“off an Israeli naval vessel.”
Cruise missiles would simplify logistics and be less vulnerable to SAMs, but I thought that given the number of targets, a non-trivial number of attack aircraft were being contemplated. If so, do the Israelis really have the capability to substitute the equivalent number of cruise missiles without detection by Iran? This would appear to require more than a single ship and a flotilla needed to launch hundreds of cruise missiles wouldn’t exactly be invisible.
If flyover rights are an issue and cruise missiles available, wouldn’t launching ALCMs that would cross Iraq undetectable or at least uninterceptible be equally effective? I don’t pretend to have an in-depth knowledge of Israeli capabilities, force levels etc. so whatever posture might be hypothetically best may well not match whatever weapons they actually have deployed etc.
The limiting factor, as I see it, is that no country will permit flyover. I do not see any at all.
Therefore, the only way to avoid flyover is either ocean or space-based. I’ve not heard that the Israelis have any space-based weaponry other than ICMB, which they do have but will not use.
Cruise, ship-based aircraft, and ship-launched commandos are the only weapons I know they have that can come directly from the Persian Gulf. Their cruise and icbms can be nuclear-tipped.