Iran used one of its most advanced missiles in a massive attack on Israel

• Iran said it fired its new Fattah missile during Tuesday’s attack on Israel.
• The medium-range ballistic missile is one of the most advanced in Iran’s arsenal.
• Tehran claims that the missile is a hypersonic missile, but that word is regularly thrown around loosely.

Iran appears to have used one of its most advanced missiles in its massive bombardment of Israel on Tuesday, according to experts and images.

The Israeli military said Iran fired more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israel in the barrage, which Tehran described as retaliation for the killing of the Hezbollah leader last week Hassan Nasrallah and the assassination of Hamas’ political leader in July Ismail Haniyeh.

According to the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim news agency, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it fired various missiles in the attack, including the Fattah “hypersonic missile” for the first time.

Business Insider could not independently confirm the IRGC’s claims, but there is evidence that the missile has surfaced.

The Fattah-1 is a medium-range ballistic missile considered one of the most advanced in Iran’s arsenal. Unveiled in June 2023, it can travel nearly 900 miles while carrying a warhead that weighs between 770 and 1,000 pounds. Tehran calls the missile a hypersonic missile.

Shaan Shaikh, deputy director of the Missle Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI that many long-range ballistic missiles reach hypersonic speeds in their final phase. That means they travel at Mach 5 – five times the speed of sound, or over 3,800 miles per hour – or faster.

However, true hypersonic capabilities are based on more than just speed and depend on whether the missile can maintain that extreme speed and maneuver effectively during flight. It is unclear whether the Fattah meets all the criteria, but it appears to be capable of maneuvering in flight.

Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and an expert on Iranian security and defense affairs, told BI that there was evidence that Iran used large numbers of Fattahs in the attack, adding that Photographic evidence of fallen debris revealed characteristics consistent with the rocket.

Some analysts pointed out online that images of missile debris suggested the debris could have come from the Fattah or Iran’s Keibarshekan, another medium-range ballistic missile with similar characteristics, including its booster section. Experts said both missiles were used in the attack.

Nadimi and Shaikh said they did not believe Iran used the Fattah during its attack on Israel in April, when Tehran fired more than 300 missiles and drones into the country.

Conflict analysts at the Institute for the Study of War said Iran’s attack on Tuesday appeared to have circumvented Israeli air defenses more effectively than its bombing in April.

In April, Iran launched a much larger barrage with around 170 attack drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles. Almost all of these threats were intercepted.

However, in Tuesday’s attack, Tehran fired significantly more ballistic missiles and this time ignored the slower weapon systems, which in turn shortened Israel’s advance warning time, as the ballistic missiles only took a few minutes to arrive.

“It is the number of incoming missiles – the saturation effect of the large quantity attacking specific locations within a limited time – that makes it very difficult for the defense to intercept them,” Shaikh said of Tuesday’s attack.

The Israeli military said much of the missiles were intercepted by Israel and a U.S.-led defense coalition, including American warships stationed in the eastern Mediterranean. Nevertheless, some Iranian missiles managed to hit the country, although they did not appear to cause any significant damage.