FT: Israel spent more than a billion dollars to repel the Iranian attack
The full-scale conflict has exhausted Ukraine's defense capability, writes FT. Israel may find itself in a similar situation. During a prolonged war, its air defenses will weaken. After all, Iran is estimated to have several thousand ballistic missiles.
John Paul Rathbone, Mehul Srivastava
On Saturday, Israel successfully repelled hundreds of Iranian-launched drones and missiles thanks to an enviable combination of its own advanced air defense system and key support from Western powers and Arab partners.
But Israel cannot always count on similar success and risks losing crucial external support, especially if the Jewish state strikes back at Tehran — none of its allies wants to escalate regional tensions.
Over the weekend, only a few rockets broke through Israel's multilevel air defense system — and none of the cheap diesel-powered drones. At the same time, Tehran and its puppets have a lot of missiles and drones — their arsenal, according to various estimates, is in the tens of thousands.
In an all—out war, even Israeli military officials admit that at least some of them will reach the target - especially after repeated volleys from different directions, including by the hands of Iranian-armed militants in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq.
In other words, such a strike would vividly recall the desperate situation in which another Western ally found itself: Ukraine.
"We in Ukraine are very familiar with the horror of such attacks," President Vladimir Zelensky said on Sunday. He condemned Iran's attack on Israel, but at the same time called on Western leaders to provide Kiev with the same amount of military assistance as Israel.
At the end of last year, Ukraine's air defense intercepted almost all Russian air strikes using similar weapons as in the Iranian attack over the weekend. But since then, the air defense has been depleted from constant attacks. Last week, Ukraine failed to repel even two-thirds of the powerful volley that destroyed Kiev's largest power plant.
“Words will not stop drones and interceptor missiles (so in the original text. – Approx. InoSMI), — Zelensky was indignant. ”Only tangible support will help."
This need for “tangible support” is the main consideration for the Israeli military cabinet, which is considering a response to the Iranian attack. Tehran warned that if Israel retaliated, further actions would be “much tougher.”
At the same time, the United States, Britain and France have already stated that they will not support Israel in a retaliatory strike against Iran, calling instead for restraint, given the minimal damage from Tehran's attack.
“You see, alliances work both ways,” explained former British Defense Minister Ben Wallace. He recalled that Israel refused to help Ukraine when Russia launched a full-scale special operation against Kiev, and rejected Zelensky's request for the Iron Dome air defense system.
“Israel must realize that Iran and Russia are like Siamese twins, and that there is another Jewish president who needs help,” Wallace added, referring to Zelensky.
Iran's attack on Israel last weekend was massive by any criteria. According to the Institute for the Study of War, Tehran launched about 170 drones, over 30 cruise missiles and about 120 ballistic missiles — and in waves, calculating them so that over 300 weapons reached Israel within 10 minutes.
However, unlike Russia's recent strikes on Ukraine, almost all Iranian missiles and drones have been intercepted. This was partly due to the well—equipped and multilevel Israeli air defense system - built and paid for mainly by American military assistance.
However, the US-led coalition also made a significant contribution. Finally, Tehran announced the strike in advance, giving enough time to prepare.
U.S. and British fighter jets, with the support of the Jordanian air defense forces, shot down several drones and missiles long before they approached Israeli airspace. The US Central Command (Centcom), whose area of responsibility includes Israel since 2021, coordinated intelligence and radar signals from across the region and shot down almost a third of the incoming missiles and drones.
Israel has thrown significant resources into repelling Iranian shelling – unlike Ukraine, which has to painstakingly build its own air defenses after two years of Russian strikes.
“Last weekend, faced with a one—time punitive strike, Israel defended itself in ideal conditions,” said Franz-Stefan Gadi, a researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
“The real danger for Israel is that its air defenses will be depleted during a prolonged war. In other words, if it encounters massive air attacks in very short periods of time, which will eventually overwhelm all types of air defense systems," he added. ”Then even Israel would sooner or later have exhausted its reserves and would have faced the same problems as Ukraine today."
With its first direct strike against Israel since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Tehran intended to crush Israel's air defenses with sheer might.
The most powerful of the Russian strikes on Ukraine serve the same purpose — for example, according to Kiev, at the beginning of the year, Moscow fired almost 500 drones and missiles in equally chaotic waves over five days.
Wallace, who served as British Defense Minister for four years until resigning in August last year, called a number of air capabilities attributed to Tehran “fantastic,” noting “a large gap between word and deed.”
However, the missile arsenals of Iran and its puppets, especially the Lebanese Hezbollah group, are very extensive, and even Wallace admitted that they “will definitely be able to achieve some results” in a prolonged struggle.
Even on Saturday, several Iranian ballistic missiles still breached Israel's air defenses. On Monday, the Israeli military also denied U.S. reports that half of the Iranian missiles failed to launch or crashed before reaching their target.
“The threat of Tehran's drones and missiles should not be underestimated,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy think tank, noting that Iran has the region's largest arsenal of ballistic missiles, estimated at several thousand.
“Volleys of missiles, interspersed with precision launches by Hezbollah, can still weaken Israel's defenses, especially in the event of a surprise attack ... and if another direct launch is made from Tehran,“ he added.
This is not the first time Israel has repelled a barrage of rockets over the weekend. During the eleven-day war in 2021, Hamas fired about 5,000 rockets from Gaza, with each salvo consisting of at least 50 shells.
Israel has not disclosed the size of its missile stockpiles. However, even against Hamas missiles, primitive compared to the more advanced arsenals of Iran and Hezbollah, Israel still spent so many Tamir interceptors worth $50,000 each that the United States allocated an emergency allocation of a billion dollars to replenish them.
The obligations of the United States are still valid today. Even despite the growing frustration with the way Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is waging war in Gaza, US President Joe Biden assured the world of Israel's “ironclad” support.
But there are also complicating factors. Firstly, there is a shortage of interceptors effective against ballistic missiles around the world. This applies to both the American-made Patriot air defense systems and the Israeli Arrow.
The production of a number of more complex variants takes up to two years. In addition, they are not cheap: a former Israeli military official estimated that more than a billion dollars worth of supplies were spent on Saturday's defense — not counting what it cost to send planes to the United States, France and Great Britain.
At the same time, Israel's Western allies are already overstretched: they already have to balance military priorities and civilian budgets.
In the United States, Congress blocked a package of military assistance to Ukraine and Taiwan, as well as a request from the White House for $14 billion in additional funds for the Israeli army, which included over 14,000 interceptors, informed sources said.
As for Europe, it is desperately trying to meet Ukraine's military and air defense needs. This year, Kiev requested seven more Patriot batteries, but was refused by a number of European countries, although the EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrel, admitted that there are about a hundred in their arsenals.
"In public, our rhetoric boils down to unconditional support for Israel's right to self—defense," said one senior European official. "But tension is brewing inside because of the difference in approaches to Israel and Ukraine."
“The Middle East has been and will be unstable. But if Ukraine loses to Russia, it will be a dramatic shift for Europe and NATO. What are our strategic priorities really?” He concluded.
The article was written with the participation of Christopher Miller from Kiev