MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Yesterday, millions of Israelis sought shelter from a massive missile attack by Iran. It was the second missile strike from Iran this year, and this time, it appears to have gotten through some of Israel's missile defenses. Joining me to discuss what we know is NPR's Geoff Brumfiel. Hey, Geoff.
GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: OK, so what do we know about the strike and its targets?
BRUMFIEL: Well, around 180 ballistic missiles were fired from Iran, according to Israel, and they, of course, flew to Israel. And from media reports and videos posted online, it's possible to tell what they were aiming at, actually. They struck around an air base in Israel south, a second air base in the middle of the country and then some number seem to have landed at the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv. That's where the headquarters of Israel's spy agency, known as Mossad, is located.
KELLY: Indeed. And do we know why these particular sites might have been of interest to Iran?
BRUMFIEL: Yeah. I spoke to Jeffrey Lewis at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, and he says these targets were probably chosen because they were involved with the assassination of the head of Hezbollah in Beirut last week. Hezbollah is a militant group that is, of course, very closely aligned with Iran.
JEFFREY LEWIS: It's not surprising to see Iran then target the military forces that might have been involved in those strikes.
BRUMFIEL: The Israeli airstrikes may have used planes from these bases, and of course, Mossad would have told the air force where to bomb.
KELLY: Yeah, so possibly an act of retaliation. OK. To the question of how many missiles got through, how effective was the Iranian attack?
BRUMFIEL: You know, it's sort of an interesting situation. The U.S. and Israel say they were able to intercept many of these missiles. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan called the attack, quote, "ineffective." But videos on social media tell a slightly different story. Several videos, which NPR was able to geolocate, clearly show quite a few Iranian warheads landing on or very near those two air bases I mentioned. There's also what looks like explosions at one base. It's unclear what caused that. It could have been munitions or fuel or something else.
Israel says none of its planes were damaged, but reports in the Israeli press suggest office buildings and maintenance facilities at the bases were hit. The missiles also hit what were probably unintended targets, like a school, and in the West Bank, a Palestinian man was killed by a section of an Iranian missile that fell on him. But again, Iran wanted to focus on military targets.
KELLY: I mean, Geoff, you and I have both reported from Israel, have seen the Iron Dome in action. It's, you know, a storied system of missile defense that's protected that country for years. How did any of these missiles get through?
BRUMFIEL: You know, Iron Dome is an incredible system, but actually, it can only intercept short-range rockets and missiles. Now, this is a whole different game. What Iran fired last night are medium-range ballistic missiles. They fly up into space and come down at many times the speed of sound. Israel has a separate system, known as Arrow, which can intercept these missiles, but they don't have as many Arrow interceptors they can throw at an attack.
Lewis says there were two features he thinks made this attack successful. First, they launched many more ballistic missiles all at once. That overwhelmed the system.
LEWIS: And it looks like the Iranians are using newer, more sophisticated missiles in the attack.
BRUMFIEL: Those missiles are more accurate, and they may even be able to move and avoid interceptor missiles as they come down on the target from space. Bottom line, Israel and the U.S. could stop a lot of these missiles, but we don't know how many. And I think Iran has proven it can strike targets pretty much anywhere in the nation of Israel.
KELLY: Fascinating. NPR's Geoff Brumfiel reporting there. Thank you, Geoff.
BRUMFIEL: Thank you, Mary Louise.
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