision to try to kill Mr. Nasrallah.

Since Mr. Nasrallah’s killing last Friday, Lebanese officials have heeded Israel’s demands to turn away Iranian planes trying to fly into Beirut, complicating Hezbollah’s effort to get additional arms quickly, American officials say.

On Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had killed the Hezbollah commander in charge of arms transfers from Iran to Lebanon, Muhammad Jaafar Qasir, in an airstrike in Beirut.

U.S. officials say Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel, which began the day after Hamas carried out its devastating Oct. 7 assault in southern Israel, were an answer to Israel’s war in Gaza. They said that Hezbollah might have stopped if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, had agreed to a cease-fire.

But the United States, Qatar and Egypt have failed to get a Gaza cease-fire agreement in place after many rounds of diplomacy this year.

On Monday, Israel began ground operations in Lebanon. Officials said Israeli troops plan to destroy Hezbollah missile caches and launch vehicles.

The two Israeli officials say they intend to continue targeting Hezbollah’s arsenal and killing the group’s commanders while they have momentum. White House officials have said they hope the ground incursion is limited, and President Biden has made calls for a cease-fire from both sides. Hundreds of Lebanese civilians have been killed in Israeli strikes, and one million have been displaced.

“We are determined to return our residents in the north to their homes safely,” Mr. Netanyahu said on Tuesday.

Despite the sizable arsenal of missiles and rockets that Hezbollah still maintains, its fighters have not fired a huge number into central Israel.

American officials say one reason is that a series of Israeli attacks, culminating last Friday in the airstrike that killed Mr. Nasrallah outside Beirut, have severely damaged the group’s command-and-control structure, leaving few senior people to give orders to lower-level fighters.

The group could also be waiting for a signal from Iranian officials, who had helped build up the arsenal as a deterrent against any possible Israeli assault on Iran, officials say. If Hezbollah uses up most of the rest of its arsenal and is not able to replenish it, that deterrent disappears.

And Hezbollah might prefer for Iran itself to retaliate, with its much more potent arsenal. In April, Iran fired more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel in retaliation for a deadly attack on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria. Israel, the United States and partner nations in the region shot down almost all of those.

On Tuesday night in the Middle East, the Iranian military fired ballistic missiles at Israel. Air raid sirens sounded across the country, and residents saw defensive interceptor missiles flying through the skies. Iran’s mission to the United Nations said on social media that the attack was in response to “terrorist acts” by Israel that had violated Iran’s “sovereignty.”

Some Israeli and American officials said they thought Israel had successfully established deterrence with Iran through a strike that Israel carried out after that April barrage from Iran. In the follow-up assault, Israel damaged one or more S-300 antiaircraft batteries that the Iranian military had placed around the ancient city of Isfahan, American officials said.

Such a strike, coupled with the Israeli assassination in July of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, while he was in Tehran, showed that Israel could attack in the heart of Iran — and possibly kill Iranian leaders.

Some American officials stress that the top ranks of Hezbollah have been crippled by the sudden Israeli campaign. Its leadership has been decimated, not just by the killing of Mr. Nasrallah, but also by the pager explosions and other attacks that killed and injured top and midlevel leaders over the last three weeks.

The entire special operations command of Hezbollah, known as the Radwan Force, was wiped out in the Sept. 20 airstrike that killed Ibrahim Aqeel, effectively Hezbollah’s chief of military operations, in a southern suburb of Beirut, American officials say.

On Monday, Naim Qassem, the acting leader of Hezbollah after Mr. Nasrallah’s death, said contingency plans had been in place to ensure alternate commanders could step up if anything happened to the group’s leaders.

The heaviest recent wave of Israeli airstrikes hit 1,300 targets on Sept. 23, including sites with long-range cruise missiles, heavy rockets and drones, said Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman.

Still, American officials say it is an open question if Israel’s operations can be turned into a strategic gain. How long Israel remains in southern Lebanon, how deeply Iran engages in counterattacks, what Hezbollah does to respond and what political forces seize influence in Beirut will all be a factor in the long-term outcome.

Israel carried out a violent and failed occupation of Lebanon from 1982 to 2000, one that gave birth to Hezbollah.

Some American officials view the situation, particularly over the long term, with skepticism. They do not believe a military campaign in Lebanon can set back Hezbollah for long.

The group has a tunnel infrastructure that is impossible to destroy absent a long-term presence in the country, which Israeli officials say they are reluctant to reoccupy. The tunnels are dug deep into the rock under southern Lebanon and are difficult to hit with airstrikes. Parts of the network are big enough for large military equipment to move through.

These more pessimistic American officials say that even if Mr. Nasrallah was a singular and charismatic leader, the midlevel and even senior military commanders will be more easily replaced.

While Mr. Nasrallah appeared to have become wary about ordering big attacks on Israel after the widespread destruction in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, a new leader might not have the same sense of caution.

Euan Ward contributed reporting from Beirut.