Israel's multitiered air defense soon to be fully operational

The David's Sling joint U.S.-Israel missile interceptor will be operational in early April, completing Israel's multitiered air defense system, a senior Israeli Air Force official said Monday.

Developed and manufactured jointly by Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and American defense contractor Raytheon, David's Sling is designed to counter medium- to long-range projectiles. It is part of Israel's four-tiered air defense system, comprising Iron Dome -- designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells -- the Arrow 2 short- and medium-range ballistic missile interceptor, and the Arrow 3 long-range missile interceptor.


Credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit


"David's Sling joins an existing, integrative defense system that has marked quite a few operational results," Brig. Gen. Tzvika Haimovich, head of the IAF's Air Defense Command, told reporters Monday. "David's Sling will add another tier to our defense and allow us to increase operational efficiency and improve our abilities to counter more significant, deadlier threats. David Sling, Iron Dome and Arrow allow us to provide a much better response [to threats]."

Col. Kobi Regev, commander of the David's Sling Battalion, said the system would be fully integrated in the IAF within weeks.

"In the next few weeks, we will complete a lengthy process of setting up a new operational body in the corps and integrating a new weapons system. The objective is to introduce a weapons system that will contribute to an improved and better-prepared air defense that will counter threats that are becoming more and more challenging by the day," he said.

News of the system becoming operational comes on the heels of a recent success marked by the Arrow defense system. On Friday, one of its batteries successfully intercepted a Syrian anti-aircraft missile that breached Israeli airspace.

The Arrow defense system engaged what was "a certain ballistic threat to Israel. In a situation like this, there are no dilemmas. Our job is to neutralize anything that poses any kind of threat to Israel, and that's exactly what we did," Haimovich said.

Another senior air defense officer said the decision to launch the Arrow interceptor was made by the officer serving as station commander at the time.

Operational guidelines allow station commanders to exercise discretion in such cases, exempting them from having to seek the permission of a senior officer at the IAF's Operations Directorate. These guidelines are in place as the decision-making window in such cases ranges from 15 seconds to one minute, the officer said.

"The [radar] systems detected a ballistic threat, a heavyweight projectile, that could strike Israel. There was no dilemma as to whether to neutralize the threat, regardless of whether this was a surface-to-air missile or any other projectile," he said.

The SA-5 anti-aircraft missile that was fired at IAF jets and breached Israeli airspace weighed 7 tons and carried a 200-kilogram (440-pound) warhead, the officer said. He said that while the missile was not fired with the intended purpose of striking Israeli soil, once it was airborne and given its trajectory, it was bound to do so and therefore had to be neutralized.

"It was a full ballistic trajectory. It's not the intent that matters here, it's the result," he said.

The officer said that launching an Arrow interceptor in this case was the right course of action.

"If we detect a ballistic threat to Israel tonight, regardless of the direction from which it is fired, and we can neutralize it, we will," he said.

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