As a show of force, the attack was unprecedented in scope, involving more than 300 drones and missiles combined, but analysts said it was also carefully choreographed — giving Israel and its allies time to prepare, and providing the Israeli government a possible off-ramp amid fears of a widening war.

The assault was designed with the knowledge that Israel’s “multi-layer systems would prevent most of the weapons from reaching a target,” said Sima Shine, head of the Iran program at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “That outcome made space for Netanyahu and senior leaders to strike a more measured tone than they could if one of the missiles had taken out an apartment building or barracks.”

Since the war in Gaza began in October, Iranian proxies from Lebanon to Yemen have launched attacks against Israeli and U.S. military installations, but Tehran has consistently signaled it has no desire for a head-on conflict. However, after an Israeli airstrike on a diplomatic compound in Damascus killed two Iranian generals this month, the country felt compelled to respond from its own territory, according to analysts and Iranian officials.

“We showed restraint for six months, considering the conditions of the region and considering that we are not seeking to expand the scope of tension,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told reporters Sunday. “It seems that the Israeli regime received the wrong signal from Iran’s restraint.”

After a January attack by an Iranian-aligned militant group in Iraq killed three U.S. service members in Jordan, Iran dispatched emissaries to Iraq and Lebanon to cool tensions and deliver guidance that attacks on U.S. bases and interests in the region should stop. The attacks subsided almost immediately and the informal truce has held.

But over the past few months, Israel has stepped up its strikes on Iranian interests across the region. The attack in Damascus was especially provocative because of its target — a diplomatic compound, traditionally exempted from hostilities — and because it killed two senior generals in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard.

There was a sense that “Iran’s passivity had encouraged Israel to push the envelope too far,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group. Vaez said Iran’s rulers were under increasing pressure to respond to Israel directly.

“You would even see commentators on state TV criticizing Iran’s strategy of restraint,” Vaez said. These pressures are new, Vaez said, and speak to the growing strength of ultra-hard-line elements within Iran.

In the two weeks since the Damascus strike, Iran’s leaders publicly and repeatedly telegraphed that its forces would respond. The country’s supreme leader pledged that Israel would “regret” its actions.

U.S. and Israeli officials began to warn over the past several days that an attack was imminent. Iran announced on social media that the barrage had been unleashed while the drones and missiles were airborne.

Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, Iran’s joint chief of staff, said the operation was “completely successful” in an interview Sunday with state-run media. Bagheri said the strikes destroyed an “intelligence center and air base”; Israel said 99 percent of drones and missiles had been intercepted, many outside Israeli territory, and there had been only minor damage to a base in the south.

Analysts said the attack was probably designed to look spectacular — a viral video showed projectiles being intercepted by Israel’s air defense system over the al-Aqsa Mosque complex in Jerusalem — while keeping death and destruction to a minimum.

“Iran didn’t inflict maximum damage,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at London’s Chatham House think tank. Yet “this was important for them symbolically,” she added, as a signal to domestic hawks and its regional proxies.

Iran took time to plan and orchestrate the response, Vakil said, an effort that Tehran hoped would demonstrate a wide range of capabilities across the region and ensure calibration was demonstrated across its disparate front lines.

In the hours after the attack, leaders in Tehran were quick to emphasize that the response was measured and contained. “Thank God, we see this mission as a successful one that brought the necessary results, so we see no need to pursue it any further,” said Bagheri, Iran’s joint chief of staff.

But Iran must now wait for Israel’s next move. While U.S. officials are urging their Israeli counterparts to refrain from a major escalation, analysts said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government was unlikely to let the Iranian assault pass without a response. War cabinet member Benny Gantz said Sunday that Israel would “exact a price” at a time and place of its choosing.

Iran is “clearly prepared for a counter response and it’s willing to up the ante,” Vakil said. “In Tehran, I think, the thinking was that if it didn’t draw the red line, this would be a slippery slope to war.”

“The punishment of the aggressor, which was the sincere promise of the powerful and wise leader of the Islamic Revolution, has come true,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in a statement Sunday, describing the hundreds of drones and missiles launched at Israel as a “defensive measure” that sent a “combined operational message.”

Videos broadcast on state television showed crowds in Tehran celebrating the strikes and Iranian lawmakers cheering in the halls of parliament.

“Hail to the fighters of Islam!” the lawmakers chanted.

Leaders in Tehran have sold the country’s foreign policy, including its support for armed groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, as an attempt to insulate the country from instability and violence.

But some Iranians fear the situation could spiral out of control, with dire consequences for a country already isolated internationally and struggling through an economic crisis. Iran’s currency has lost a third of its value over the past two years and inflation is soaring.

Sohrab, a 50-year-old information technology expert, said he fears Iran’s leaders have backed Israel into a corner, leaving Netanyahu no choice but to respond. Like others interviewed inside Iran, he spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his first name, fearing reprisals from the state.

“The Islamic Republic alone is responsible for this tension,” he said. “I consider the whole foreign and regional policy of the Islamic Republic to be wrong.”

In the hours after Saturday’s attack, Sohrab said his mother called him in a panic, asking if she should stock up on food and water. Social media feeds in Iran were filled with rumored missile sightings.

Meisam, a 37-year-old sociology graduate who now works as the manager of a cafe in Iran’s north, said he fears escalation is inevitable. Iran’s attacks will “be interpreted as the declaration of war and will involve stronger and heavier measures on the part of Israel,” he said.

“The escalation of tension and stirring up insecurity in the region is not in anyone’s favor.”