The arrival of a U.S. high-altitude air defense battery – along with dozens of American troops – will help strengthen Israel's air defense systems, which one Israeli defense expert says are under the strain of repeated attacks by Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah.
“Israeli air defense needs all the help it can get, especially if the war escalates and turns into a war of attrition between Israel and Iran,” said Ehud Eilam, who served in the Israeli military and has long studied its security issues and policies defense.
Israel's current multi-layered defense system is designed to intercept incoming rockets and other projectiles at various altitudes and, for the most part, protects cities and military installations that have come under fire over the past year from Iran, Hezbollah and Houthi militias in Yemen.
However, as Israel prepares to launch retaliatory attacks on Iran – for recently firing more than 180 ballistic missiles – there are concerns that it will need to be ready for additional, significant attacks from that country, which has the largest stock of rockets in the Middle East
Israel, with the help of the United States, intercepted most of the rockets during the October 1 Iranian attack. However, Eilam told CBC News that not all were shot down likely means Israel is rationing its supply of interceptors.
“Israel will have to calculate very carefully how many missiles it will be able to use,” Eilam said from Boston, where he is stationed.
“He's definitely missing his rockets.”
Israel's air defense network consists of three different systems: Iron Dome, which shoots down short-range missiles, including rockets fired from Gaza; David's Slingshot, which shoots down medium-range missiles such as those fired from Lebanon; and the Arrow system, which intercepted long-range ballistic missiles from Iran.
The US-made THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system will also soon become operational.
This system can even intercept rockets passing above the Earth's atmosphere. A field-replaceable battery in military vehicles costs money approximately $1 billion USA and will be operated by 100 American soldiers.
While Washington sees the missile deployment as a significant step, Eilam says Israel and the United States will not be able to produce missiles as quickly as necessary.
Israel defends itself against attacks on many fronts, which is extremely costly.
The country is increasing production of ammunition and other weapons to arm its soldiers, who have been fighting in Gaza since last year and in Lebanon since early October.
In an article published in the UK's Financial Times, the chief executive of Israel Aerospace Industries, maker of the missiles used in the Arrow system, said its production facilities were running 24 hours a day, seven days a week to try to meet demand.
Eilam says each Arrow missile costs about $3 million.
While ballistic missiles pose the greatest threat to communities and infrastructure, defending Israel against drones has proven difficult because they are smaller, much slower and fly closer to the ground. They are also relatively cheap to produce, so they can be used on a mass scale.
Four Israeli soldiers were killed and dozens of others wounded on Sunday after a drone struck the roof of a dining room at a military base near the town of Binyamina-Giv'at Ada in central Israel.
“There was no alarm, I didn't hear a bang,” said Noam Weintraub, a 20-year-old resident of the area.
“We have an amazing air defense system… but sometimes mistakes can happen and of course as we get better, the enemy gets better with their drones.”
The Israeli military says it is investigating how the drone evaded air defense systems.
Eilam says interceptor missiles are sometimes not effective against drones.
And while a single drone won't cause anywhere near the damage of a ballistic missile, they can still be deadly, and Iran has a large stockpile of them, he says.
Its drones were also used by Russia – deployed during the war in Ukraine against cities and infrastructure.
Drones “are like terror weapons because they can come out of nowhere and just hit in the middle of some city,” Eilam said.
On Monday, several Israeli companies took part in a trial in which they tested prototypes for intercepting drones. The field test took place in southern Israel and included large defense contractors and startups. The Israeli government said it would select several technologies for accelerated testing and production.
