It has been almost a year since the start of Operation Iron Swords, but while the intense rocket attacks on northern Israel continue, Hezbollah this morning, for the first time ever, fired a ballistic missile at the Tel Aviv area. It was intercepted by Israeli air defenses. David’s Sling system.
Hezbollah announced that it fired a Qadr-1 missile at the Mossad headquarters in Glilot, on the Tel Aviv-Herzliya border, in retaliation for the bombing of radios last week that killed and wounded several Hezbollah members and bystanders in Lebanon, as well as several of its senior commanders. The Qadr-1 is a medium-range missile, an advanced version of the Shahab-3 missile, which is based on a North Korean design. Iran has supplied these missiles not only to Hezbollah, but also to the Houthi rebels in Yemen and other clients.
A missile like the Ghadr-1 flies at a speed of three to five times the speed of sound, or four thousand to five thousand kilometers per hour. Assuming a distance of 250 kilometers from the launch site, the time it takes to reach Tel Aviv is less than five minutes.
As Dr. Yehoshua Kaliski of the Institute for National Security Studies explains, such a missile is different from a regular missile. “The missile is launched at a certain angle, so it flies to a certain point and falls. The missile has a more precise inertial guidance system, and consists of several stages. The first stage of acceleration separates, and then the stage carrying the warhead continues to advance towards the target.
“A missile fired from Lebanon to Israel does not reach altitude outside the atmosphere. A ballistic missile fired from Yemen, for example, ascends to the edge of the atmosphere, i.e. an altitude of more than 100 kilometers, to reach its target. Therefore, it must be intercepted by a long-range interceptor missile, the Arrow 2 or Arrow 3, which has a range of more than 2,000 kilometers and can intercept a threat at a great distance from Israel. Because the distance is shorter, the missile fired by Hezbollah flies at a lower altitude, so the David’s Sling missile provides the appropriate response. It is designed to hit the target at an altitude of between 50 and 70 kilometers.”
Is this the maximum of Hezbollah’s threats?
“No. Hezbollah has missiles capable of threatening most of Israel. Among other things, the party has Scud-C and Scud-D missiles, which have a range of 700 kilometers and a warhead weighing between 500 and 980 kilograms.”
This article was published in Globes, Israeli Business News – en.globes.co.il – on September 25, 2024.
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