Iran Overwhelmed Some Israeli Defenses --- Strike on Tuesday suggests pain could be serious if civilian infrastructure is hit

"DUBAI -- Iran's barrage of ballistic missiles this past week appears to have overwhelmed Israel's air defenses in some places, despite causing limited damage, said independent researchers who examined emerging satellite imagery.

This means that any new Iranian strikes against Israel could have much more serious consequences if they target civilian infrastructure or heavily populated residential areas.

That is an important consideration as Israel contemplates its military response. Tehran has threatened strikes on Israeli power plants and oil refineries if Israel hits Iranian territory in a counterattack.

Unlike Iran's April 13 attack, involving a large number of cruise missiles and drones, Tuesday's barrage was made up of some 180 much faster ballistic missiles, one of the largest such strikes in the history of warfare. Analysts say that most 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 Kuhn, head of research for arms control at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Hamburg. "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, a target on Tuesday, show that as many as 32 missiles landed within the perimeter, according to analysis by Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in Monterey, Calif.

"Thirty-two missiles is a lot of missiles," Lewis said. "We have exaggerated ideas about the effectiveness of air defenses." While Israel operates the sophisticated Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 missile-defense systems, co-produced with the U.S., the interceptors are limited in quantity and costlier than the incoming Iranian missiles, Lewis said. It often takes multiple interceptors to stop one ballistic missile.

There haven't yet been publicly available high-resolution images of Tel Nof air base, another main target Tuesday. Video footage from the area showed what appeared to be secondary explosions, suggesting that ammunition or air defenses had been hit. At least one projectile landed within hundreds of yards of the Tel Aviv headquarters of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.

Iranian missiles have to travel about 550 miles to reach Israel and have proved to be relatively inaccurate at such ranges. Images of Nevatim, home to Israel's F-35 jet fighters, show that most missiles hit empty areas or roads. Only one appears to have struck a hangar, and it isn't clear what it contained. Satellite images show no damage to aircraft.

The Israeli military said Nevatim is operating normally, with planes based there launching airstrikes in recent days. "There were some hits in central Israel and some hits in southern Israel, including some hits on air-force bases, but nothing that hurt our functionality, our operation levels. No aircraft, no people, no important capabilities were damaged," said Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. 

Israel wasn't releasing more details on the damage so as not to provide intelligence to its enemies, he said.

To save interceptors, Israel usually doesn't target missiles headed for empty areas, so it isn't clear how many missiles that hit Nevatim were deliberately ignored by air defenses.

The Israelis "are brilliant at prioritizing and protecting the things that have to be protected. They may have looked at [Nevatim] and said, 'This is acceptable, I still have to prioritize Tel Aviv, I have to prioritize my critical infrastructure,'" said retired Gen. Tim Ray, who commanded the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command. "There is no way to stop everything."

Damage from the Iranian barrage wasn't commensurate with the resources expended, Ray said. "If I were to be the guy in charge of that strike, I would not be impressed with the results," he said. "While they did hit a few things -- and that's war -- they didn't truly degrade the Israelis. The Israelis were not deterred."

Israel hasn't specified what kinds of targets it will seek within Iran, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged a heavy response. 

Iran billed its Tuesday attack as retaliation for Israel's assassinations of the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas, both designated terrorist organizations by the U.S.

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

It is more complicated to inflict damage on a sprawling and hardened air base in the middle of the desert than to strike infrastructure sites in heavily populated areas. "The Israelis would care more about defending Tel Aviv" than defending Nevatim, said Lewis. "On the other hand, they would ultimately have the same problem there -- Iranians could at the end of the day overwhelm the system."

Because of that, Iran's arsenal of missiles and, even more important, its missile manufacturing capabilities, are likely to be among Israel's priority targets, said Fabian Hinz, research fellow for defense and military analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The size of Iran's -- or, or for that matter, Israel's -- missile arsenals is a national secret. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told a Senate hearing in 2022, when he was commander of the U.S. Central Command, that Iran had over 3,000 ballistic missiles of various types, some able to reach Israel.

Iran's missile stockpiles are in hardened underground facilities, but its missile plants are less protected, said Hinz. "They have a few very critical bottlenecks. These are exposed and you can target them relatively easily," he said." [1]

To give a devastating response you need missiles, not missile factories. 

The Israelis' mobility in the world is their plus (they gathered quickly in Israel) and their minus (they can quickly disperse in case of danger). Now two serious dangers appeared - Palestinians from the underground and rockets.

1. World News: Iran Overwhelmed Some Israeli Defenses --- Strike on Tuesday suggests pain could be serious if civilian infrastructure is hit. Trofimov, Yaroslav.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 05 Oct 2024: A.7.