Columnist Ben Caspit reported in Maariv that former IDF chief and former minister Gadi Eisenkot actually pushed for a much broader Israeli response after Iran’s first missile attack on Israel in April 2024. That attack, he said, involved about 350 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles.
According to Caspit, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi presented the war cabinet with three possible response levels after the assault. The first was a limited strike, the second was more substantial, and the third called for extensive force and significant damage to the Iranian regime.
At that stage, Caspit wrote, Eisenkot urged that once the Iranian attack ended, the Air Force should be sent to Iran and all three options should be executed, “with full force.” Caspit presented this as contradicting recent claims that Eisenkot had blocked action against Iran.
In the end, a different decision was taken. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not adopt the broad approach, and Israel settled for the smallest response option, a single missile strike that hit a specific Iranian target. Caspit said the message to Tehran was twofold, Israel showed it could strike inside Iran, but also signaled that it was not rushing into a wider war. The disclosure comes amid renewed political debate over Israel’s Iran policy, and Caspit said the war recordings and transcripts tell a different story from that promoted by Netanyahu’s allies.
