Iranian pro-regime media published an article on Monday claiming that during the recent round of fighting, Israel’s air defenses faced challenges from Palestinian Islamic Jihad rockets.
The article claims Israel’s performance represents “helplessness” and that Iron Dome “failed” and therefore Israel turned to David’s Sling, an air defense system used for medium-range missile threats.
While there is no evidence for Iran’s claims, the article presents an interesting insight into Iran’s obsession with trying to overcome Israel’s air defenses.
Iran’s fascination with Israeli air defenses
For the past several years, Iran has been fascinated by the Israeli developments in air defenses and Israel’s abilities to counter Iran’s proxies. This is an important development because Iran sought to arm its proxies such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, with longer-range rockets to terrorize Israel.
Iran did the same thing by arming the Houthis in Yemen after 2015 and also moving missiles and drones to militias in Iraq and Syria. Iran also helped Hezbollah build up a massive arsenal. Now Iran is constantly focused on how Israel confronts the rocket threat.
Iron dome anti-missile system fires interception missiles as rockets are fired from the Gaza Strip to Israel, as it seen from Sderot on May 10, 2023. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)It’s important to understand the Iranian mentality in regard to the rocket threat. Iran knows a lot about rockets and missiles. These are weapons it invested in over the years because it had the knowhow, learned from reverse engineering or studying Russian and Chinese designs and working with North Korea. Iran also knew that it had to invest in these weapons because it had seen what happened during the war with Iraq and the so-called “war of the cities” in the 1980s when Iran’s cities were bombarded and struck back against Iraq.
Iran understood that it could export missile and rocket technology to groups like Hezbollah and Hamas to be used against Israel.
Iran couldn’t export advanced warplanes or tanks for a conventional war, so rockets were a natural thing to fall back on. Simple rockets like the 107mm were common, but also the 122mm Grad rocket. Later there were many others and ranges extended from several kilometers to eventually covering most of Israel. Iran also exported drone technology.
However, Israel’s development of air defense systems, a necessity in the wake of the Gulf War and Saddam’s decision to launch Scud missiles at Israel, led to an arms race with Iran’s proxies. Iran sought to improve the technology of the rockets and missiles and extend the threat, such as moving ballistic missiles to Iraq in 2018 and 2019 or helping Hezbollah with PGM technology, basically maneuvering and precision-guided munitions.
Israel’s air defense system: Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow
Israel’s Iron Dome and other defense systems such as David’s Sling and Arrow improved as well. Iron Dome’s first interception was in 2011 and after 10 years it had intercepted thousands of munitions. It was also improved to stop drones and other threats and Israel wants to add lasers to it. Israel’s Arrow was first used in 2017 and David’s Sling in 2018. According to reports, David’s Sling was used successfully twice in the last week during the five-day conflict with Palestinian Islamic Jihad known as Operation Shield and Arrow.
Iran backed PIJ to challenge Israel and watched the conflict closely. It also watches Israeli decisions regarding air defenses closely. In May 2021, Iran attempted to get Hamas to try to overwhelm Iron Dome by firing salvos of more than 130 rockets at a time.
Iran over Passover 2023 tried to “unify” various fronts against Israel to spread out the conflict around Israel’s borders. Israel’s multi-layered air defense systems must therefore be active on multiple borders. Of the 34 rockets fired from Lebanon on Passover, for instance, several fell in civilian communities in the north, causing damage but no casualties.
While Israel’s air defense is largely a success, with a rare glitch recorded in early May, Iran has a different take on what has happened since 2018. Iran’s Tasnim News which is pro-regime and considered close to the IRGC analyzed the recent round of fighting with PIJ and concluded that Israel’s use of David’s Sling represents an achievement for Iran.
According to the Iranian media, Israel’s Iron Dome has had “failures.” Israel has thus chosen to use a “new air defense system” and “the Israeli army used the Dawood’s [David’s Sling] slingshot system for the first time in 2018 to intercept two Toshka short-range missiles that were launched from Syria, although these missiles had fallen before reaching the said system, so the Zionist regime has not been involved in any war so far.” What Iran’s media means is that the system was activated in 2018, but the missiles traveling from Syria fell short and therefore the system did not have a success in countering them.
Iran believes Israel has not used David’s Sling since then. “But in the recent conflicts with Gaza, after the defeat of the Iron Dome in dealing with resistance missiles, he [Israel] had to resort to using the said system.”
Iran’s media quotes an analyst it claims is an Egyptian as examining how PIJ’s Saraya al-Quds “military wing” used the Badr 3 rocket and Buraq rocket against Israel. It was not clear from the Iranian report what the background of the analyst is or why he was mentioned, except to give credence to Iran’s claims. The report says that PIJ had first used the Badr 3 rocket in May 2019.
”At that time, the range of these missiles was 45 km, but their advanced type, which was used in the recent clashes [May 2023] between the Israeli army and the resistance in Gaza,” and Iran believes this forced Israel to extend alerts to civilian communities up to 80km from Gaza. Iran’s Tasnim also mentions the use of the Buraq-85 missile, another addition to the arsenal.
In Iran’s view, the use of David’s Sling was “a very heavy cost for the Zionists and is Israel’s admission of the defeat of Iron Dome.” There is no evidence that this is the case.
The Iron Dome system performed as expected in the recent round of fighting and intercepted rockets fired from Gaza and protected civilian areas as it has in the past. The use of David’s Sling was a supplement to this and there is no evidence that it was used because of any kind of “defeat” of Iron Dome. Yet Iran’s media wants to believe this, likely to give the regime a sense it has accomplished something through supporting PIJ and funding its conflicts against Israel.
Iran’s Tasnim claims that Israel has a fear of Iran’s missiles now. This could mean that Iran is either purposely lying to itself to make the recent round of fighting seem like a success or it could mean Iran actually believes this and this could lead Iran to take more chances to challenge Israel via threats from Syria or other places.
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