The missile attack launched by Iran against Israel on Tuesday did more than accelerate the escalation of military tensions in the region, bringing the Middle East one step closer to a long-feared war. In a sense, the Tehran coup offered countless demonstrations of how the Iron Dome, Israel’s trump card in avoiding enemy rockets, works.

With its strengths. And weaknesses. In fact, as the Netanyahu Government opens fronts with Hamas, Hezbollah, Tehran or the Houthis in Yemen, and as Israel comes under attack with aerial munitions, as it did this week or last April, the following questions arise: How effective is the missile shield? What would happen if Israel’s enemies joined forces to attack Israel simultaneously?

What is “Iron Dome”? The name is quite epic, but it gives a precise idea of ​​what the Jewish State’s air defense system consists of. Or at least what its purpose is. The dome is nothing more and nothing less than an anti-missile shield designed to intercept and shoot down enemy projectiles with a range of up to 70 kilometers. To achieve this, it is divided into three sections: radars, a mechanism that can calculate the trajectory the missile will follow, and a battery responsible for launching “interceptors” rockets that neutralize attacks.

The shield was deployed more than a decade ago, in 2011, after the 2006 war with Hezbollah, when Lebanon’s Shiite Islamist group attacked Israel with nearly 4,000 missiles. The company Rafael Advacend Systems, which participated in the design, emphasizes that its technology, including I-Dome and C-Dome systems, has allowed approximately 5,000 interventions in the last 13 years.

For densely populated areas… and strategic. It is estimated that there are Iron Dome batteries spread across Isarel, each with three to four launchers equipped with approximately twenty Tamir interceptor missiles.

Its capacity? Each radar can simultaneously track up to 1,100 projectiles in a radius of up to 70 km2, and each of the system’s ten units can defend an area of ​​up to 150 km2. Of course, the Dome only protects certain parts of the country. Its purpose is to track enemy projectiles most likely to hit populated areas or “critical assets” such as the country’s military bases.

Effective but… Infallible? Iron Dome is effective, but does not achieve 100% infallible effectiveness. This became clear on Tuesday when Tehran launched an attack against Israel with 180 missiles, forcing alarms to be activated in major cities such as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Although some of these bullets were stopped (and neutralized) by the shield, some of them reached Israel. They show off their breasts in Tehran. Iranian president Massoud Pezeshkian said yesterday that the attack showed that the dome was “more fragile than glass”.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claims that 90 percent of the bullets hit their targets. Israel disputes that its shield managed to block most of the rockets. The truth is that everything indicates that the damage caused by the Iranian attack was minor. There is only one death, a 38-year-old Palestinian who was struck by missile debris and buried yesterday in the West Bank.

90% efficiency. This is the “success rate” that the Rafael military company and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) boast about, emphasizing that the Iron Dome managed to destroy 90% (or even more) of enemy shells. “This is the most used system in the world, having captured more than 1,500 targets with a success rate of over 90% since its implementation in 2011,” underlines RTX Corporation, an aerospace and defense company based in the US state of Virginia.

The percentage is certainly high, but it confirms that the system is not infallible, as seen in the rocket attacks Iran launched on Tuesday or in April, when Tehran sent nearly 300 drones, ballistic and cruise missiles toward Israel in response. It was claimed that Israel carried out an attack on its embassy in Syria.

“In the April attack, the ballistic missiles launched by Iran against Israel succeeded in penetrating the defenses rather than hitting the target. Twenty to thirty percent of the missiles that came to Israeli territory managed to hit. Therefore, even if these were far from effective, a decrease of 70% to 80% is very high.” “It is a significant technical achievement,” he explained yesterday. Country Guillermo Pulido, the magazine’s defense analyst armies.

A “controversial” topic. It is not easy to talk about the effectiveness of the Iron Dome, because the analysis is based, first of all, on estimates and data provided by the Israeli Government, expert Jean-Loup Samaan reminded Euro News.

“So far, the effectiveness has been said to be quite high. A 90 percent intervention rate is mentioned, but the real question is ‘what exactly does this rate mean?'” the Middle East expert states. The shield only focuses on projectiles targeting urban areas or sensitive targets. “If a rocket was launched from Gaza into an unpopulated area, the system would not activate, so it is difficult to say exactly what is behind this 90% effectiveness rate.”

What about at the strategic level? That’s the big question that Samaan leaves behind. Whatever the percentage effectiveness, whether low or close to 90%, it is clear that the Dome does not prevent Israel’s enemies from continuing to resort to missile attacks. The expert also recalls that in October 2023, that is, at the beginning of the current conflict in Gaza, Hamas fired a significant number of shells. In April, Iran deployed nearly 300 people and activated another 200 on Tuesday. “This tells us that the Dome may be operationally effective but not a strategic deterrent.”

But what about in the event of a major attack? Given the success rate, or the capacity of the system, as determined by the dome’s manufacturer and the IDF, the next question is: What happens if Israel’s different enemies, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran or the Houthis, fail? Will Yemen join forces for a joint attack?

Last year, the United States Air Force estimated that Iran had “more than 3,000” ballistic missiles; Hezbollah also has a robust arsenal of thousands of rounds, but most of these consist mostly of unguided, small surface-to-surface artillery rockets. Whether this is the case or not, the Lebanese military group guarantees that it is capable of reaching every part of Israel.

As for Hamas, the IDF itself claimed in a 2014 report that “terrorist organizations in the Strip” had 10,000 rockets, including long-range missiles such as the M-302. “Hamas controls 6,000 of them.”

Beyond the Iron Dome. The dome is just one part of Israel’s air defense system. In addition to the support that can be provided by allies such as the United States, which sent three squadrons of fighter jets to the region just before the Iranian attack on Tuesday, the Jewish State’s anti-missile shield consists of several layers. Probably the most popular, the Dome is designed for short-range rockets and projectiles from four to 70 km.

Another system is called David’s Sling, which focuses on long-range attacks, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. The BBC states that it is designed for a range of up to 300 km. The third layer will consist of Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 systems, focusing on medium and long-range ballistic missiles with a range of up to 2,400 kilometers. Planned for 2025, there will be an extra layer, a laser system for attacks up to seven kilometres.

Other key: (big) expense. The design or success rate of the defense system as well as its cost will be a key. As Samaan points out, the effectiveness of the Dome is perhaps “debatable”; What is clear is that it is not cheap to use. The Tamir missiles used to neutralize enemy attacks are estimated to cost $50,000 each. In any case, it’s a negligible amount compared to the Stunner missiles used by David’s Honda, which the BBC says cost around a million dollars a unit.

There are sources suggesting that some Israeli interceptors cost more. A report to the U.S. Congress shows that the country contributed nearly $3 billion to Iron Dome batteries, interceptors and miscellaneous costs, including maintenance.

Pictures | Raphael and Wikipedia

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