Iran’s reprisal attack on Israel: A failed attack or a veiled warning? The feared reprisal had been almost two weeks in the making. But when Iran finally pushed the button on its retaliatory attack against Israel late on Saturday, it appeared to amount to little more than a drawn-out light show, resulting only in minor damage to some remote Israeli military infrastructure and the injury of a seven-year-old girl from a Bedouin community. Analysts say the Iranian operation was designed to fail from the start and had been carefully choreographed to avoid triggering an all-out regional war. At least for now.