Hamas: Israel is a terrorist state – President Biden arrives in Delaware to discuss Iran’s attacks on Israel on Oct. 7
In the six months since October 7, Israel has bombarded Gaza and invaded it, leaving much of the territory in ruins and more than 30,000 people dead according to Palestinian health officials.
The strike and retaliation represent an escalation that many officials worldwide had expressed worry about ever since the outbreak of war between Israel and the Gaza-based militant group Hamas on Oct. 7, the day Hamas led an attack on Israel that left some 1,200 people dead.
In anticipation of a possible attack, President Biden had cut short a trip to Delaware in order to return to the White House Saturday. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. Israel will be defended by us. And Iran will not succeed,” Biden said Friday.
“Iran is a terrorist state — the world is seeing this now more than ever,” Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant said Saturday, hours before the launch. Our citizens are our top priority, and we know how to respond to terrorism.
As anticipation of a possible retaliation grew, Israeli officials told residents living in communities near Gaza and the Lebanon border to limit their gatherings and to work indoors or within reach of a shelter. The schools were closed for the weekend and Monday.
The launch comes four days after Iran’s leader promised revenge for an April 1 strike on an Iranian consulate in Damascus. Iran blamed Israel for the strike which it said killed seven members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, including two generals.
The launch was confirmed by the White House, where a spokesperson said President Biden would monitor the attack from the Situation Room alongside top defense and diplomatic officials.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday night: “We’re prepared for any scenario, defensively and offensively” missiles and drones
“We have determined that whoever harms us, we will harm them.” We will defend ourselves against any threat and will do so level-headedly and with determination,” Netanyahu said.
In a Saturday night address to Israelis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country was ready for “any scenario, both defensively and offensively.”
Iran fired missiles and drones at Israel early Sunday after six months of fighting with Hamas and others in the region.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said that the drones would take hours to arrive in Israeli airspace. If sirens go off in their area, he warned Israeli’s to stay in safe rooms for 10 minutes.
According to Jeffrey Lewis, an International Security Advisory Board member at the U.S. State Department, Iran was developing missiles that could carry a ton of explosives.
The weapons Iran used on Saturday can travel much farther, and some of them can travel much faster. Israel claims that almost all of the missiles and drones that Iran fired were shot down, with help from the US.
Previously, Israel had faced aerial attacks from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whose rocket arsenal includes short-range (12 to 25 miles) and somewhat inaccurate 122-milimeter rockets of the Grad family, as well as Syrian-made M-302 rockets with a range of about 100 miles. The locally made version of the Fajr-5 is a small missile with a range of about 50 miles.
According to his post, different versions of that missile have also been provided to the Houthis in Yemen and to the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces.
Some of that work has fallen to the US military, which has confirmed that it has shot down an unspecified number of Iranian drones and will continue to do so. According to the UK, it will give backup for US planes that have been diverted from their missions and will also intercept drones.
“Because there’s so much indication of warning in advance of the UAS, presumably there’s going to be a lot of fixed-wing, manned aircraft that are looking at these things, tracking these things, and presumably trying to engage these things,” says Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a policy think tank.
That slowness and fixed flight path in particular mean the unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have to travel for several hours before they reach their intended destination, leaving ample opportunities to intercept them.
They are not difficult to take down. David Ochmanek, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, says that they aren’t stealthy, fly very slow, and don’t maneuver. “In some way they’re like airborne targets.”
While the Iron Dome is Israel’s last and arguably best line of defense, it’s not the only factor here. The UAVs in question are likely Iran-made Shahed-136 drones, which have played a prominent role in Russia’s war against Ukraine. The cheap production of suicide drones, which are designed to crash into targets, is a factor.
“All of that process was designed for defense against low-flying, fast-moving missiles,” says Iain Boyd, director of the Center for National Security Initiatives at the University of Colorado. It’s well-prepared for a lot of drones. In some ways it is an easier threat to address due to the fact that a drone is flying slower than rockets.
The Iron Dome, operational for well over a decade, comprises at least 10 missile-defense batteries strategically distributed around the country. A command-and- control center tracks threats and decides if it’s a false alarm or not, depending on the situation. The incoming rockets that seem most likely to hit an inhabited area will be fired at by the system.
