With the Iran-Israel conflict possibly brought to a halt by a US-brokered ceasefire on Tuesday, questions remain over the true condition of Iran’s missile arsenal after nearly two weeks of punishing exchanges.

Iran’s missile salvos proved the destructive power of its long-range missiles, turning buildings into rubble and killing dozens, even as Israel has claimed to take out much of its stockpile and the means to launch.

The ceasefire, confirmed by both the Prime Minister’s Office and Iranian state media, was announced by US President Donald Trump early Tuesday, though exchanges of fire continued for hours afterward.

In the hour before the ceasefire was set to take effect, Iran fired six separate salvos at Israel totaling some 20 missiles. The use of successive small barrages aimed at different parts of the country, which had also been employed a day earlier, marked a stark shift from the early days of the war, when Iran would seek to overwhelm Israel’s missile defenses with large-scale volleys of up to 60 missiles at a time.

According to some experts, the apparent change in strategy was a reflection of Iran’s attempts to squeeze what it could out of an increasingly depleted missile stockpile. In Tuesday morning’s case, the attack destroyed an apartment building in Beersheba and killing four people who had been sheltering in safe rooms.

“If you hit something in a populated area and you miss by 300 meters, you’re still going to hit something. You’re still going to have spectacular footage,” Fabian Hinz, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told The Times of Israel.

From high-impact strikes on urban centers to whispers of hypersonic and cluster munitions, the 12-day air war became a showcase of Iran’s firepower and a backdrop for its propaganda.

But behind the dramatic footage of collapsed residential buildings and competing claims from Tehran and Jerusalem lies a more complex picture: What remains of Iran’s arsenal? And what lessons will shape the next phase of strategic competition — or conflict?

Throughout the 12-day conflict, Iran used a combination of medium- and long-range ballistic missiles, including the Ghadr and Emad, both of which are modernized variants of the older Shahab-3. While these missiles are not new designs, they remain highly lethal if not intercepted.

“There is nothing special about those missiles,” Tal Inbar, a veteran expert in aviation policy, space, and missile issues, told The Times of Israel, “except for the fact that if one were not intercepted by missile defense systems… in urban areas, the damage is devastating.”

What makes these missiles so destructive, Inbar explained, isn’t sophisticated technology but brute force. Each carries several hundred kilograms of explosives, and even a single impact can cause widespread destruction. The resulting blast can damage structures hundreds of meters from the point of impact, making every successful hit a potential high-casualty event.

Over the course of the war, Iranian missiles killed 28 people, injured thousands and inflicted widespread damage on civilian infrastructure, even if some 90 percent of them were intercepted, according to Israeli military figures.

According to Hinz, initial launches came from western Iran, but as Israeli strikes on its missile bases and launch sites intensified, Iran began operating from areas deeper inside Iran, such as Shiraz, relying on both solid-fueled and liquid-fueled systems.

The liquid-fueled missiles — like the Emad — offer slightly longer ranges but are more logistically demanding, requiring longer setup times and larger launch crews.

Classifying Iran’s ballistic missiles is complicated by their many overlapping variants and the lack of reliable public information. The well-known Shahab-3 system, for instance, has evolved over time into more capable weapons.

“Shahab-3 was the mainstay of the Iranian missiles for years,” said Inbar, “but it was upgraded more than a decade ago into the Ghadr family.”

According to Inbar, Iran increased the range of its missiles in several ways: by boosting engine thrust, making the missiles lighter — such as replacing steel with aluminum in their structure — and refining warhead design. As a result, Ghadr extended Shahab’s original 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) range up to 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles), allowing Iran to strike Israel from further east.

The Emad represents a further upgrade, equipped with terminal guidance systems in the reentry vehicle, making it far more accurate than earlier models.

But while Iran’s missile arsenal remains dangerous, its long-term sustainability is in serious doubt. Israeli intelligence assessments estimated at the beginning of the Israel-Iran conflict that the Islamic Regime had a stockpile of roughly 2,000 ballistic missiles, according to Fox News.

But since the fighting began, many of those have been launched or destroyed in Israeli airstrikes targeting launch sites and production infrastructure.

Before the conflict, US intelligence reportedly estimated Iran could produce around 50 ballistic missiles per month. That figure, however, may now be meaningless.

“I think the production rate is almost irrelevant to their rate of fire,” said Hinz.

He noted that Israeli strikes have likely degraded or destroyed many key production facilities, such as the Shahrud complex, which manufactures solid-propellant missile motors.

“Israel has the opportunity to paralyze and ruin the missile production if they want to. They know where the subcomponents are produced,” Hinz said.

Even if some limited production continues, it falls far short of making up for the nearly 600 ballistic missiles Iran launched and hundreds more Israel says it destroyed. Fully replenishing the stockpile could take years, experts believe.

Hypersonic missiles, broadly defined, are weapons that travel at speeds exceeding five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5.

The category includes both some advanced types of ballistic missiles and what are known as hypersonic glide vehicles, which can maneuver within the atmosphere at Mach 5, far faster than traditional cruise missiles. That makes them significantly harder to track and intercept compared to traditional ballistic missiles, which follow predictable arcs.

According to Inbar, while Iran claims to possess hypersonic ballistic missiles, such as the Fattah-1, these systems are not yet widely deployed. He suggested that only a small number may be available for use, if any.

There is no solid public evidence confirming the Fattah-1’s deployment in the current conflict, though he acknowledged the possibility that some may have been launched and intercepted.

Iran is also said to be in the early stages of developing a hypersonic glide vehicle, the Fattah-2.

“It’s not operational; [Iran] never conducted any test flight,” he said. “Nevertheless, it is a hint of what Iran is thinking about for the next generation of missiles, should the regime survive.”

Inbar noted that even if Iran eventually deploys true hypersonic weapons, they are not invincible: “There are some solutions to shooting this down. It’s not a wonder weapon with no defenses against it — either in Israel or the United States.”

One notable shift in Iran’s missile use during the second half of the conflict was its introduction of submunition warheads, often referred to colloquially as cluster bombs. Unlike conventional warheads, which concentrate explosive force at a single point, submunitions disperse dozens of smaller bomblets over a wider area.

The first reported use of a cluster bomb by Iran against Israel occurred on June 19, amid a barrage that targeted central and southern Israel. According to the military, the warhead fragmented at an altitude of seven kilometers, sending small bombs raining over an eight-kilometer area.

One of the submunitions, containing an explosive warhead of approximately 2.5 kilograms, struck a home in the central town of Azor, causing damage equivalent to that of a small rocket. According to a military official, many of the other bomblets failed to explode, leaving behind dangerous unexploded ordnance that still posed a threat to civilians.

“Basically, it’s a regular ballistic missile, but the reentry vehicle does not contain a very heavy warhead,” explained Inbar. “Instead, there are a few dozen small bomblets that are dispersed.”

The impact is broader but less intense, which may reduce structural damage but increase the risk of civilian casualties.

Due to the bomblets being scattered randomly and not guided, Hinz noted that submunition warheads can be particularly challenging for the defense systems.

“You don’t need that much force to destroy [civilian infrastructure],” he noted, “but if you can increase the geographic spread of the attack, the chance of hitting something will increase, especially if the missiles are not that accurate.”

Depending on the altitude at which the submunitions are released, cluster bombs can be more difficult to intercept.

“Suddenly, you have more than one target,” he said, which complicates the defense systems’ response.

Hinz explained that Iran still retains much of its short-range missile and anti-ship missile arsenal. These weapons could theoretically be used to target US bases, commercial shipping, or energy infrastructure in the Gulf, should the conflict continue.

On Monday night, Iran made use of its short-range arsenal to carry out a missile strike on the Al Udeid air base in Qatar, which houses American troops, planes and weapons.

The attack, a widely anticipated retaliation for US strikes a day earlier on three Iranian nuclear facilities — including the heavily fortified Fordo enrichment site — marked the first known direct missile strike by Iran on a major American installation in the Gulf.

Iran claimed six missiles impacted the base, which also hosts British, Qatari, and other allied forces. However, US officials denied that any missiles struck, and Qatari authorities reported no casualties or injuries. Iran reportedly warned Doha in advance, signaling its likely intent to keep the conflict with the US from escalating.

“The short-range arsenal is still much more intact than medium-range ballistic missiles,” Hinz said.

Should the conflict with Israel continue or restart down the road, Iran could utilize the short-range missiles, which have a range of 300 to 1,000 kilometers (approximately 200-600 miles), by having its allied militias in Iraq fire them at Israel.

According to Hinz, the fact that Iran had not pursued the idea thus far likely reflected political restraint rather than technical limitations.

Israel which uses a multi-layered missile defense systems, including the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow batteries, says it is well equipped to handle such threats.

Iran could also uses its anti-ship arsenal to target shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a key global shipping lane that is a chokepoint for a fifth of the world’s oil.

In Yemen, the Iran-backed Houthis pursued a similar strategy in the Red Sea following October 7, strangling shipping through the Suez Canal.

For Iran, though, which relies on oil exports and is seemingly ready to cry uncle after over a week of strikes on its military infrastructure, such a move would carry considerable risks, including from foes much stronger than Israel, like the US.

“Unlike the Houthis, [Iran] has more to lose,” said Hinz.