When 200 Iranian ballistic missiles came raining down on Israel last Tuesday, Polina Hasin rushed with her mother, her son and her dog to their apartment building's bomb shelter. From there, they could hear the explosions overhead as Jerusalem's Iron Dome defense system shot down missiles over the city's skies.

Iran’s generals and clerics have repeatedly shown a reluctance to go to war in recent months, yet the scale of Israel’s damage to the country’s regional prowess left them with little option but to retaliate.