What foiled the attack?
Iran fired some 170 drones and well over 100 ballistic and cruise missiles on Saturday night. Most of the drones were low-flying and slow, and would have taken six hours to travel the 600 miles between the two countries; a greater threat was posed by ballistic missiles capable of making the journey in less than 15 minutes. And although its plan was well telegraphed, Iran likely hoped that this swarm would still manage to penetrate Israeli air defences and inflict significant damage; yet in the event, only a handful of missiles got through, causing relatively minor damage to an air base in the Negev desert.
With just such an attack in mind, Israel spent the past 15 years upgrading its air defence systems, said Jamie Dettmer on Politico, helped by some £3bn in aid from the US. Vital to neutralising Saturday’s attack was the “Arrow” system, which is capable of intercepting and destroying ballistic missiles outside Earth’s atmosphere, supported by the “David’s
Sling” system and by Israel’s much vaunted “Iron Dome”, which uses radar-guided missiles to destroy shorter-range projectiles and slower drones and rockets. For further protection, said Dan Sabbagh in The Guardian, Israel was able to rely on its air force jets to intercept missiles outside its airspace. The Israel Defence Forces said “99% of the threats” had been intercepted. This is estimated to have cost over $1bn – far more than Iran will have spent on its attack – but it saved many lives.
Of course, Israel had help, said Neri Zilber in the FT. US radar operators detected the first drone swarms; US destroyers helped intercept the barrage; and RAF fighter jets shot down some of the drones heading to Israel. More surprisingly, the allies were supported by the Jordanian air force, despite Jordan’s leaders having strongly criticised Israel’s actions in Gaza, said Patrick Cockburn in The Guardian. This led to angry protests in Jordan and other Arab states, even though officials insisted that the intervention was not to help Israel, but to defend Jordan’s air space.