FT: Under fire – Israel races to supply anti-missile shield

The US is racing to help close gaps in Israel’s protective shield, announcing the deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) antimissile battery, ahead of an expected retaliatory strike from Israel on Iran that risks further regional escalation.“Israel’s munitions issue is serious,” said Dana Stroul, a former senior US defence official with responsibility for the Middle East, writes ‘The Financial Times’.

“If Iran responds to an Israel attack [with a massive air strike campaign], and Hizbollah joins in too, Israel air defences will be stretched,” she said, adding that US stockpiles were not limitless. “The US can’t continue supplying Ukraine and Israel at the same pace. We are reaching a tipping point.”

The Israeli military claimed in April that, with the help of the US and other allies, it achieved a 99 per cent interception rate against an Iranian salvo of 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles.

But Israel had less success fending off a second Iranian barrage of over 180 ballistic missiles fired on October 1. Almost three dozen missiles hit Israel’s Nevatim air base, according to open source intelligence analysts, while one missile exploded 700 metres away from the headquarters of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency.

The US-supplied Thaad battery, which is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles, will sit alongside Israel’s Arrow system. It bolsters Israel’s overall air defences as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government plans its retaliatory strike for Iran’s missile barrage in October, which Tehran said was to avenge the killing of the leaders of the Hamas and Hizbollah militant groups.

Lebanon-based Hizbollah has shown it can still strike at least 60km into Israel despite weeks of Israeli attacks on its commanders and its arsenal.

On Sunday, a Hizbollah attack drone killed four Israeli soldiers at a military base in the centre of the country.

“We are not seeing Hizbollah’s full capability yet. It has only been firing at around a tenth of its estimated prewar launching capacity, a few hundred rockets a day instead of as many as 2,000,” said Assaf Orion, a former Israeli brigadier general and head of strategy at the Israel Defense Forces.

“Some of that gap is a choice by Hizbollah not to go full out, and some of it is due to degradation by the IDF...  But Hizbollah has enough left to mount a strong operation,” Orion added. “Haifa and northern Israel are still on the receiving end of rocket and drone attacks almost every day.”

Analysts said that defence planners and Israel’s AI-powered air defences were having to choose which areas to protect over others.

More than 20,000 rockets and missiles have been fired at Israel over the past year from Gaza and Lebanon alone, according to official Israeli figures.

“During the October 1 attack, there was a sense the IDF reserved some Arrow interceptors in case Iran fired its next salvo at Tel Aviv,” said Ehud Eilam, a former researcher at Israel’s Ministry of Defence. “It’s only a matter of time before Israel starts to run out of interceptors and has to prioritise how they are deployed.”

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