Iran's missile attacks showed some calculated restraint. What will Israel's response be?

• Iran launched a barrage of exploding drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday.
• The attack was a response to an Israeli strike against Iran on April 1 in Damascus.

Iran fired hundreds of exploding drones and missiles toward Israel on Saturday.

It was a response to Israel's attack on an Iranian consulate building in Damascus on April 1, which killed multiple high-level Iranian commanders.

Iran's retaliation might sound like a lot. But Iran knows all too well about Israel's Iron Dome and its other air defense systems, which intercepted many of the incoming projectiles. US and British aircraft, US warships, and Jordanian forces also shot down some of the estimated 300 aerial threats.

Iran also warned everyone for weeks that the attack was coming — giving Israel's allies time to prepare — and avoided targeting civilian locations.

"Iran's done enough to be seen as credibly responding to Israel's Damascus strike last week," Ian Bremmer, the president of the Eurasia Group, wrote on X. "While sufficiently limited and telegraphed to avoid significant Israeli (or US/allies) escalation in response."

And then, as soon as the attack was over, Iran said it was done. Iran called it "a limited operation."

It was a response aimed at demonstrating its capabilities and saving face while — its government hopes — avoiding further escalation.

But the scale of the barrage also increased the likelihood that some of the strikes would make it through and, indeed, some of them did, although initial reports say they caused little damage.

"Iran very much tried to overwhelm Israel's air defenses," Michael Horowitz, an analyst and head of intelligence at security consultancy Le Beck International, wrote on X on Sunday. "The idea that this was just a symbolic attack, designed to fail, is wrong."

If one of the strikes had harmed any Israelis, Israeli officials would be forced to save face with their own escalation.

That last part is now up to Israel.

Will Israel retaliate against the retaliation?

Almost everyone's hoping it doesn't.

The United States, Israel's most important ally and the one who supplies many of the components that Israel's air defense systems use to protect itself, has asked them not to.

"Whether and how the Israelis will respond, that's going to be up to them. We understand that and respect that. But the president's been very clear: we don't seek a war with Iran," White House spokesman John Kirby said on NBC's Meet the Press.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not heeded US President Joe Biden's calls for de-escalation in recent months, straining relations between the two leaders.

Biden has repeatedly called on Israel to dial back its scorched-earth campaign in Gaza following the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas. Israel's retaliation for that assault has killed over 33,000 Palestinians and leveled much of the territory, plunging them into near famine.

The response has been so severe that much of the global goodwill Israel saw after the Hamas attacks dissipated — nowhere more clearly than in the executive branch of the US government.

Netanyahu is also facing serious challenges to his leadership at home.

On the day of the Iranian attack, thousands gathered in Tel Aviv to protest against Netanyahu's government. Many of them were families of hostages angry at Netanyahu's handling of the crisis.

Some Israelis have also publicly blamed Netanyahu's hardline policies for antagonizing Palestinians and Hamas. Netanyahu has dramatically expanded settlement activity, illegal under international law, in the West Bank, for instance.

How Israel will respond to this latest escalation is anyone's guess. Israel's national security minister called for a "crushing attack" on social media. But Benny Gantz, who is a member of the country's war cabinet, was more measured in his response, saying only that Israel would "build a regional coalition" and respond to the attack "in the manner and time that are appropriate for us."

Netanyahu said on Thursday, anticipating Iran's retaliation, that his country would be ready to respond.

"Whoever harms us, we will harm them," he said. "We are prepared to meet all of the security needs of the State of Israel, both defensively and offensively."

Israel and Iran have been at war for a while

While a direct attack on Israel is a major escalation, the two countries have been fighting each other for decades.

Iran's Islamic government has viewed Israel as an enemy since it seized control of the country in 1979. Israel had supported the old Iranian regime. Israel has since seen Iran as an existential threat.

Iran has long supported anti-Israel militant groups like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. For its part, Israel has conducted strikes against Iranian allies in Syria and worked to isolate Iran diplomatically, relying on its military rather than negotiations to try to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.