TEL AVIV (Dispatches) -- Israeli military officials have been shocked by the speed of Iran’s recovery following the early 2026 war, The Jerusalem Post has learned. This includes both military and Mossad officials, though the military was the lead evaluator of targeting the Islamic Republic’s defense sector.
Part of what is surprising is that the Zionist military was already surprised by Iranian recovery twice before: in October 2024 and January 2025.
After allegedly striking 20 ballistic missile and industrial military targets in Iran in October 2024, the terrorist Israeli military claimed it had set back Iranian future missile production by a year or more.
By early 2025, however, the terrorist regime had already seen Iran fully recover its high-speed ballistic missile production pace—so much so that the military moved up a possible fall 2025 attack to June of that year.
After allegedly attacking around 100 missile and industrial military targets in June 2025, the Zionist military claimed it had found the formula to set back Iran’s missile production by multiple
years. There was reason for its delusion, given that five times as many targets had been struck and the terrorist regime had dropped an exponentially larger volume of bombs.
Yet once again, Iran figured out ways to recover high-speed missile production, stunning the Zionist regime. What was estimated as around 1,300 missiles in June 2025 became 2,500 by February of this year, based on the terrorist regime’s calculations which have always proven wrong.
Finally, the Zionist military and the U.S. together claimed they had achieved the goal during
the approximately 40-day war in 2026. Over 2,600 missile and industrial military targets were attacked, according to their calculations and both the U.S. and Israel collectively attacked Iran around 30,000 times—an increase of 26 times compared to 2025 and over 100 times compared to 2024.
Zionist officials told the Post that every large and small part of the military industry had been shattered to pieces. Yet four months after the main war ended in April, the Post understands that the terrorist military is now seeing a stunningly speedy turnaround it did not expect—not in merely one or another specific area, but in many areas, including regarding the ballistic missile capability.
Brigadier General Muhammad Reza Naqdi, senior adviser to the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, has made clear that Iran’s missile production capacity far exceeds its launch rate.
“The number of missiles we manufacture each day exceeds the number we launch,” Naqdi stated in a recent interview.
He further warned that if a war with the United States prolongs for years, Iran will continue launching missiles until the last day. “Even if this war continues for years, until the very last day, Iran will continue to launch its missiles,” he declared.
“If a day comes when Iran runs out of missiles, that is when we will become even more dangerous for the United States,” Naqdi added, noting that Washington maintains thousands of economic interests around the world that “can all be easily destroyed”.
Iranian officials have emphasized that the country’s missile and drone production is entirely domestically manufactured, with production capacity far exceeding consumption. Even if a war lasts for years, ballistic missiles will continue to rain down on adversaries like rain.
The Post has now independently confirmed statements by senior Iranian officials that Iran is producing new weapons again at a much faster pace than expected.
The New York Times previously reported that Iran was successful in using bulldozers to reopen covered underground missile cities much faster than Israel expected. Israeli military officials are now admitting that Iran has figured out creative ways to focus on rebuilding missile and other defined threats.
The 40-day U.S. bombing and terrorist air defense campaign against Iran, instead, has significantly depleted U.S. and Israeli inventories of key munitions stockpiles, according to an analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
“The time needed to rebuild those inventories has thus become a major concern,” the think tank concluded.
CSIS agreed with the assessment by U.S. War Secretary Pete Hegseth, who stated that it will take “months and years... depending on the weapon system” to replenish U.S. missile stocks.