Alwaght- As Iran war nears its first month, the sporadic images that have managed to slip past the strict censorship regime of the Israeli military onto social media reveal the ongoing insecurity over this regime’s skies day and night. Sirens are blaring continuously, and daily life across the occupied territories has been completely disrupted, leaving Israelis accustomed to the anxiety of living in shelters.
The reports and images admit to the large-scale and destructive missile and drone strikes and the high rate of successful hits, especially at a time that just contrary to the previous Iranian operations this time Israel is not the only target of the Iranian armed forces and they are carrying out attacks on a wide range of interests of the US and Israel in the region. Experts agree that this means that the Iranian armed forces with only a part of their offensive power and less missile and drone firings have successfully hit their targets in the Israeli regime.
The main reason for Iran’s successful hits is obliteration of the major part of the joint and advanced Israeli air defense shield over the whole occupied territories that is aimed to prevent even the smallest strikes on Israel.
Israel covered by multilayer air defenses
Firstly, Israelis have independently invested heavily over the past decades in developing an advanced, multi-layered air defense system, supported by various systems like Arrow, David’s Sling, and Iron Dome.
In addition, NATO and the US have fully mobilized their air defense capacities in this round of conflict to protect the skies over the occupied territories. They have deployed such long-range systems as THAAD and Patriot, along with advanced radar systems on ships and bases in the region, even utilizing spy satellites capable of alerting Israel’s defense system the moment a missile is launched.
It is also evident that the joint operations room between the US, Arab countries in the Persian Gulf, and Jordan, which controls the radar and defense systems of these countries, is now actively serving to safeguard the skies over the Israeli regime.
Three reasons Israeli skies protection collapsed
Despite all these dense interception layers, since last weekend that the heavily-protected Dimona region was hit by the Iranian missiles, it seemed that the integrated Israeli air defense network has suffered a serious penetration and flaw, to an extent that some hit came without alerts by sirens, leaving the settlers with no time to flee to shelters.
Part of the reasons for this situation relates to a common military principle in warfare: no air defense system, no matter how advanced, can withstand a high volume of missile and drone attacks for an extended period. First of all, missile defense systems, due to their numerous complexities and the high technology required for radar and munitions production, cannot compete in terms of cost and production scale with missiles and drones. Consequently, it can be predicted that over the past twenty-six days, due to the high rate of Iranian projectiles, a significant portion of the enemy’s interceptor missile stockpiles has been depleted, and replenishing them is not only extraordinarily expensive but also technically unfeasible.
Meanwhile, Iran has effectively demonstrated that all the enemy’s propaganda regarding a reduction in the missile and drone capabilities of the Islamic Republic has been mere nonsense, with Iranian officials stating that the nation’s arsenal can sustain war efforts for months. This is supported by new statistics from the Royal United Services Institute. According to information provided by this institute, the stockpiles of the Israeli regime’s interceptor missiles are reported to be in a dire state and on the verge of depletion, with reserves for Arrow 3 lasting just three days, THAAD lasting between 10 to 18 days, and David’s Sling lasting 13 days.
Secondly, in recent days, the spokesman to Iran’s Khatam Al-Anbiya Military Command reported full missile dominance over the Israeli sky facilitated by destruction of the air defense radar systems that in the first stage of war have been the main targets to Iranian hypersonic missiles. So, the Israeli air defense eyes are now blinded, or left hard of seeing.
Thirdly, the Iranian armed forces are shifting to multi-warhead missiles, outmaneuvering the air defenses and maximizing the successful hits.
Meanwhile, due to the full destruction of the Israeli military infrastructure and lack of strategic depth, the Israelis are moving to hide their air defense batteries, commanders, and troops in the residential areas. So in the coming days, as Iran keeps firing missiles and drones at these targets, the Israelis will see a meaningful rise in the damages and casualties.
