Why Israel is trying to develop its missile defense systems?

As the Israeli military has recently shown signs of willingness for more intervention in neighboring territories, a new multi-layered missile defense system is about to be used by the Israeli regime. This has raised some speculations on why Tel-Aviv needs yet a new missile defense system.

کد خبر: ۶۷۸۸۵۶

تاریخ: ۰۱ فروردين ۱۳۹۶ - ۱۸:۴۷

Tabnak - As the Israeli military has recently shown signs of willingness for more intervention in neighboring territories, a new multi-layered missile defense system is about to be used by the Israeli regime. This has raised some speculations on why Tel-Aviv needs yet a new missile defense system.

A high-ranking Israeli military official recently said that the Israeli regime will soon make use of a new missile interceptor system named "David’s Sling”. According to Associated Press the official said David's Sling, meant to counter medium-range missiles possessed by Lebanon’s Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, will be operational in early April, marking the completion of the entire system.

The current Israeli missile defense system includes the Arrow, designed to intercept long-range ballistic missiles in the stratosphere with an eye on Iran, and Iron Dome, which the Israelis claim that it defends them against short-range rockets from Gaza.

After the Israelis realized the ineffectiveness of Arrow system during the 2006 war with Lebanon, they invested heavily on developing a new short-range defense system (Iron Dome). Being in operation since 2011, the Iron Dome has been devised primarily to defend against the missiles firing from Gaza.

However, the Israeli officials are in a permanent concern over the ineffectiveness of these two systems against Hezbollah’s missiles. While ago, a high-ranking Israeli military official mentioned the issue, saying that the Iron Dome does not have the ability to intercept more than 1200 missiles daily.

During the 9-day Gaza War, when the Palestinian Resistance Forces attacked the Israeli-occupied territories for the first time with a mass number of missiles, the ineffectiveness of the system appeared more clearly and some important Israeli targets were hit. That happened while the Israelis had stationed main part of the Iron Dome near the Gaza Strait to counter Palestinian missiles.

Currently, the Israeli officials are concerned over the ineffectiveness of their intercepting and defense systems on the one hand and greatly fear Hezbollah’s missile capability on the other. A main reason for this is the lack of exact information on the nature and number of the missiles Hezbollah has. Therefore, in spite of having modern and complicated defense systems, the Israelis still don’t fully trust them.

Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot writes in a report that the Israelis are witnessing a kind of arms competition and see that with Iran’s support, Hamas and Hezbollah are developing their missile capability. So, their missiles are becoming more and more advanced and operational and could pass through different modern missile defense systems.

The paper goes further saying that during the recent years, Hamas and Hezbollah have concentrated on not the number of their missiles, but on their accuracy and destroying power and Tehran has turned the Gaza Strait into a backyard for its military industry.

At the same time, some observers believe that Israel is expanding and developing its defense layers with the aim of conducting a new war against Hezbollah sometime soon. In this regard, some Israeli observers have started talking about the necessity of a preventive attack against Lebanon. However, no one can be sure what will be the consequences of a new war in the region.