The spectre of war returns: Israel warns of Iranian missile drills

22nd December 2025

3 minutes read

The spectre of war returns: Israel warns of Iranian missile drills

An Israeli warning over Iranian missile exercises comes ahead of a planned meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump.

Israeli officials warned the Trump administration over the weekend that a missile drill conducted by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could represent preparations for a strike against Israel, according to three Israeli and American sources familiar with the matter who spoke to the US news site Axios.

Israeli sources said that while the intelligence collected so far indicates only troop movements within Iran, the Israeli military’s tolerance for risk is far lower than it was in the past, following Hamas’s surprise attack on 7 October 2023.

According to one source, Israeli intelligence raised similar concerns six weeks ago after detecting Iranian missile movements, but no action resulted at the time.

An Israeli source said that “the likelihood of an Iranian attack is less than 50 percent, but no one is willing to take the risk of dismissing it as merely an exercise”.

A US source cited by Axios stated that American intelligence agencies currently have no indication that an Iranian attack is imminent.

Israeli Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir spoke last Saturday with the commander of US Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper, informing him of Israel’s concerns regarding the missile drills launched by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a few days earlier.

Sources familiar with the discussion said Zamir told Cooper that recent Iranian missile movements and other operational steps could be used as cover for a surprise attack, and urged close coordination between US and Israeli forces on defensive preparations.

Cooper was in Tel Aviv on Sunday, where he met with Zamir and senior Israeli military officials to discuss the situation.

The Israeli military declined to comment, and US Central Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to the sources, the greatest danger lies in the outbreak of a war between Israel and Iran as a result of miscalculation, with each side believing the other is planning an attack and attempting to act pre-emptively.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet President Trump on 29 December in Miami.

Israeli sources said Netanyahu intends to discuss Iran’s efforts to rebuild its ballistic missile capabilities and the possibility of another strike against Iran in 2026.

NBC News was the first to report that Netanyahu plans to raise this issue with Trump.

Israeli sources told Axios that Israeli intelligence is seeing early signs of renewed efforts to enhance Iran’s missile capabilities, with greater momentum than observed since the twelve-day war in June.

The sources said that at the end of the war, Iran had around 1,500 missiles remaining, down from 3,000 previously, and about 200 launchers out of the 400 it once possessed.

They added that Iran has begun taking steps to rebuild its forces, but has not yet returned to pre-war levels.

Israeli intelligence agencies do not believe that the current pace of Iran’s rebuilding efforts necessitates urgent military action in the next two or three months, but they stress that the issue could become more pressing later in the year.