It has taken almost a year since the start of the Swords of Iron war, but, while intense rocket barrages at northern Israel continue, this morning, for the first time ever, Hezbollah fired a ballistic missile at the Tel Aviv area. It was intercepted by the David’s Sling system.
Hezbollah announced that it had launched a Qadr-1 missile at Mossad headquarters at Glilot, on the border between Tel Aviv and Herzliya, in response to last week’s detonating pagers and walkie-talkies that killed and injured many Hezbollah operatives, and bystanders, in Lebanon, and the killing of several of its senior commanders. The Qadr-1 is a medium-range missile, an advanced version of the Shahab-3, which was based on a North Korean design. Iran has supplied these missiles not only to Hezbollah, but also to the Houthi rebels in Yemen and to its other proxies.
A missile like the Qadr-1 flies at 3-5 times the speed of sound, or 4,000-5,000 kilometers an hour. Assuming a distance of 250 kilometers from the launch site, the time taken to reach Tel Aviv is less than five minutes.
As Dr. Yehoshua Kalisky of the Institute for National Security Studies explains, such a missile is different from a rocket. "A rocket is fired at a certain angle, and it therefore flies to a certain spot and falls. A missile has a more precise inertial guidance system, and several stages. The first acceleration stage detaches, and then the stage with the warhead continues to the target.
"A missile launched from Lebanon to Israel does not reach an altitude outside the atmosphere. A ballistic missile launched from Yemen, for example, climbs to the edge of the atmosphere, an altitude of over 100 kilometers, to reach its target. It therefore has to be intercepted by a long-range interceptor, Arrow 2 or Arrow 3, which have ranges of over 2,000 kilometers and can intercept a threat a long way from Israel. Since the distance is shorter, the missile launched by Hezbollah flies at a lower altitude, and so David’s Sling provides the appropriate response. It is designed for hit-to-kill at an altitude of 50-70 kilometers."
Is that the maximum range of Hezbollah’s threats?
"No. Hezbollah has missiles that can threaten most of Israel’s territory. Among other things, they have Scud-C and Scud-D missiles, with a range of 700 kilometers and a 500-980 kilogram warhead."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on September 25, 2024.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2024.