The contours of modern conflict facing Israel have shifted far beyond the conventional warfare of the past. Today, Israel confronts a multi-dimensional campaign orchestrated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), whose strategies reach into cyber domains, disinformation, economic subversion, and the systematic use of terror proxies. This hybrid war poses steep new challenges to Israel’s security establishment, compelling a comprehensive update in doctrine, capabilities, and public resilience.
A Shift from Conventional Warfare
Iran’s leadership, recognizing its limitations in traditional military confrontation, has fundamentally redefined its struggle with Israel. The IRGC, a force separate from Iran’s standing army and directly answerable to the Supreme Leader, has become Tehran’s tool of choice for waging war by other means. Iranian doctrine now centers on hybrid warfare—an integration of cyber offensives, psychological manipulation, proxy violence, and economic disruption—each facet designed to exploit the perceived vulnerabilities of Israel’s open society and advanced infrastructure.
Hybrid Warfare in Practice
According to Israeli defense analysts, the IRGC coordinates a broad range of hybrid threats. Israeli security agencies have traced attempted cyberattacks on sensitive targets, including water systems, energy infrastructure, health care networks, and intelligence databases, back to Iranian-backed groups. These cyber incidents, whether detected or not, are often part of wider efforts to degrade national morale, inflict economic harm, and test the persistence of Israeli civilian defenses.
Parallel to these digital threats, Iranian efforts to destabilize Israeli society through disinformation have accelerated. Social media manipulation campaigns, deepfake videos, and orchestrated spread of misleading content seek to inflame internal political rifts, cast doubt on government authority, and erode trust both within Israel and among its allies. The IRGC’s disinformation apparatus also works internationally, clouding the reality of atrocities such as the October 7, 2023 massacre by Hamas and legitimizing groups and narratives hostile to Israel’s existence.
Proxy Warfare: The Visible Edge of the ‘Axis of Resistance’
Iran’s support for terrorist proxies is the most conspicuous aspect of its hybrid strategy. The regime has provided Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon with weapons, funding, and advanced training—facilitating attacks that have devastated Israeli civilian life. The October 7 massacre, the deadliest antisemitic attack since the Holocaust, stands as the most horrific result of this strategy. Beyond the borders of Israel, IRGC affiliates in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen (including the Houthis) contribute to the threat matrix, forming the self-styled ‘Axis of Resistance’ that operates at Tehran’s behest and amplifies the danger of escalation at any given time.
Economic and Psychological Dimensions
Iran’s hybrid playbook further extends to attempts at economic destabilization: ransomware and extortion attempts against banks, manipulation of financial data, and interference with currency transactions. While few such attacks have succeeded in causing permanent systemic harm, their cumulative effect is to heighten costs, inject uncertainty, and create a persistent sense of siege among Israeli businesses and citizens.
The psychological toll—manifested in public anxiety, politicized fears, and erosion of faith in institutions—serves Iran’s purpose of exhausting Israeli resolve. The IRGC’s model recognizes that a protracted campaign of attrition can yield dividends where direct confrontation cannot.
Israel’s Response and the Challenge Ahead
Israel has responded with a comprehensive approach, investing heavily in defensive technologies such as the Iron Dome and deploying elite cyber defense units. Military intelligence now prioritizes early detection of both cyber threats and disinformation operations, coordinating with allied agencies in Europe and the United States. Despite these successes, officials acknowledge a gap in public communications and narrative defense. Efforts are underway to improve Israel’s international messaging, counter false equivalency narratives, and reinforce the distinction between its own self-defense and the aggression of Iranian-backed terror networks.
Historical Context and International Stakes
Iran’s hybrid campaign is not pursued for the sake of territorial gain or negotiation, but to undermine the ideological and physical foundations of the Jewish state. This wider strategy mirrors similar operations by other authoritarian regimes, wherein diverse tools—from cyber tools to psychological warfare—are deployed to create instability within democracies. For Israel, the stakes are existential. Every attack, whether kinetic or virtual, forms part of a broader Iranian vision: to weaken, divide, and ultimately delegitimize Israel both regionally and globally.
Protecting the Truth and Building Resilience
The effectiveness of Iran’s hybrid war relies on exploiting ambiguity, sowing confusion, and blurring the moral line between sovereign self-defense and the atrocities of terror regimes. Israel’s counter-strategy—long a blend of ingenuity, regional alliances, and technological advancement—has increasingly integrated the defense of factual narrative and democratic cohesion as core security imperatives.
Ultimately, the campaign waged by the IRGC represents a new chapter in the longstanding conflict between Iran and Israel. It is not a battle over borders, but over the ability of free societies to withstand and counter subversion by state and non-state actors committed to their destruction.
Israel’s continued survival and security now depend on both hard power and an unyielding commitment to confronting the disinformation, psychological manipulation, and unconventional threats emanating from Tehran. In this hybrid war, the defense of truth and democratic values stands as vital as any missile defense system.
