Report: Israel Hit One of Iran’s Key Missile Centers
Against the backdrop of an ever-evolving security situation, the global media lens offers unique perspectives on what is happening in the country. From analyses by international experts, alternative interpretations and small stories from Israel that go unnoticed, each day we bring you a short daily roundup of what is being written in the world press about Israel, in an effort to understand how things here look from abroad. The articles we feature in this section are taken from major newspapers around the world and do not necessarily reflect Globes’ worldview. ● 100 days after the killing: Why in Iran have they still not buried Ali Khamenei? ● The countries that pushed for a ceasefire, and one that exploited the chaos
1 “Iran’s attack on Israel reveals new and aggressive regional ambitions” The barrages of ballistic missiles launched by Iran signal its desire to project regional power, put Washington on the defensive and prove that it still retains significant strike capabilities, despite the intensive air campaign carried out against it by the United States and Israel. So say a commentary by Wall Street Journal reporters Laurence Norman and Jared Malsin. The column also said that “Tehran’s leaders are likely betting that the missile attacks, combined with President Donald Trump’s desire to preserve a possible peace deal, will pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to scale back the assault against Hezbollah in Lebanon, following the Israeli airstrike carried out in Beirut on Sunday.”
The two noted that מאז the start of the American and Israeli strikes in Iran in late February, a new generation of hawkish Iranian leaders has abandoned the principles of caution that Tehran had followed for decades. Their goal is to restore deterrence through a direct response to any threat to their interests, in order to ensure that no side ends the war feeling victorious. It was also noted that in referring to the Iranian response after the strike in Beirut on Sunday, Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group, said: “Iran has put Washington in a position where it is trying to separate the two fronts, while the main triggers remain outside the US-Iran channel of dialogue, Israel’s freedom of action in Lebanon and Hezbollah’s refusal to withdraw.” According to him, “the war has made Iran less risk averse, not more.”
The column argues that the Iranian strike underscores how a direct conflict between the two regional rivals, once considered unthinkable before 2024, is becoming a routine phenomenon. If in the past Iran and its proxy groups were on the defensive, today Tehran is showing a willingness to take real risks in order to defend its partner militias. From The Wall Street Journal, by Laurence Norman and Jared Malsin. Read the full article.
2 Report: Possible Israeli strike on one of Iran’s most important missile centers Videos documenting explosions, smoke and possible missile impacts in the Natanz-Abad area in central Iran apparently point to Israeli strikes this week on the “Ahmad Kazemi” complex, one of the strategic missile bases of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. So reported Iran International, which is affiliated with the exiled Iranian opposition.
According to the report, civilians who documented the event and sent the videos to the channel identified the strike points in the mountains near Najaf-Abad and in the areas surrounding Villa-Shahr, Khomeini-Shahr and Homaion-Shahr. The Ahmad Kazemi facility is located in the heart of this area. The complex is named after Ahmad Kazemi, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guard Air Force. The site covers about two square kilometers and is used for the production, assembly and storage of strategic missiles. Iranian state media tend to describe sites like this as “missile cities.” The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) has defined the site as Iran’s largest facility for missile assembly and production. The complex was established in the late 1980s with assistance from North Korea and China, and its products include solid and liquid fuels, missile components, Shahab missiles, as well as Silkworm missiles and China’s M series. During Operation With the Lion and Operation Roar of the Lion, powerful explosions were repeatedly reported at the complex.
According to reports, the storage capacity of the site is estimated at up to 2,000 missiles, although this refers to its total capacity. After two wars, it is unclear how many missiles are actually left there. Throughout the complex, earth embankments prepared for the deployment of launchers and frames for transporting missiles can be seen. From Iran International. Read the full article.
3 Claim in France: “Israel is protecting the last stronghold of drug traffickers in Syria” In a column published in the French newspaper Le Monde, historian and Middle East expert Jean-Pierre Filiu argues that “Benjamin Netanyahu still laments the ouster of Bashar al-Assad, a year and a half after the Syrian dictator was forced to flee Damascus for Russia.” The reason, according to Filiu, is that Assad, like his father before him, respected the ceasefire agreement signed with Israel on the Golan Heights in 1974. Father and son were not troubled by the fact that the agreement not only allowed Israel to capture the territory, but also to annex it.
For this reason, Netanyahu tended to spare Assad regime forces during the civil war in 2011, and focused his strikes on Iranian units and their proxies, led by Hezbollah. Filiu claims that Netanyahu reached an understanding with Russian President Vladimir Putin that allowed these targeted strikes, but showed no interest in the production and distribution of captagon, the drug that became the Syrian dictatorship’s main source of income. This was because the shipments were not intended for the Israeli market, but passed through Jordan on their way to Saudi Arabia.
In addition, Filiu notes that instead of celebrating Assad’s fall in December 2024 as a defeat for the “axis of resistance,” Netanyahu launched an unprecedented bombing campaign against the forces of the new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, while working to preserve a Russian presence in Syria. “The Israeli calculation was that Syria must remain weakened and fragmented so that Israel could secure new territorial guarantees,” Filiu explains. Filiu describes how Israel forged close ties with Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, a supporter of Druze separatism. In this way, “Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz presented themselves as protectors of the Druze community in Syria, concentrated in the Suwayda area.” He further claims that since March 2025, Suwayda has become a lawless area that has attracted captagon traffickers, since production in the rest of Syria collapsed after Assad’s fall. “Thus Israel is protecting the last stronghold of drug traffickers in Syria,” Filiu writes. According to him, this protection has led to a dramatic escalation in smuggling. Jordanian security forces, which intercepted many shipments, even carried out airstrikes against sites linked to drug trafficking in the Suwayda area, sometimes in coordination with Damascus. From Le Monde, by Jean-Pierre Filiu. Read the full article.
