‘We expected 5,000 deaths’: ex-Israeli intel officer sees weak Iran response

Israel's leadership had braced for around 5,000 civilian deaths in an all-out war with Iran but has found its foe unable to wreak serious damage, former senior intelligence officer Miri Eisin told Iran International.

"If you put aside the human story, in general, life totally exists here, you can go out, there is food in the stores," said Eisin, a senior fellow at the International Institute for counter-terrorism and a retired colonel of the Israeli Defense Forces. Nobody is happy but the stress has not brought panic. That’s amazing in itself.”

Still, Iran’s retaliatory attacks are far heavier than the two last year when Iran first launched direct attacks on Israel, with missile payloads ranging from 500kg to a ton, says Eisin, who served as the first female Deputy Head of the Combat Intelligence Corps.

“We had estimated 5,000 deaths - we expected more barrages - and the risk of Hezbollah and the Houthis joining in simultaneously,” Eisin said, while as of Monday, the government cited just 24 fatalities.

“We do a guesstimate of what they can do based on worst case scenarios and expecting that the system is overwhelmed. You have to have the estimates as the hospital needs to be ready."

“Right now Iran has fired 370 missiles and 30 got through. If it hits urban areas you see the devastation there, but Israel continues to intercept more than 90% with its air defense systems which is amazing,"

The Israeli military on Monday said it had destroyed one third of Iran’s surface-to-surface missile launchers.

Delayed response

Israel’s strategy to create havoc among Iran’s command and control personnel was key to Israel's strategy, she said, a move which takes 12-15 hours to recover from.

In the first wave of attacks on Friday morning, Israel killed the senior leaders of Iran's military and struck at air defenses, missile sites and two nuclear facilities.

“I was expecting an immediate Iranian response and the lack of that is because we took out all that hierarchy and it takes several hours to get that back, hence the response was only from around 9pm and onwards,” she said.

The attacks from Iran have predominantly hit civilian targets, all the 24 deaths so far in heavily populated urban centers. Rescue service Magen David Adom said that it has dealt with a total of 708 casualties as of Monday.

Eisin said that like in Syria, many of Iran’s military and nuclear sites are deep underground and buried in urban areas, meaning that in spite of Israel sending warnings, there will also be a human toll on the Iranian side.

Multiple neighborhoods of Tehran have seen an exodus since Friday after massive strikes across the capital and Iran's health ministry said 224 Iranians have been killed since Friday, and more than 1200 injured - 90% civilians.

Israel's campaign focused on it's nemesis's nuclear program, Eisin said, and the surprise attack aimed to pave the way for Iran to make concessions in a negotiated settlement.

“The end game here is nuclear and the diplomatic channels for that are already working,” she said.