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What Are Israel’s Iron Dome and Arrow Missile Defenses?

An Iron Dome launcher fires an interceptor missile as rockets are fired from Gaza, in Sderot, Israel, May 10, 2023. (Reuters)
An Iron Dome launcher fires an interceptor missile as rockets are fired from Gaza, in Sderot, Israel, May 10, 2023. (Reuters)
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What Are Israel’s Iron Dome and Arrow Missile Defenses?

An Iron Dome launcher fires an interceptor missile as rockets are fired from Gaza, in Sderot, Israel, May 10, 2023. (Reuters)
An Iron Dome launcher fires an interceptor missile as rockets are fired from Gaza, in Sderot, Israel, May 10, 2023. (Reuters)

Israel has been bracing for possible retaliation for the assassination of Iran's close ally Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week.

Here are details of the multi-layered air defenses Israel has been honing since coming under Iraqi Scud salvoes in the 1991 Gulf war.

ARROW

The long-range Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 system, developed by Israel with an Iranian missile threat in mind, is designed to intercept ballistic missiles outside the earth's atmosphere, using a detachable warhead that collides with the target.

It operates at an altitude that allows for the safe dispersal of any non-conventional warheads.

State-owned Israel Aerospace Industries is the project's main contractor, while Boeing is involved in producing the interceptors.

On Oct. 31, Israel's military said it had used the Arrow aerial defense system for the first time since the Oct. 7 outbreak of the war with Hamas to intercept a surface-to-surface missile in the Red Sea fired towards its territory.

On Sept. 28, Germany signed a letter of commitment with Israel to buy the Arrow-3 missile defense system for nearly 4 billion euros ($4.2 billion).

DAVID'S SLING

The mid-range David's Sling system is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles fired from 100 km to 200 km (62 to 124 miles) away.

Developed and manufactured jointly by Israel’s state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and the US Raytheon Co, David’s Sling is also designed to intercept aircraft, drones and cruise missiles.

IRON DOME

The short-range Iron Dome air defense system was built to intercept the kind of rockets fired by the Palestinian movement Hamas in Gaza.

Developed by state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems with US backing, it became operational in 2011. Each truck-towed unit fires radar-guided missiles to blow up short-range threats like rockets, mortars and drones in mid-air.

Rafael says it delivered two Iron Dome batteries to the US Army in 2020. Ukraine is seeking a supply as well in its war with Russia, though Israel has so far only provided Kyiv with humanitarian support and civil defenses.

A naval version of the Iron Dome to protect ships and sea-based assets was deployed in 2017.

The system determines whether a rocket is on course to hit a populated area; if not, the rocket is ignored and allowed to land harmlessly.

Iron Dome was originally billed as providing city-sized coverage against rockets with ranges of between 4 and 70 km (2.5 to 43 miles), but experts say this has since been expanded.

LASER-BASED SYSTEM

Israel's interception systems cost between tens of thousands and millions of dollars to shoot down incoming threats. Israel is developing a laser-based system to neutralize enemy rockets and drones at an estimated cost of just $2 per interception.

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Gaza Burns Cases Surge as Medical Supplies Dwindle

Palestinian Nisrine al-Najar receives treatment at a clinic set up by Doctors Without Border (MSF) in Rafah, in March Medical facilities have in the past weeks reported increasing numbers of burn victims. According to Muhammad al-Mughayyir, of Gaza's civil defence agency, Israeli forces have been using "new weapons that cause increased ignition and burning". © MOHAMMED ABED / AFP/File
Palestinian Nisrine al-Najar receives treatment at a clinic set up by Doctors Without Border (MSF) in Rafah, in March Medical facilities have in the past weeks reported increasing numbers of burn victims. According to Muhammad al-Mughayyir, of Gaza's civil defence agency, Israeli forces have been using "new weapons that cause increased ignition and burning". © MOHAMMED ABED / AFP/File
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Gaza Burns Cases Surge as Medical Supplies Dwindle

Palestinian Nisrine al-Najar receives treatment at a clinic set up by Doctors Without Border (MSF) in Rafah, in March Medical facilities have in the past weeks reported increasing numbers of burn victims. According to Muhammad al-Mughayyir, of Gaza's civil defence agency, Israeli forces have been using "new weapons that cause increased ignition and burning". © MOHAMMED ABED / AFP/File
Palestinian Nisrine al-Najar receives treatment at a clinic set up by Doctors Without Border (MSF) in Rafah, in March Medical facilities have in the past weeks reported increasing numbers of burn victims. According to Muhammad al-Mughayyir, of Gaza's civil defence agency, Israeli forces have been using "new weapons that cause increased ignition and burning". © MOHAMMED ABED / AFP/File

In Gaza City's Al-Ahli Hospital, five-year-old Amir Habib al-Habeel screams out in pain from the burns he suffered from an Israeli air strike on his home in Shujaiya a fortnight earlier.
He occupies a bed far from his mother, who also suffered burns, and who cannot move to be by her son's side.

Instead, her brother cares for him, the only available guardian after his "father was martyred", as the tearful child says, struggling to remove one of many IV tubes.

"We receive daily cases of second- and third-degree burns as a result of rocket attacks and the use of internationally banned weapons by the Israeli army," Amjad Eleiwa, an emergency doctor at the hospital, told AFP.

"Most of the cases that come to us are children and women. We don't have any capacity to deal with these burns," he said, explaining that they could not access any of the medical supplies needed to treat burns and had to resort instead to whatever was available in private warehouses and pharmacies.

"We are in dire need of medical and logistical support and medicine to deal with these cases and save them."ch
Medical facilities have in the past weeks reported increasing numbers of burn victims. According to Muhammad al-Mughayyir, of Gaza's civil defence agency, Israeli forces have been using "new weapons that cause increased ignition and burning".
Medical facilities have in the past weeks reported increasing numbers of burn victims.

Julie Faucon, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders (MSF), told AFP some of the charity's specialists have been working for two months in Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis, "supporting what we call the trauma auto burn unit".

In that time, they have received "more than 69 cases with burns. One case out of five is related to explosions", the burns specialist said.

"Three out of four" of the patients they have received are children, she said, adding that 10 of the patients have had burns on more than 20 percent of their bodies.

According to Muhammad al-Mughayyir, of Gaza's civil defence agency, Israeli forces have been using "new weapons that cause increased ignition and burning".

Mughayyir said the weapons reach extremely high temperatures and are "capable of melting bodies".

They often target "tent areas made up of nylon containing primitive materials such as wood and plastic, all of which directly affects the speed and rate of ignition", he added.

"These burns have a direct impact on people's lives and appearances. They affect skin layers and burn nerves, and there are people who become disabled as a result of that."

- No medical supplies

Access to treatment abroad has been blocked as most Palestinians cannot leave the besieged Gaza Strip
The World Health Organization has said that out of 36 hospitals in the territory, only 15 are partially functional, adding that medical facilities have been targeted more than 1,000 times since war broke out on October 7.

Mohammed Zaqout, the head of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, said "there is only Nasser Hospital in the southern areas, with 12 operating rooms, all of which are overcrowded".

"There are 16 beds in the intensive care units, all of which are occupied, and we have added a capacity of 24 beds but they are now full," he said.

"We try to distribute these cases to field hospitals, but the occupation's massacres against unarmed civilians occur on a daily and hourly basis, and no one in the world intervenes."

Access to treatment abroad has been blocked as most Palestinians cannot leave the besieged territory, as has the entry of most medical supplies, particularly since Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt since early May.

Faucon similarly highlighted the urgent need for medical supplies, pointing to surging demand among extremely meagre stocks.