Israeli defense officials have been surprised by the speed with which Iran is rebuilding major military capabilities after the 2026 war, with its ballistic missile program posing the main concern, The Jerusalem Post reports.
The assessment includes officials from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Mossad. For months, IDF experts had estimated that the Israeli strikes had set back Iran’s military-industrial complex by years.
But four months after the main phase of the war ended in April, the Israeli military is seeing a much faster recovery than it had anticipated, including in the production of ballistic missiles.
The concern also ties into Israel’s previous assessments. After striking 20 major missile and military-industrial targets in October 2024, the IDF stated that future Iranian missile production had been delayed by at least a year.
However, by early 2025, Iran had largely restored production capacity.
After about 100 more strikes in June 2025, Israel again claimed to have succeeded in disrupting Iranian production for several years. But Iran’s estimated missile arsenal grew from about 1,300 in June 2025 to 2,500 in February 2026.
During the approximately 40-day war of 2026, the United States and Israel together struck more than 2,600 missile and military-industrial targets, through approximately 30,000 strikes.
Despite the significant damage reported by Israel, Iran has managed to focus efforts on rebuilding its most critical capacities.
According to senior Iranian officials quoted by The Jerusalem Post, the new weapons are being produced much faster than Israel had anticipated.
If Tehran manages to produce 100-300 ballistic missiles per month, the arsenal could return to previous levels by early or mid-2027, potentially creating a major threat by 2028.