Retired IAF Brigadier General Zvika Haimovich, a former commander of the Israel Air Defense Forces, warned on Tuesday that contrary to some beliefs, Iran formally declared war on Israel this past weekend.
“I think it’s very important to understand,” he said. “Until Sunday, all the [Iranian] proxies — Yemen’s Houthis, Hezbollah, munitions in Iraq and in Syria — took part in this conflict since October 7.
“But on Sunday, we saw something different,” Haimovich emphasized. “First of all, there is no other way to describe the Iranian action on Sunday: Iran declared war, a direct war against Israel.
“There is no other way to explain almost 400 threats, all kinds of them. [The Iranians] know what they’re doing. It’s not by accident. It’s not that somebody took a decision — it’s all coming from the higher level, the leaders in Iran, and from the top down to the military forces,” he said.
During its attack on Israel early Sunday, Iran fired more than 100 “Emad” missiles at the Jewish State. The “Emad” is one of the most complicated, sophisticated long-range missiles in the Iranian arsenal, Haimovich said, with a range of 1,700 kilometers. The missiles that were fired at Israel carried warheads with more than 700 kilograms of explosives.
This war, however, didn’t start on April 14, he added. Iranian proxies have been at war with Israel since October 7. However, the largest and most sophisticated of those proxies — the Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist army — did not participate in Sunday’s attack on Israel.
Haimovich called that “one of the biggest dilemmas … a great question: why?”
Answer: “Maybe the Iranians are keeping them for the next phase,” because it’s clear this multi-front, multi-directional war with Iran is not even close to being over.
