Iranian missiles struck five Israeli military facilities during last month’s 12-day war, according to satellite radar data reviewed by US researchers and published by The Telegraph on Saturday.
The data, provided by a research group at Oregon State University, suggest that six Iranian missiles hit military targets across northern, central, and southern Israel, including what the report describes as a major air base, an intelligence facility, and a logistics center.
“The radar signatures we analyzed show definitive blast patterns at five separate military sites,” Corey Scher, a researcher with the Oregon State team, told The Telegraph. “These are consistent with missile strikes that likely occurred during the height of the conflict.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declined to confirm or deny the reported damage. “What we can say is that all relevant units maintained functional continuity throughout the operation,” a military spokesman told The Telegraph.
The Telegraph reported that the missile strikes described in the radar data appear to be separate from the 36 previously reported impacts on residential and industrial areas, which caused widespread damage.
According to The Telegraph, the proportion of Iranian missiles that penetrated Israeli air defenses increased during the war, rising from about 2 percent early in the conflict to roughly 16 percent by day seven.
The report did not offer definitive reasons for the increase, but cited expert suggestions that the causes “may include the rationing of a limited stock of interceptor missiles on the Israeli side and improved firing tactics and the possible use of more sophisticated missiles by Iran.”
Iranian officials told The Telegraph that the use of simultaneous drone and missile attacks was intended to confuse Israeli defense systems. “Many [drones] don’t even get through—but they still cause confusion,” one unnamed Iranian official said.
The Israeli media on Friday quoted a military official as saying that Iran began the conflict with around 400 missile launchers and that “we destroyed more than 200 of them, which caused a bottleneck in their missile operations.”
The same official estimated that Iran started the war with 2,000 to 2,500 ballistic missiles and is pursuing mass production that could dramatically expand its arsenal.
A more comprehensive analysis of the damage to both Israeli and Iranian infrastructure is expected from the Oregon State research group within two weeks, according to the report.
The group uses radar-based methods that detect changes in the built environment, but it acknowledged that full confirmation of military site hits would require either on-the-ground access or high-resolution satellite imagery.
