Iranian Missiles Challenge Israel’s Defense Systems
The most destructive attacks on Israel from Iranian missile barrages since the start of the war occurred over the weekend, as cluster warheads have become a mainstay in Iran’s aerial strategies.
Iran first used cluster warheads at the end of last year’s “12-Day War” with Israel. A single ballistic missile with a cluster warhead can disperse between 20 and 80 bomblets at high altitude and cover an area of up to seven miles. Each bomb carries several pounds of explosives.
This presents significant challenges to Israel’s air defense systems. Since radars cannot effectively distinguish between a ballistic missile with a conventional or cluster warhead, Israel’s advanced early-detection systems that determine when and how to fire interceptors can easily mistake one for the other. If identified correctly, a large number of interceptors would need to be launched to adequately defend against cluster bombs compared to the conventional missile, which typically requires a one-to-one interceptor ratio.
Whether or not Israel can sustain these types of attacks based on its current stockpile of interceptors is up for question. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) often selectively chooses not to intercept all aerial threats to conserve short-range interceptors. Because the cluster bombs are deemed not capable of penetrating protected residential bomb shelters, these often pass through uninterrupted, as seen in recent days.
In other words, civilians are deemed safe from cluster bombs as long as they follow the military Home Front Command’s protocol to enter protected spaces at the sound of early warnings or sirens. Any loss of property is considered acceptable collateral to preserve interceptor stockpiles. This primitive strategy, for such a hi-tech and defense-focused nation, raises questions as to the preparedness of the homeland defense for a long-haul missile war.
Recent interception failures over the weekend resulted in the most destructive attacks since the start of the war.
Five waves of Iranian missile barrages rained down across central Israel on Friday afternoon. One missile landed in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, next to the Temple Mount, while dozens of cluster bombs and shrapnel from intercepted missiles caused significant damage in the cities of Rehovot and Rishon LeZion. In the north, missile shrapnel damaged Israel’s largest oil refinery, the Bazan refinery, in Haifa. The attacks were repeated on Sunday morning. By 2 PM on Sunday, cluster bombs from six separate barrages had struck residential buildings and roads in the Tel Aviv area.
The densely populated areas in the country’s center around Tel Aviv, and the industry-laden regions in the north around Haifa have long been the prime targets for Iranian, Hezbollah, and Houthis attacks. However, two devastating missile hits in the sparsely populated regions in the south on Saturday shook the country and were chilling reminders that no area is entirely out of harm’s way.
On Saturday morning, an Iranian ballistic missile demolished a residential building in the city of Dimona — supposed home to Israel’s elusive nuclear reactor and research facilities — injuring 20 people.
Later, around 10:40 PM, a ballistic missile with 1,000 pounds of explosives struck a courtyard shared by four mid-rise apartment buildings in the quiet, desert city of Arad (also my former home). The building’s facades were blown clean off before the structures collapsed minutes later. Blown-out windows and debris littered the downtown area. One family, living six blocks away, told me their ten-story building “shook hard.” Hundreds were reported injured, and rescue teams worked throughout the night pulling people from the rubble. The attack on Arad is the most destructive so far in the course of the war.
The direct hits on Dimona and Arad, about twenty miles apart in the upper Negev Desert, were not the result of overwhelming missile barrages or cluster warheads, but failures of the air defense systems to intercept singular, conventional ballistic missiles.
“The air defense systems operated but did not intercept the missile,” said IDF spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin on the Arad attack. “We will investigate the incident and learn from it. This is not a special or unfamiliar type of munition.”
The results of any investigations, if made public, will most likely reaffirm what the Israeli public already knows and accepts: that the country’s air defense systems, although highly advanced, are not hermetic.
Speaking at the impact site in Arad on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged the public not to “rely on miracles” for defense, but to seek shelter. Reports indicated that those injured in the Dimona and Arad strikes had not been in protected spaces. “There was a full ten minutes from the [early] warning until the missile’s impact,” Netanyahu said. “If everyone had gone to protected areas in time, to the shelters that are there under every home, no one would have been injured.”
Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, responded that if Israel is unable to intercept missiles over Dimona and its heavily protected nuclear sites, then “the sky of Israel is defenseless” and Iran is prepared to enter a “new phase” in the war with “pre-planned operations.”
Netanyahu made a sharp distinction between the tactics of Israel and Iran while visiting Arad over the weekend. “We are responding with great force, but not on civilians,” Netanyahu said. “We’re going after the regime. We’re going after the IRGC, this criminal gang, and we’re going after them personally, their leaders, their installations, their economic assets.”
Netanyahu also called on European allies to join the fight against Iran and alleviate the pressure on Israel. The Islamic Republic, he said, has “the capacity to reach deep into Europe … putting everyone in their sights.”
The warning to Europe was in reference to Iran’s attempt last week to strike the island of Diego Garcia, located roughly 2,500 miles away in the central Indian Ocean. The island is a strategic joint U.S.-U.K. base and home to US bombers and nuclear submarines. One Iranian missile failed mid-flight, and the other was intercepted by a US warship. The attempted attack, however, suggests that Iran’s missile capabilities can exceed greater distances than previously assumed.
READ MORE from Bennett Tucker:
Adjusting to War in Israel, Again
Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic.