Iran launched nearly 400 missiles on Israel on Tuesday as a retaliation to the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Iran fired around 400 missiles into Israel on Tuesday evening as a retaliation to the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, escalating the years-long conflict between Israel and Iran and its Arab allies and triggering a bigger war in the Middle East. Seconds into the attack, Israel put up its anti-missile system to intercept Iran and sounded air raid sirens as residents scrambled into bomb shelters.
Israel has a layered air defence system, which he described as “multiple umbrellas of protection”.
Israel’s three key air defence systems:
- Iron Dome: Intercepts short-range surface-to-surface rockets (bottom layer 70km range)
- David’s Sling: Intercepts short to medium, and medium to long-range surface-to-surface missiles (middle layer 300km range)
- Arrow 2 and 3: Intercepts medium to long-range, and long-range missiles (upper layer Arrow-3 range 2,400km)
Israel has been intercepting missiles through the ‘Iron Dome’ air defence system, which was built to intercept frequent incoming unguided short-range rockets fired by Hezbollah and Hamas. However, Iran’s ballistic missiles were fired at a much higher altitude – which pushed Israel to put up different intercept systems such as the ‘David’ Sling’ and ‘Arrow 2 and 3’.
The two systems, along with the ‘Iron Dome’, were last used by Israel in April last year to intercept more than 300 drones, ballistic and cruise missiles launched by Iran.
Developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems with US backing, the ‘Iron Dome’ became operational in 2011. It was specifically designed to intercept frequent incoming unguided short-range rockets fired by Hezbollah and Hamas.
The system determines whether a rocket is on course to hit a populated area. If not, the rocket is ignored and allowed to land harmlessly.
‘Iron Dome’ was originally billed as providing city-sized coverage against rockets with ranges of between 4 and 70 km (2.5 to 43 miles). However, according to experts, this has since been expanded.
A naval version of the Iron Dome to protect ships and sea-based assets was deployed in 2017, reported Reuters.
The mid-range ‘David’s Sling’ system is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles fired from 100 km to 200 km (62 to 124 miles) away. Developed and manufactured jointly by Israel’s state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and the US RTX Corp, formerly known as Raytheon, ‘David’s Sling’ is also designed to intercept aircraft, drones and cruise missiles.
The long-range ‘Arrow 2’ and ‘Arrow 3’ interceptors were developed by Israel with an Iranian missile threat in mind. The systems are designed to engage threats both in and outside the atmosphere, and they operate at an altitude that allows for the safe dispersal of any non-conventional warheads.
State-owned Israel Aerospace Industries is the project’s main contractor, while Boeing Co. is involved in producing the interceptors.
Meanwhile, Israel has vowed to retaliate to Iran’s attack, saying it would respond at the “time and place of its choosing”. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the missile attack was a failure and that Iran would soon learn a painful lesson, just as its enemies in Gaza, Lebanon and other places have learned.
“Whoever attacks us. We attack them,” he said.
What are Iran’s Fattah missiles?
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it used hypersonic Fattah missiles for the first time in Tuesday’s bombardment, and 70 per cent successfully hit their targets in Israel.What we know about Hezbollah’s weapons supplies
The Israeli military reported only some fell in central and southern Israel.
Iran unveiled the Fattah (‘conqueror’) missile in June last year, claiming that they were hypersonic with the ability to hit speeds of Mach 13-15.
A hypersonic weapon is merely something that travels at Mach-5 or faster.
Military analysts say it would be the first time Iran had used the missiles.
The precision-guided missile Fattah has a range of 1,400 kilometres.
Mr Shoebridge said there were different variants of the Fattah missiles.
The longer the range, the higher they can go and travel on their high-speed arc towards targets.
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