TEL AVIV — Israel is close to completing a missile defence shield that will destroy Iranian ballistic missiles in space or on their launch pads, a development that has sharply increased the odds of an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.
Israel’s Iron Dome rocket defence system successfully knocked out 421 rockets — an 84-per-cent success rate — in a stunning demonstration of its capabilities during the conflict with Gaza last month.
It is one part of a multi-tiered missile shield being developed by Israeli scientists that will defend the Jewish state from a variety of threats, including the vast stockpile of rockets held by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Syria’s armoury of Scuds and SS-21 ballistic missiles.
A second defensive system, Magic Wand (known outside Israel as David’s Sling), was successfully tested in late November and will be fully operational next year. A third tier consists of Arrow-2 and the soon-to-be- introduced Arrow-3 interceptors, which are designed to destroy Iranian long-range ballistic missiles in space before they re-enter the atmosphere.
Israel has deployed three Arrow batteries with a total of 144 interceptors. In addition it has several batteries of American-made Patriot PAC-2 and PAC-3 surface-to-air guided missiles that were last used in 1991 against Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles.
Iron Dome’s success is reported to have stimulated interest in the system from other countries that face rocket threats from their neighbours, such as South Korea, which has already bought the Arrow’s radar system.
Leaps in technology mean the new systems will be far more effective than those used against Saddam. According to Ben Goodlad, an analyst at IHS Jane’s, “What we’re seeing now is a far higher success rate of interception than in the first Gulf War; it’s a significant step forward.”
The Arrow batteries are capable of dealing with multiple-warhead missiles. Some defence experts believe the ability to protect its civilian population will give Israel a freer hand in dealing with the Iranian threat.
Shashank Joshi, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, says Israel’s new systems represents a “renaissance” in missile defence. “It could give Israel a degree of isolation behind which it could conduct military operations,” he says.
Joshi warns, however, that “Arrow is a different technology from Iron Dome; the nature of what they are trying to intercept is different”.
The three new anti-missile systems nearly failed to get off the ground after Pentagon experts doubted they would work. But since 2010 President Barack Obama has spent $275 million of U.S. funds developing Iron Dome and millions more on Arrow.
Even in Israel there was widespread skepticism that they would prove workable until last month’s demonstration of their effectiveness.
Israel’s early warning system relies on the American X-band radar system deployed at the Nevatim airbase deep in the Negev desert, which can detect an Iranian missile on its launch pad 1,000 miles to the northeast. The X-band system gives Israelis up to 13 minutes’ warning.
“We’ll try to ‘kill’ them at the booster stage — the moment their engines are ignited,” says an Israeli military source.
To launch a pre-emptive attack on Iranian missiles, the Israelis would use giant Eitan drones, which have a wingspan almost as big as a Boeing 737 and can hover for more than 24 hours at a time. The drones are based in Azerbaijan, which has close defence ties with Israel. With a one-ton payload, they are armed with American Hellfire missiles that can hit the Iranian missiles as their engines are fired.
“If that happens, and it isn’t as easy as it sounds,” says a well-informed Israeli source, “then the remaining missiles will be finished off by our Air Defence Command.”
In the event of an Israeli attack, rockets would almost certainly be fired into Israel from Gaza and southern Lebanon.
“We are preparing for a simultaneous attack,” says Brigadier-General Doron Gavish, the former head of Israel’s Air Defence Command. “We’re prepared for attacks on both civil and military targets with enemy missiles.”
The success of the Iron Dome system has led to a new-found confidence among the Israeli public. Last month, Tel Aviv residents raced for the shelters after air raid sirens rang out for the first time in 20 years. Two Fajr-5 rockets were successfully intercepted.
By the time a third rocket was launched and shot down a day later, most people hardly bothered to move from their café tables on the affluent Rothschild Boulevard. Many then went to the anti-missile batteries to take food and drink to the young soldiers, many of them women, who operated the system in the southern outskirts of the city.
“This new-found sense of confidence in Tel Aviv is Bibi Netanyahu’s biggest achievement,” says an acquaintance of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. “He knows now that when the showdown with Iran comes along, most Israelis will feel a lot more confident.”
Fereydoon Abbasi, the head of Iran’s nuclear programme, announced in late November that Tehran will step up its uranium enrichment program by sharply increasing the number of centrifuges used to make nuclear fuel. Iran insists its programme is peaceful.
Western analysts and most Israelis are convinced that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. According to one of the architects of the anti-missile shield, “Many commentators in the West say the Iranians are rational and will not launch an atomic bomb on Israel as they will also kill Muslims. But if our enemies are so rational, how come that two weeks ago they fired rockets at Jerusalem, a holy place for Muslims where thousands of their fellow Muslims live?”
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