A fresh and dangerous chapter opened in the Israel–Iran confrontation on 7 March as Israel’s military declared that a six‑day campaign of strikes was moving into a "next phase" and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed it had launched a heavy ballistic missile attack on Israeli population and infrastructure.
Israel’s chief of staff, Herzi Zamir, said the air campaign against Iran had so far involved the delivery of more than 6,000 rounds and that Israeli strikes had degraded roughly 80 percent of IRGC air‑defence systems and over 60 percent of ballistic‑missile launchers. The assertion signals a push to blunt Tehran’s conventional strike capacity and to shape the battlefield for what Israel describes as a sustained effort to undermine the Iranian regime’s military foundations.
Tehran, in turn, published a statement from the IRGC claiming it had fired a so‑called Khoramshahr‑4 "ultra‑heavy" missile carrying a one‑ton warhead that struck downtown Tel Aviv, Ben‑Gurion Airport and an adjacent air base. The IRGC’s military spokesman and other Iranian security officials framed the strikes as retaliation for what they described as recent US‑Israeli attacks on Iran and warned of intensifying and continuing counter‑attacks.
Iranian military voices also sought to cast recent hostilities in existential terms. The commander of the Khatam al‑Anbiya central headquarters accused Washington and Jerusalem of renewed aggression to cover earlier failures, blamed their operations for the death of Iran’s supreme leader in his statement, and vowed that Iran’s retaliatory capabilities would grow. Separately, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council posted that Iran was prepared to respond should the United States mount a ground operation.
Independent verification of both sides’ claims is limited. Battlefield statements in modern conflicts often contain exaggeration and strategic signaling, and assessing physical damage to air defences, missile launchers or civilian targets requires corroborating satellite imagery, open‑source geolocation and on‑the‑ground reporting. Nevertheless, the claims by both capitals mark a notable escalation that, if sustained, would carry high risks for civilians, regional stability and global commerce.
The immediate ramifications are multiple. An attack on Ben‑Gurion—Israel’s principal international airport—would disrupt civilian aviation and broaden the humanitarian stakes. Destruction of Iranian air‑defence networks would alter threat calculations for Israel and its partners, potentially inviting further strikes on Iranian territory, including sensitive facilities. The rhetoric from Tehran about readiness for a US ground operation also increases the danger of direct American involvement or a wider regional conflagration through proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.