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Is It Time for an IDF Missile Corps?
Hezbollah members parade during a rally marking al-Quds Day, (Jerusalem Day) in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon, April 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
JNS.org – Iran’s April 14 attack on strategic Israeli sites including the Nevatim F-35 air base was successfully stopped by an extraordinarily capable multi-layered air-defense system and assistance from allied militaries, but still serves as a reminder that Israeli air bases are a prime target for both Iran and its Lebanese Shi’ite proxy, Hezbollah.
Hezbollah, which has more firepower than most NATO militaries, will certainly attempt to saturate Israeli air defenses and target airbases in any future full-scale conflict with Israel.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah claimed it had targeted an Iron Dome air defense battery in northern Israel with suicide drones.
The potential establishment of an “Israel Defense Forces Missile Corps,” perhaps under the Israeli Air Force or the IDF Artillery Corps, would represent a significant shift toward enhancing Israeli attack capabilities through advanced, land-based missile systems. These would both partially ease the very intensive workload of the IAF, and create redundancy options for Israeli firepower capabilities.
According to an April 10 report in Aviation Week, citing an American defense official, the IAF’s 39-jet fleet of F-35Is “have surged to more than five times normal operations since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and have sustained that level with the help of international support.” The report added that the Israel fleet of stealth fighters saw a “565% jump in monthly average flight hours over a six-month period.”
“By moving to three shifts for nonstop operations, Israeli maintainers and contractor field service representatives have allowed the Israeli Air Force to continue flying F-35Is at a rate of 35-39 jets a day,” the report said, giving an indication of the IAF’s workload even prior to the April 14 attack.
The first advantage of a ground-based Israeli missile corps would be reducing at least some of the workload currently facing the IAF.
In addition, ground-based missile units offer rapid response—operational within minutes—alongside minimal crew requirements for operation and maintenance.
Vitally, creating more such missile bases would also give Israel alternative strike options in the event that an enemy manages to impair the country’s air bases (despite the fact that the IAF is confident in its ability to rapidly repair runways and other air base infrastructure).
The introduction of a dedicated missile corps would complement the manned and unmanned array of fighter jets, combat helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles, with UAVs able to help direct the fire of the missiles.
Diversifying Israel’s strike mechanisms and dispersing strategic risks would be the main benefits of such a move.
The IDF is already equipped with a range of surface-to-surface guided rocket and missile systems. Israel’s adversaries have claimed, without corroboration, that such missiles have already been used. For example, in May 2022, Syrian state media claimed that Israeli surface-to-surface missiles were used in a strike on a target near Damascus, and that the missiles were fired from the Golan Heights.
It seems safe to assume that many of the systems offered by Israeli defense company Elbit Systems are already integrated into the IDF. The government-owned Tomer defense company stands as the backbone of these developments, acting as the country’s rocket propulsion knowledge center and having a hand in developing these sophisticated systems.
Elbit’s products include the autonomous artillery rocket system called Precise and Universal Launching System (PULS), with which, according to Elbit, “there is no need to move artillery units based on the required firing range; the versatile solution can fire a variety of ammunition types to various ranges from the same position, to ranges of up to 300 kilometers [186 miles].”
In addition, the Accular is described as a “highly accurate, combat-proven guided rocket designed to support ground forces. The artillery rocket addresses urban warfare requirements and the need for near-real-time responsiveness. Accular can neutralize targets to a range of up to 40 kilometers [25 miles] and is especially required in areas where the use of traditional artillery is limited by terrain, distance and accuracy.”
Other products include the Extra artillery rocket, which has a range of 150 kilometers [93 miles] and which travels at supersonic speeds, and the Predator Hawk long-range strike rocket, which has a 300 kilometer [186 mile] range.
Israel’s long-range ballistic missile capabilities remain classified.
According to international media reports, they include variants of the Jericho ballistic missile (types 1 through 3) and submarine-launched Popeye cruise missiles.
An independent IDF missile corps is both timely and necessary. Recent events suggest that while air defenses have never been more important for guarding Israel’s attack capabilities, relying primarily on aircraft for strikes may be placing too many eggs in too few baskets.
The post Is It Time for an IDF Missile Corps? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Destroyed Top Secret Iranian Nuclear Weapons Site
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
JNS.org – The Israeli airstrikes on Iran last month destroyed a secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, 19 miles southeast of Tehran, Axios reported on Friday.
The clandestine site held sophisticated equipment used for testing explosives needed to detonate nuclear devices, the report read, citing three US officials, one current Israeli official and one former Israeli official.
The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security acquired high-resolution satellite imagery of the facility, which showed that it was completely destroyed in Israel’s Oct. 26 attack.
Israeli and US intelligence agencies began noticing activity in the Taleghan 2 facility in the Parchin military complex in early 2024, which had been largely inactive since 2003, when the Islamic Republic froze its military nuclear program, according to Axios.
One unnamed US official quoted in the report said: “[The Iranians] conducted scientific activity that could lay the ground for the production of a nuclear weapon. It was a top secret thing. A small part of the Iranian government knew about this, but most of the Iranian government didn’t.”
Although President Joe Biden asked Jerusalem not to target Tehran’s nuclear facilities, the site in Parchin was chosen as a target because it was not part of Iran’s declared nuclear program.
This placed the mullah regime in a position where admitting a hit to the site would expose its efforts to resume activity forbidden by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Moreover, “The strike was a not so subtle message that the Israelis have significant insight into the Iranian system even when it comes to things that were kept top secret and known to a very small group of people in the Iranian government,” the report cited a US official as saying.
Last week, Rafael Grossi, the director of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency, visited Iran for the first time since May.
He is expected to meet with his agency’s board of governors in Vienna this week for a vote on a resolution to censure Tehran for its lack of cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
Speaking about the tensions between Israel and Iran, Grossi said during a news conference in Tehran on Thursday that the Islamic Republic’s “nuclear installations should not be attacked.”
Earlier in the week, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz suggested that Iran’s nuclear facilities may be targeted.
Iran is “more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities. We have the opportunity to achieve our most important goal—to thwart and eliminate the existential threat to the State of Israel,” Katz said.
Israel’s two assaults against Iran’s air defense system this year have left the country vulnerable to future attacks, with all four of Tehran’s Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries destroyed, according to U.S. media.
On April 19, Israel took out one of the S-300 systems in response to Tehran’s first-ever direct attack against the Jewish state. On Oct. 26, in response to a second Iranian attack, Israel targeted 20 sites in Iran, destroying the remaining three.
“The majority of Iran’s air defense was taken out,” a senior Israeli official told Fox News.
The post Israel Destroyed Top Secret Iranian Nuclear Weapons Site first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Yemen’s Houthis Say They Attacked ‘Vital Target’ in Israel’s Eilat
Houthi-mobilized fighters ride atop a car in Sanaa, Yemen, Sept. 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Yemen’s Houthi forces attacked “a vital target” in Israel’s Red Sea port city of Eilat with a number of drones, the Iran-aligned group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Saturday.
The terrorist group has launched dozens of attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea region since November in solidarity with Hamas.
“These operations will not stop until the aggression stops, the siege on the Gaza Strip is lifted, and the aggression on Lebanon stops,” Saree added in a televised speech.
The Houthi attacks have upended global trade by forcing ship owners to reroute vessels away from the vital Suez Canal shortcut, and drawn retaliatory U.S. and British strikes since February.
The post Yemen’s Houthis Say They Attacked ‘Vital Target’ in Israel’s Eilat first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Muslims from ‘Abandon Harris’ Campaign Gutted by Pro-Israel Cabinet Picks
US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, Sept. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
JNS.org – Muslim leaders in the United Stated who called for supporting President-elect Donald Trump at the expense of Democrat runner Kamala Harris are deeply disappointed with the former president’s Cabinet nominees, Reuters reported on Thursday.
“It’s like he’s going on Zionist overdrive,” Abandon Harris campaign co-founder Hassan Abdel Salam, a former professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, said about Trump’s recently announced picks.
“We were always extremely skeptical. … Obviously we’re still waiting to see where the administration will go, but it does look like our community has been played,” Abdel Salam told Reuters.
Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump, was cited as saying: “Trump won because of us and we’re not happy with his secretary of state pick and others.”
Some political strategists believe that the Muslim vote for Trump, or the renunciation of Harris, helped tilt several swing states such as Michigan in the favor of the Republican candidate.
“It seems like this administration has been packed entirely with neoconservatives and extremely pro-Israel, pro-war people, which is a failure on the side of President Trump, to the pro-peace and anti-war movement,” said Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network.
On Wednesday, Trump named Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as his choice to be secretary of state.
Rubio is known for his staunch pro-Israel stance, including calling on Jerusalem earlier this year to destroy “every element” of Hamas and dubbing the Gaza-based terrorist organization as “vicious animals.”
Rubio joins a slew of pro-Israel officials Trump has tapped since he won the U.S. election, including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) as his U.N. ambassador with a seat in the Cabinet.
Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), told JNS that Trump’s focus so early in the transition process on Israel-related foreign policy picks is a mark of how his second administration will approach the region.
“That, in and of itself, signals that President Trump and his administration are going to take the region, the Middle East, the threats confronting Israel, seriously and take the U.S. friendship with Israel seriously,” Misztal said.
“The people that we’ve seen are known to be tremendously strong friends of Israel, first and foremost, but also very clear-eyed about the threats that the United States and Israel face together in the region.”
Before the election on Nov. 5, Trump promised Arab and Muslim voters he would restore stability in Lebanon and the Middle East, while criticizing the current administration’s regional policies during campaign stops targeting Muslim communities in Michigan.
Trump recently addressed Lebanese Americans, stating, “Your friends and family in Lebanon deserve to live in peace, prosperity and harmony with their neighbors, and this can only happen when there is peace and stability in the Middle East.”
Israel has been at war for more than a year on its southern and northern borders, ever since Hamas led a surprise attack on communities near the Gaza Strip border on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering some 1,200 people and abducting 251 more into the Palestinian enclave. A day later, Hezbollah joined Hamas’s efforts by firing rockets into Israel’s north.
The post Muslims from ‘Abandon Harris’ Campaign Gutted by Pro-Israel Cabinet Picks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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