Iran Aims To Launch 2,000 Missiles At Israel In A Single Apocalyptic Barrage

It's probably impossible

Iranian clergymen watch a Shahab-3 long-range ballistic missile launch outside the holy city of Qom in November 2006. Via Wikimedia Commons

by PAUL IDDON

Iranian officials have said that the country’s missile factories are working 24 hours a day, churning out ballistic missiles. Tehran’s goal, they told Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group, is “to fire 2,000 at once to overwhelm Israeli defenses, not 500 over 12 days.”

Such an attack, as these officials suggest, would dwarf the three rounds of ballistic missile attacks Iran has fired at Israel since April 2024. It would also mark the single largest missile attack in history.

In its first attack, on Apr. 14, 2024, Iran launched 120 medium-range ballistic missiles as part of a strike package that also included 170 drones and 30 cruise missiles. Given the relatively slow speed of the drones that Tehran launched first, Israel and the United States had time to prepare effective countermeasures.

That wasn’t the case in the following attack, on Oct. 1, 2024. Iran launched at least 200 MRBMs in a single barrage with much less forewarning.

Then came the 12-day war. Launched by Israel with surprise air strikes against senior leadership targets in Tehran on June 13, the war saw Israel’s air force repeatedly hit targets across Iran, including its missile program.

Iran relied heavily on its MRBMs for retaliatory strikes. It launched an estimated total of 574 MRBMs, forcing Israel and the U.S. to expend several multi-million-dollar Arrow, THAAD and SM-3 interceptors.

Iran code-named all these operations True Promise 1-3. If these officials are correct, a potential True Promise 4 could see twice as many missiles raining down on Israel than all its predecessors combined at once—or at least in a single day.