All eyes are on Israel. Will the Government in Jerusalem to the unprecedented attack of the Iran react – and if so, how? Israel’s war cabinet met on Monday afternoon, for the second time since the mullahs’ state fired around 350 drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles towards Israel on Saturday night.
But hours before Israel’s deliberations, urgent appeals had been received from the Western world: Please no retaliation for the Iranian attack! Such a move could further lead to a highly dangerous spiral of escalation great Middle East war turn.
Israel’s most loyal ally,the USAmade it clear right from the start: on one possible counterattack Washington will not participate under any circumstances in Israel. And the German one Chancellor Olaf Scholz advised Israel to see the successful defense against drones and missiles as a success “that perhaps should not be wasted,” said Scholz: “Hence our advice to contribute to de-escalation ourselves.”
Israel is not the only one to take credit for this success in repelling 99 percent of all projectiles. This was made possible through precisely orchestrated help from allied states – above all the USA, of Great Britain, France and of Jordan.
“Look at the nature and extent of this attack. This was definitely not a breakfast greeting. It was intended to cause real, serious damage,” says the weapons expert Sidharth Kaushal from the think tank Royal United Services dem Guardian.
Iran fired at least 180 drones, and a total of 110 ballistic missiles and several dozen cruise missiles were fired towards Israel; Houthi militias in Yemen also took part in the attack.
Almost half of Iran’s missiles, analysts report today Wall Street Journal, never took off due to misfiring or crashed on the way. None of the drones even reached Israeli airspace.
Israeli anti-aircraft gun.
The reason: They have to cover a distance of well over 1,500 kilometers between Iran and Israel, take at least six hours to do so, only fly at a maximum speed of 180 kilometers per hour – and can be shot down relatively easily. The Jordanian Air Force and the USA apparently took on this task together.
Arab involvement
What is remarkable is that for the first time an Arab state actively helped militarily in the defense of Israel. In addition, even Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates shared their intelligence on Iran’s military preparations with the US and Israel.
This extraordinary cooperation was engineered by the USA, who apparently knew for ten days that and how Iran would strike. Although the mullahs’ regime had… Tehran after Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, Syria, himself announced that retaliation would be taken. But when and where initially remained unclear.
The USA, the Jordanian Air Force, the British Royal Navy from Cyprus and a French warship in the Red Sea had long since coordinated. By the end of the previous week, the allies had completed their preparations – just in time before the order to attack came from Tehran on Saturday night.
80 Shahed Drones and six ballistic missiles had destroyed the USA, the US Centcom announced on Monday. Of at least 30 cruise missileswhich were flying towards Israel, according to Israel’s army spokesman Daniel Hagari “25 still intercepted outside our borders”. These are probably the ones newly developed by Iran Paveh-351 missiles act. These cruise missiles have a range of 1,650 kilometers and take two hours from Iran to targets in Israel.
But the greatest danger came from the new ones developed by Iran Hypersonic missiles. MWith a speed of 13 to 15 Mach (16,000 to 18,500 kilometers per hour), targets up to 1,400 kilometers away can be reached in a maximum of 15 minutes.
When presenting the missile last June, Iranian state television explicitly stated that the “Fattah” could not be intercepted even by the most modern defense systems of the USA and Israel. That turned out to be clearly wrong on Sunday night. Only some of the hypersonic missiles launched made it into Israeli airspace. One of them hit the Israeli air force base Nevatimbut caused relatively little damage there.
The Iron Dome once again proved its efficiency
Most of these Iranian Fattah missiles were destroyed by Israel’s famous air defense system Iron Dome. This “Iron Dome” protects Israel against mortar shells and other short-range projectiles with a range of 17 kilometers. It consists of at least ten defense system units, each with three components: a radar system, a trajectory calculator and mobile launchers for the interceptor missiles.
Since the Iron Dome was launched in 2011, thousands of rockets have been intercepted. In addition to the Iron Dome, Israel’s missile and cruise missile defense now includes other systems: the system Arrow (German: Pfeil), which is aimed at defending against ballistic missiles – and the system David’s Sling (David’s Slingshot), which is intended to intercept medium-range rockets and medium-range guided missiles.
As successful as this system was in defending against Iranian missiles, it is also expensive: a single defense missile from the Arrow system costs $3.5 million, a missile from “David’s Slingshot” costs around $800,000. The entire cost is the Iranian attack According to rough estimates, the cost of warding off would therefore amount to the equivalent of at least one billion euros.
But it was expensive, according to Israeli military experts; The attack also affects Iran itself – although there are no cost estimates.
