Israel faced a sophisticated attack from Iran
Israel Defeats Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the Israeli-Palestinian War
More than 33,000 Palestinians have died in the six months since Oct. 7, and much of Gaza has been destroyed, according to Palestinian health officials.
The strike and the reprisals represent an increase in conflict between Israel and Hamas, a situation many officials around the globe have been worried about for a long time.
In anticipation of a possible attack, President Biden had cut short a trip to Delaware in order to return to the White House Saturday. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel. And Iran will not succeed,” Biden said Friday.
“Iran is a terrorist state — the world is seeing this now more than ever,” Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant said Saturday, hours before the launch. “We are determined to defend our citizens against this terrorism, and we know how to respond to it.”
As the anticipation of a possible retaliation grew, Israeli officials warned residents living in communities near Gaza and the Lebanon border to limit the size of gatherings and to work indoors or within reach of a shelter. Schools across Israel were closed through Monday.
Four days after Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed to retaliate for the April 1 strike on an Iranian consulate in Damascus, the launch occurred. Iran blamed Israel for an attack that it said killed seven members of its Revolutionary Guard Corps, including two generals.
The launch was confirmed by the White House, where a spokesperson said President Biden would monitor the attack from the Situation Room alongside top defense and diplomatic officials.
Israel is Ready for any Scenario, defensively and offensively: Netanyahu’s State of the State Address on Saturday Night at the Tel Aviv Synagogue
“We have determined a clear principle: Whoever harms us, we will harm them. We will defend ourselves against all threats with determination, which is what Netanyahu said.
In a Saturday night address to Israelis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country was ready for “any scenario, both defensively and offensively.”
According to Israel’s military officials, 185 drones, 36 cruise missiles and 40 surface-to- surface missiles were fired toward Israel in a Saturday attack. The majority of the launches came from Iran, with a small amount coming from Iraq and Yemen.
The drones will take hours to arrive in Israeli airspace, according to Daniel Hagari. He warned Israelis to stay in safe rooms for 10 minutes if sirens in their areas go off.
Jeffrey Lewis is a member of the International Security Advisory Board and he wrote on X that Iran was using land-attack cruise missiles with a ton of explosives.
The weapons Iran used on Saturday can travel much farther, and some of them can travel much faster. Still, Israel said that nearly all of the missiles and drones that Iran fired were intercepted, many with help from U.S. forces.
Israel asked the United States to provide more precision-guided munitions for its combat aircraft and more missiles to protect it from missile attacks after the attack by Hamas in October. Israel has a weapons arsenal that includes missiles that have failed at a rate of up to 15 percent.
According to his post, different versions of that missile have also been provided to the Houthis in Yemen and to the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces.
The Defense of the Iron Dome: The UAV-Aerial System for Defense Against Iranian Killing Forces and Reactors
It should be obvious to Iran that they are not a good match for the Jewish state, especially when the United States is involved. If Israel goes after Iran with direct strikes, it won’t miss its targets.
The US military has said it has shot down a number of Iranian drones, and will continue to do so. The UK has said it will provide backup for US planes that have been diverted from their existing missions, and that it will intercept UAVs as well.
“Because there’s so much indication of warning in advance of the UAS, presumably there’s going to be a lot of fixed-wing, manned aircraft that are looking at these things, tracking these things, and presumably trying to engage these things,” says Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a policy think tank.
The fixed flight path and slowness mean that the UAS must travel for several hours before reaching their destination.
“At one level they’re not difficult to take down. They’re not stealthy, they don’t fly very fast, and they don’t maneuver,” says David Ochmanek, senior defense analyst at the nonprofit RAND Corporation. “In some way they’re like airborne targets.”
The Iron Dome is Israel’s last and arguably best line of defense, but it isn’t the only factor. The Shahed-136 drones that are in question, are made in Iran and have played an important role in Russia’s war against Ukraine. The suicide drones that are called for are relatively inexpensive to produce and designed to crash into targets.
“All of that process was designed for defense against low-flying, fast-moving missiles,” says Iain Boyd, director of the Center for National Security Initiatives at the University of Colorado. Which is another factor that makes it well-prepared for the onslaught of drones. According to Boyd, the drones are going to be flying slower than the rockets, which makes it an easier threat to address.
The Iron Dome, operational for well over a decade, comprises at least 10 missile-defense batteries strategically distributed around the country. When radar picks up objects, it sends the information to a center which will then determine if the threat is a real one or a false alarm. The system then fires interceptor missiles at the incoming rockets that seem most likely to hit an inhabited area.
