Iranian missiles 'overwhelmed' Israel's air defenses: Report

Satellite imagery revealed details of 'one of the largest ballistic missile strikes in the history of warfare,' the Wall Street Journal reports  

News Desk - The Cradle 

In this picture released by the official website of the Iranian Army on Jan. 19, 2024, a missile is launched during a military drill in southern Iran (Photo credit: Iranian Army via AP)

Satellite imagery shows that Iran’s barrage of ballistic missiles earlier this week was successful in overwhelming Israel’s air defenses despite causing only limited damage, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 6 October.

As a result, any future Iranian strikes against Israel “could have much more serious consequences if they target civilian infrastructure or heavily populated residential areas,” the WSJ concluded.

Iran fired at least 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on 1 October in response to a series of aggressions committed by Israel, including the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah in September, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force commander Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan.

The Iranian attack on Israel did not lead to any fatalities but demonstrated Iran’s advanced missile capabilities and caused major damage to three Israeli airbases.

Israel is now reportedly preparing to launch a massive attack on Iran, possibly including strikes on its oil or nuclear infrastructure, with US assistance.

Tehran has, in turn, threatened to strike Israeli power plants and oil refineries if Israel moves forward with the attack.

The WSJ reports that, unlike an earlier attack in April, “when Iran fired a large number of slower cruise missiles and drones, Tuesday’s barrage was made up exclusively of some 180 much faster ballistic missiles, one of the largest such strikes in the history of warfare. Analysts say that most of these projectiles were Iran’s most modern ballistic missiles, the Fattah-1 and Kheibar Shekan.”

“The faster the missile, the harder it is to intercept it; that’s simple physics,” said Ulrich Kühn, head of research for arms control at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Hamburg, Germany. “It’s certainly much harder to defend against ballistic missiles, and even more so if there is a bulk of them coming in on a certain target because then you have the ability to overwhelm the antimissile defenses—which is exactly what happened in Israel.”

Satellite images of the Nevatim air base in southern Israel, home to its F-35 jet fighters, show that as many as 32 Iranian missiles successfully hit within the base’s perimeter, according to analysis by professor Jeffrey Lewis at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies.

“Thirty-two missiles is a lot of missiles,” Lewis said. “We have exaggerated ideas about the effectiveness of air defenses. We have this pop-culture idea that missile defenses are much more effective or available than they actually are.”

The Iranian armed forces’ general staff, meanwhile, has promised “widespread and comprehensive destruction” of infrastructure within Israel should Iranian territory be attacked. Adm. Ali Fadavi, deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has pledged to hit Israeli power stations, gas fields, and oil refineries, according to Iranian state media, the WSJ added.