For the second time this year, Iran has launched a major attack against Israel.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said its forces “targeted important military targets” on Tuesday and launched dozens of ballistic missiles toward Israel in retaliation for the July assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniya as well as Hezbollah leader , Hassan Nasrallah, which occurred last Friday, and for the deaths of Lebanese and Palestinians.
And also for the second time, the Israeli army activated its sophisticated air defense system, which intercepted a “large number” of the 180 rockets who entered its territory, according to the Ministry of Defense of that country.
Despite the images of the projectiles crossing the sky of cities such as Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, the authorities have assured that the attack did not leave any serious injuries in Israeli territory, although one person died in the West Bank. No significant material damage has been reported either.
In the last few hours, the famous Iron Dome has once again made headlines around the world.
However, this time there are signs that the powerful anti-missile shield He was not the only one who assumed responsibility for neutralizing the Iranian projectiles.
like an onion
The air defense system that Israel has been building in recent years has several layers, the last being the Iron Dome (Kipat Barzel, in Hebrew). The reason? It is designed to neutralize nearby threats.
The system, developed by the companies Rafael Advanced Defense Systems LTD and Israel Aerospace Industries, was put into operation in 2011 and is capable of destroying short-range rockets; that is, those launched at distances of up to 70 kilometers.
The Dome was developed after the war that Israel had with the Lebanese group Hezbollah in 2006, with the purpose of shooting down the rockets that that organization, financially backed by Iran, constantly launches from southern Lebanon, as well as the projectiles that Hamas fires from the Gaza Strip against Israeli territory.
The system has three components: a detection and tracking radar, a control post and the missile launcher armed with up to 20 Tamir missiles.
Its manufacturer assures that the Dome is 90% effective.
How does it work? When a rocket is fired towards Israel, the radar detects it and follows its trajectory, while computers in the control system perform quick and complex calculations to determine its trajectory and predict whether the projectile can hit urban or strategic areas.
From these calculations, the system decides which rockets should be intercepted and which should not.
If the rocket is headed towards a populated area, a military base or another key installation, the launcher automatically fires the Tamir missile, and the rocket is destroyed in the air, thus neutralizing the threat.
Tamirs are launched vertically from mobile or static units, giving the system great flexibility.
However, unlike other interceptors, these rockets are different, because they do not directly hit their target.
“It is a proximity weaponso it gets close enough to its target to then explode and thus neutralize it,” explained retired US Army Colonel Mark Cancian to CBS.
A single battery consists of three or four launchers, and Israel has at least 10 batteries.
The manufacturer of the Dome assures that so far they have achieved more than 2,000 interceptions.
These data allowed Cancian to qualify this anti-aircraft system as “the most used in the world and by far currently”.
Each Tamir missile costs between $35,000 and $50,000. In addition, a complete Iron Dome battery is worth approximately $100 million, according to data from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
In contrast, Hamas’ Qassam rockets cost about $800.
The other legs
But the Dome is not the only weapon in the Israeli air defense system. Two other key pieces are David’s Sling and the Arrow 2 and 3 family of ballistic missiles.
The Sling of David, in honor of the biblical passage in which the Hebrew king felled the Philistine giant with a stone, was developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and the American Raytheon in order to neutralize threats at greater distances, up to 300 kilometers.
This system demonstrated its effectiveness in 2023, when it destroyed two rockets launched by the Islamic Jihad against the cities of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, according to the Israeli press.
How is it different from the Dome? “It can hit a wider range of targets, not just rockets, but cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as drones and airplanes“Cancian explained.
Another distinctive element of Honda’s missiles is that they do hit their targets directly, thanks to a series of sensors with which they come equipped.
Likewise, these projectiles have two phases, like those used to launch satellites into space.
For its part, the Arrow system is made up of hypersonic missiles; That is, they can travel beyond the speed of sound (five times, according to their manufacturer).
This system was also developed at the end of the 20th century by American and Israeli companies, and its rockets operate at high altitudes, more than 100 kilometers from the ground, allowing them to neutralize or reach targets more than 2,400 kilometers away.
“The Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 long-range interceptors were produced with the Iranian missile threat in mind and are designed to attack threats both inside and outside the atmosphere, respectively,” reads a report published by CSIS. .
“The Arrows use a two-stage solid fuel booster to reach speeds of up to Mach 9“says the same center.
American media have reported that the Arrows can be fired before the trajectory of the potential target has been determined and that, once in the stratosphere, can change direction quickly.
“To attack the targets, the rocket has a destroyer vehicle with fins and an explosive fragmentation warhead, which can focus its explosion in a specific direction,” the CSIS report adds.
“And if the missile fails to directly hit the target, this warhead detonates at a distance of between 40 and 50 meters from the target,” the report concludes.
Allies count too
The aviation and navy of Israel’s allied countries, mainly the United States and the United Kingdom, are part of the other leg of the country’s protection against air attacks by its enemies.
In both the April attack and the one on Tuesday, American F15 fighter planes and warships They shot down numerous Iranian projectiles, official Washington spokespersons said.
The British government, which in the first attack also launched its Typhoon planes to destroy the Persian projectiles and drones, would not have used them in this case, although it assured that it “played its role” in the defense of Israel.
“Alliances are very important for Israel”, which, although it has a powerful army, is very dependent on its allies in terms of defense,” Thomas Juneau, professor of International Studies at the University of Ottawa (Canada) and specialist in Middle East issues, told CBS.
“Almost infallible”
Israeli authorities maintain that their air defense system is highly effective and has a 90% success rate.
However, experts doubt this figure and remember that the Iron Dome, for example, does not shoot at all targetsbut only against those who represent a real threat to lives and strategic assets.
Likewise, the fact that in recent years several rockets have hit Israeli populated areas, causing injuries and damage, reveals that the shielding of airspace is not complete.
On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) admitted that an Iranian missile fell on an air base in the Negev desert, in the south of the country, although it did not cause damage to equipment or facilities.
For its part, images spread on social networks showed a series of explosions in the vicinity of the headquarters of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.
Already in 2021, an incident called into question the reliability of the famous Iron Dome, when during a massive rocket launch from Gaza against the coastal city of Ashkelon “a technical problem prevented some rockets from being intercepted, and this could have caused death.” of two women and dozens of wounded,” reported the Times of Israel.
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