An Israeli nightmare almost came true

[Skybird]

Die Welt writes: https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/...wird-wahr.html

A rocket from Syria hits the south of Israel, not far from an atomic research center. This is exactly the scenario that Jerusalem has been trying to prevent for years - with military attacks in Syria and Iraq. An archenemy uses the incident for dangerous propaganda.

When the air raid sirens went on in the region around Dimona on Thursday night, there was great concern. Because in the barren desert region in the south of Israel there is not only one of only two Israeli nuclear reactors, it is also the home of the heart of the Israeli nuclear weapons program. The nuclear research facility is a high-level strategic target for Israel's enemies and is far away from the civil war in Syria and the highly armed Hezbollah militia in neighboring Lebanon to the north.

A successful attack would be a major blow against Israel and evidence that its enemies have reached a new level of escalation. According to the Israeli military, it was actually an attack from Syria, but the missile did not explode in the nuclear research center, but in the air 30 kilometers from Dimona and without causing any damage. The incident is worrying, however, because the Israeli air defense apparently failed to intercept the missile even though a Patriot anti-aircraft battery had been activated.

Two days earlier, the Iranian media had cheered an explosion in an Israeli missile factory and indicated that it could be sabotage. And just last weekend a newspaper closely associated with the Iranian revolutionary leader Ali Khamenei called for attacks on Dimona in Iran in response to the Israeli sabotage at the Iranian uranium enrichment plant in Natanz.


According to the Israeli military, the missile that flew 300 kilometers from Syria to the Dimona region was not a targeted attack on Israel's nuclear facility. Rather, it was an SA-5 surface-to-air missile that shot down a Syrian air defense unit against an Israeli fighter aircraft. Accordingly, the rocket missed its actual target and landed only by chance in the strategically sensitive region around Dimona.

Nevertheless, it was the most serious attack from Syria since the beginning of the civil war. Israel responded that night with attacks on Syrian air defense positions - including the one from which the missile was shot down.

Israel’s military has so far tried to downplay the incident. In fact, for a moment, one of those nightmare scenarios that Israel has been trying to prevent for years materialized here. Namely, that Israel's enemies station modern weapons on its border that can target strategic goals deep inside Israel. "If the rocket had hit the nuclear center, the Israelis would wake up today in a completely different reality," analyzes the Jerusalem Post.

Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war and the expansion of Iranian influence in the neighboring country, Israel has waged a steady struggle against being strategically encircled by Iran and its militias. The ultimate goal: to prevent Iran from setting up military positions in the border area with Israel.
Deliveries of modern weapons, such as guided weapons, to the Lebanese Hezbollah are also to be prevented. In the rarest of cases, Israel is committed to it when weapons caches or convoys destined for Hezbollah are attacked from the air or Iranian positions are bombed in Syria.

But at the end of 2017, the then head of the Israeli Air Force revealed that his country had already carried out almost 100 air strikes during the Syrian civil war to prevent damage to Israel. Air defense positions of the Syrian regime are repeatedly targeted if they endanger Israel's air sovereignty.

Over the years, Israel has expanded its radius of action more and more. In 2019, for example, it attacked arsenals in Iraq belonging to militias allied with Iran, which were used to transport weapons to Syria and Lebanon. Western intelligence services have also been warning for years that Iran is delivering its short-range missiles to militias allied with Tehran, which can reach both the Saudi capital Riyadh and Tel Aviv from Iraqi territory.
And in January Israel carried out massive air strikes against militias allied with Tehran and Iranian Revolutionary Guards in eastern Syria and in the Syrian-Iraqi border area.

For several weeks, the Israelis have also strengthened the air defense positions in Dimona and Eilat on the Red Sea - in anticipation of attacks by militias allied with Iran using rockets or drones, including from Yemen. All of this was apparently not enough to intercept the Syrian anti-aircraft missile in the south of the country. Firing such a missile "is on the verge of Israeli air defense capabilities," as Israeli missile expert Uzi Rubin told Reuters . "The trajectory of a failed anti-aircraft missile to an unwanted target is very difficult to track," says Rubin.

This time Israel got away with the horror one more time. But the incident shows how vulnerable Israel can be to missile attacks. And why the Jewish state has been resisting the Iranian encirclement strategy so vehemently for years.

Illustrates my argument of that there is no trustworthy defence against a determined missile attack by an enemy with competent technology: you just "flood" the defence, or catch defence on the wrong foot. One missile in one hundred getting through - is enough. And there is no anti-missile system in the world that comes even close to such a success rate of 100 in 100. Until it needs to be reloaded - then its success rate drops to 0 of 100 for the duration of that routine. If the missile attacker does it right, he can ALWAYS overwhelm the defence.

You need to take out missile carrying platforms BEFORE they can fire. You do not wait until they are set up and ready.


Also see here:
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/is...-attack-665965

[Jimbuna]

The way I see it is that you only get one chance because if you fail it is almost inevitable that the retaliatory attack will take you out.

[mapuc]

According to the Swedish news it was a surface to air(SAM)missile.

Reading this word made me wonder...Hm you do not use SAM as Surface to surface missiles..it does not do enough damage...


Markus

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by mapuc

According to the Swedish news it was a surface to air(SAM)missile.

Reading this word made me wonder...Hm you do not use SAM as Surface to surface missiles..it does not do enough damage...


Markus

From the link in the first post.

An Israeli military spokesman identified the projectile as an SA-5 surface-to-air missile fired by Syrian forces against Israeli aircraft. He said it overflew its target to reach the Dimona area, 200 km (125 miles) south of the Syrian border.

The missile did not hit the reactor, exploding some 30 km (19 miles) away, the spokesman added.

[mapuc]

I didn't read more than the first two sentence then I recalled this Swedish article.

Should have read all of it before posting.

Markus

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

The way I see it is that you only get one chance because if you fail it is almost inevitable that the retaliatory attack will take you out.

Think of a HVA at sea, say a heavy CG cruiser like Kirov class, or carrier. Even a logistics carrier, there are so few of these these days.

And ammo expenditure rateis very high, and can render a platform at sea useless once it has emptied its magazines quickly and needs to go back to a port.

Same is true for an airfield.

Or a reactor. A reservoir dam. In war, at least me would love to bombard dams. Keeps them enemies pretty busym their traffic and logistics infrastructure collapsing and their nights pretty dark.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Think of a HVA at sea, say a heavy CG cruiser like Kirov class, or carrier. Even a logistics carrier, there are so few of these these days.

And ammo expenditure rateis very high, and can render a platform at sea useless once it has emptied its magazines quickly and needs to go back to a port.

Same is true for an airfield.

Or a reactor. A reservoir dam. In war, at least me would love to bombard dams. Keeps them enemies pretty busym their traffic and logistics infrastructure collapsing and their nights pretty dark.

You been watching the Dambusters movie again?