Israeli officials privately question campaign results as Iran rebuilds
Iran has rebuilt missile base entrances, bridges, port facilities and production sites damaged during a U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign involving more than 20,000 strikes, according to Israeli and Western officials and satellite imagery from Planet Labs and Airbus. The reconstruction is occurring as the U.S. conducts strikes along Iran’s coast for a 12th consecutive day and Iran continues to attack shipping and regional allies.
Israel and the U.S. often succeeded only in collapsing entry points to missile bases deep inside mountains rather than destroying the facilities fully, Israeli military officials said. Weapons stored inside the collapsed sites were left intact, and Iran has since been excavating them.
A missile base in Dezful in southwestern Iran was struck by Israel in June 2025 and again in early March, when airstrikes buried its entrances, Planet Labs satellite images showed. Three months later, images from Airbus showed Iran digging out multiple tunnel entrances at the site. A base north of Kermanshah, which took heavy blows at the start of the war, showed crews repairing road damage and clearing dirt from collapsed tunnel entrances by the first week of June, according to Airbus imagery.
Near Kangavar in western Iran, Planet Labs imagery from March showed two tunnel entrances and an access road damaged by airstrikes aimed at blocking access to a missile base. Within weeks, Airbus imagery showed a paved road leading to freshly excavated entrances. An Israeli military official said Iran repaired a separate bridge that Israel struck with three bombs within days, a speed that surprised Israeli planners and prompted questions about targeting effectiveness.
Planet Labs imagery from early July showed partial reconstruction at a shipyard in the port of Bandar Anzali on the Caspian Sea, a facility linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Israel said it struck dozens of targets at the port in March, including warships, a command center and a shipyard used to repair and maintain vessels.
Near Tehran, Planet Labs images show partial reconstruction at Raja Shimi Industries, a plant believed to be involved in missile component production, according to a King’s College London report. Jim Lamson, a visiting research fellow at King’s College London and former CIA analyst who wrote the report, said some facilities making advanced components such as carbon fiber might take months or years to re-establish. However, he said Iran may have stockpiled those components at underground production facilities, allowing assembly of dozens or hundreds of new missiles and drones in the short term.
Ran Kochav, a former commander of Israel’s air and missile defense forces, said the rebuilding was consistent with Iran’s demonstrated ability to recover from military strikes. Iran rebuilt infrastructure and refilled missile stockpiles after a 12-day Israel-Iran war last June, before the current war began in February.
“They refilled their stockpiles,” Kochav said. “They have very impressive industrialization and reconstruction capabilities.”
Israeli military officials have privately voiced frustration with the campaign’s results. One official familiar with the targeting effort said Israel could have inflicted more damage if it had remained focused on military sites rather than shifting early in the war to target Iran’s internal security services and Basij militia checkpoints. A second official said Iran was capable of rebuilding almost everything, including missile production, because it retains the necessary expertise.
President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu both portrayed the campaign as having dealt a decisive blow. Trump posted on social media last month that “Iran’s military is a complete and total mess” and that “Much of it, like their Navy and Air Force, doesn’t even exist anymore — They have been completely defeated.” Netanyahu said in April that “We smashed Iran’s missile production machine” and that Iran “are not producing new missiles.”
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the war succeeded in destroying Iran’s missile arsenal and production, sinking its navy, weakening its militia allies and ensuring it won’t possess a nuclear weapon. “This operation was a resounding victory by any objective measure,” she said.
The U.S. Central Command declined to comment. The office of Israel’s prime minister didn’t respond to a request for comment. Israel’s military declined to comment.
Overnight in the region, the U.S. military conducted strikes hitting missile and drone facilities, operation centers and military infrastructure, in an effort to break Iran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz after a June deal to reopen it unraveled. Despite the strikes, Iran has continued to land precise hits on ships and carry out missile attacks on regional allies, including a strike that killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan over the weekend.
Tal Inbar, a senior analyst at the U.S.-based Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, said: “It turns out that the rumors about the end or the significant dwindling of the missiles were wrong.”
Israeli intelligence services believe Iran may have transferred thousands of centrifuges into tunnels inside Pickaxe Mountain. Iran’s leaders are not showing signs of relenting.
“It is a matter of will, time and money,” Inbar said.