What defense systems does Israel have against attacks like Iran’s?

Iran attacks Israel with missiles after days of escalating tensions. As Reuters reported citing Israeli Army Radio, Iran launched nearly 200 missiles at Israel. At the moment, it is unclear how many hit a target, as most witnesses speak of missiles flying over the area.

The Israeli military said its air defense system “is fully operational, detecting and intercepting threats where necessary, even now.” Iran’s official news agency IRNA published images of the missiles flying in the country’s skies.

All eyes are once again on Israel’s air defense systems and their ability to defend against attacks like those from Iran. The best known of these is the “Iron Dome” system, developed with US assistance, which Israel has used for over a decade to repel attacks with short-range projectiles, such as rockets and mortars launched by Palestinian militias. from the Gaza Strip. It can also intercept drones, which are increasingly used with an explosive payload.

This system has proven effective over the years and especially on October 7, when Hamas launched its surprise attack on southern Israel, which began with the launching of thousands of rockets to clear the way for the militants who burst into Israeli territory. killed more than 1,100 people and kidnapped 250 others. Most of the projectiles were intercepted by the Iron Dome, which in previous escalations of violence with Hamas had been 90% effective, according to the Israeli Defense Ministry.

As its name suggests, the system creates a secure dome above the cities where it is installed, detects suspicious objects within a 100 km radius and destroys them if it considers them a threat to the population.

A dome proof against a massive attack?

But the Iron Dome is not the only defense system and, moreover, it is not enough against an attack with a large number of medium or long-range projectiles, like the one launched by Iran in mid-April last, sending more than 300 missiles and drones heading towards Israel. “The Iron Dome is not very effective against a ‘swarm attack’ with hundreds of missiles and drones fired simultaneously,” Middle East and North Africa program director Joost Hiltermann told elDiario.es. from the Crisis think tank.

This Iranian attack – which responded to an Israeli bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus during which several members of the Revolutionary Guards died – was repelled and did not cause serious material damage or deaths thanks to the intervention of the United States and in support of other countries. countries in the region in an informal military alliance created by Washington in the shadows. Few details are known about how this alliance, which first acted on April 13 to defend Israel, was coordinated. The newspaper The Wall Street Journal He explained at the time that this project had been in the works for decades and responded to the American desire to see greater cooperation between Israel and its Sunni Arab allies (Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries) against the regime. Shiite in Syria. Iran.

Hiltermann states that “Israel may have good air defenses, but it is not really prepared for a massive attack, which is why it needs American support” and that “even in April, nine missiles crossed” defensive systems, causing damage to an Israeli military base and injuring a girl.

Countries like neighboring Jordan have opened their airspace or transmitted information from their radar systems so that Israeli and American forces can destroy or shoot down missiles and drones before they reach their target. The US military’s Central Command (Centcom), which operates in the Middle East and Asia, said it had destroyed 80 Iranian drones and at least six ballistic missiles. Since 2021, Israel has been part of Centcom’s zone of influence and, the previous year, signed the so-called Abraham Accords with several Arab countries. It has also improved cooperation in all areas, including security and defense.

Other defensive systems

In addition to the Iron Dome, Israel has another system called “David’s Sling,” designed for larger rockets and short-range missiles. Like the other system, it was developed in collaboration with the United States and has been operational since 2017, according to the Ministry of Defense. Both were manufactured by the Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.

The two systems that provide the greatest coverage, although they perform much less than the two smallest, are Arrow 2 and Arrow 3. They are designed to intercept ballistic missiles fired from thousands of kilometers: Arrow 3 reaches up to 2,000 kilometers away, i.e. its radius of action includes Iran. Number 2 is optimized to destroy missiles in Earth’s atmosphere, while Number 3 can hit them when they fly higher, in space, according to the Reuters news agency. The Arrow defense system development program began in 1986, a year after Israel and the United States signed a memorandum of understanding for the development of a long-range anti-missile system. Until 1998, the Israeli army did not receive the first Arrow 2 system, and until 2017, the first of 3, capable of hitting ballistic missiles more accurately, at altitudes and distances higher, as explained by the Ministry of Defense in its report. website.

Experts doubt that Israeli defense systems will be able to cope with an attack on a larger scale than last April, even with help from the United States and other partners in the region, especially if Added to this attack are the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels. of Yemen, who launched several drone attacks against Israel from the Red Sea – in July they managed to reach Tel Aviv with a drone, which exploded and killed a man in the city. At the time, the Israeli military blamed “human error” for the failure of air defense systems to intercept the explosive drone.

Precisely, drones can penetrate defenses because they fly at low altitude and go unnoticed by radars, and Hezbollah has used them extensively in recent months, during which it confronts the Israeli army almost daily with different types of weapons .

Israelis are accustomed to sirens warning of bombings, which have sounded almost continuously since October in the northern regions, near Lebanon, and in the southern regions, near the Gaza Strip.