JERUSALEM—Israel has shifted the focus of its air campaign from destabilizing Iran’s ruling regime to crippling its military-industrial base, hoping to deliver a more lasting setback in the time remaining before it has to stop the fight.
The pivot comes as Israeli officials have become convinced President Trump could soon try to end the war, people familiar with the matter said. After more than 18,000 strikes by the U.S. and Israel over the past four weeks, Israel’s military already has worked through its priority targets and is now going back to hit some sites again to deepen the damage.
The shift is another sign Israel has given up on hopes of bringing down Iran’s regime from the air. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said from the war’s outset that the operation aimed to create the conditions for Iranians to overthrow their government. Israel had carried out a wide-ranging campaign against Iran’s internal security forces since the start of the war, even hitting individual checkpoints and police cars.
But Israel and the U.S. since have concluded that any uprising would be unlikely to succeed against a still-entrenched government. Israel’s military hasn’t declared any strikes on Iran’s internal security forces since the beginning of the week, and Netanyahu has stopped publicly calling on Iranians to prepare to overthrow their government.
Israel is now focused on wearing down Iran’s capability to rebuild its military. This week it says it has hit weapons and naval cruise-missile production sites in Tehran, an underwater research center in Isfahan used to manufacture submarines, and an explosive-materials production site in Isfahan.
“It looks like it’s moving from an operation to dislocate the regime and push it off balance to one that is taking advantage of this opportunity to reduce Iran’s military capabilities before they call it a day,” said Farzin Nadimi, an Iran-focused senior fellow with the Washington Institute, a U.S.-based think tank.
“Almost every military-industrial factory I know of has been struck, most of them at least twice,” he said. “They are very systematic and meticulous in this regard.”
Middle Eastern intermediaries have worked in recent days to open a diplomatic pathway to ending the war. Mediators said Iran and the U.S. each have staked out aggressive positions that make an agreement unlikely, but they are continuing to push for the two sides to meet in the coming days.
Trump has told associates he hopes to wrap up the war in the coming weeks.
While Israel still has more targets to hit, it would consider the operation a success even if it were to end now, Israeli security officials said. The U.S. and Israel have badly damaged or destroyed a majority of the facilities Iran used to build missiles, drones and warships, U.S. Central Command said Wednesday.
Israeli military officials said they understand Iran’s military capabilities can’t be eliminated by the current operation, but said Iran’s ability to threaten Israel or U.S. interests and allies has been significantly reduced.
Some former senior Israeli security officials were less sanguine about the results. Iran hasn’t agreed to scrap enrichment of uranium or to turn over its stockpiles of highly enriched fuel, and it hasn’t agreed to curbs on its ballistic-missile arsenal or funding for allied militias around the Middle East.
Gulf Arab states worry stopping the fighting now will extend Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz after the war, giving it influence over the energy industries that are their economic lifeline. An end to the war now also would leave Iran’s regime clearly in control of the streets and military operation.
Israel began the war by destroying the headquarters and outposts of Iran’s internal security services. It then hit their fallback sites including sports arenas and recreational facilities. Israel followed up by deploying fleets of loitering drones above Tehran and other areas of Iran to target individual checkpoints and roadblocks, often with the help of tips from Iranians on the ground.
The attacks hurt morale and drove some security forces to begin sleeping in their cars or under bridges, but they didn’t shake their control of the streets. There have been no antiregime protests of note during the war. Israel has now stopped those strikes.
Israel’s security establishment thinks Iran’s crumbling economy and popular anger have put the regime on an irreversible path to collapse whether it happens during the war or down the road.
Israel killed the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy, Alireza Tangsiri, along with senior Iranian naval command officials, in overnight strikes, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Thursday.
“We don’t know how much time there is until there will be some kind of deal,” said Amir Avivi, a former senior Israeli defense official close to the current government. “So really destroying the industries and eliminating top commanders and dealing with the ballistic missile launchers, this is the top priority.”
Write to Dov Lieber at dov.lieber@wsj.com