The risk of war between Israel and Hezbollah rises. Can the Iron Dome be surpassed? | Wilnesh News

On Thursday morning, Hezbollah said 200 rockets fired at Israel It was one of the largest attacks to date and came after Israel assassinated a top commander in the group, further fueling fears of an all-out war between the two heavily armed rivals.

The Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, designated a terrorist organization by the United States and Britain, said it used “squadrons of drones” to fire on 10 Israeli military bases. The Israeli military said “a large number of projectiles and suspicious aerial targets” invaded its territory, many of which were intercepted without causing casualties.

Hezbollah has launched thousands of rockets Israel has been firing rockets into Israel for nearly nine months, since it launched war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza on October 7. Ten civilians were killed, while Israeli shelling has killed about 300 Hezbollah fighters. According to one report, there are militants and about 80 civilians in Lebanon. Reuters statistics.

Israel’s relatively low casualties are attributed to the country’s Iron Dome, a mobile all-weather defense system designed to protect Israeli territory by launching guided missiles to intercept incoming rockets and other short-range airborne threats. According to the Israel Defense Forces, its success rate is about 90%.

The Israeli Defense Ministry stated that the system became fully operational in March 2011 and has been upgraded several times since then, “successfully preventing numerous rocket attacks on Israeli communities.” Iron Dome was originally produced in Israel and was developed by state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems with support from the United States and Washington Continue to provide funding for today.

The IDF claims that Iron Dome also intercepts about 90 percent of the rocket attacks launched almost daily by Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza. Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 37,000 people in the besieged strip, according to the Palestinian health authority, a bloody offensive triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack that killed about 1,200 Israelis and 253 hostages, 116 hostages were taken.

But as Israel faces the prospect of a two-front war – with Hamas to its south and Hezbollah to its north – and as Hezbollah possesses a vast missile arsenal and is estimated to have ten times the military capabilities of Hamas, the Israeli problem YES: Can the Iron Dome be surpassed?

An all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah would be devastating for both sides. Already, at least 150,000 inhabitants of southern Lebanon and northern Israel They have been evacuated from their homes and internally displaced due to frequent cross-border fires.

Miri Eisin, a retired Israeli Defense Forces colonel and director of the Israel International Counter-Terrorism Institute, said that the Iron Dome will not be occupied because it cannot be fully functional; on the contrary, in a large-scale missile attack, its interception success rate may be would decline, meaning greater damage to Israeli infrastructure and more casualties.

“Our interception capabilities are very high. But the percentage will go down, which means they will be able to hit the heart of Israel and cause damage,” Essien said, adding that this could include power plants and the country’s critical infrastructure in Tel Aviv. international airport.

Hezbollah “has a payload that Hamas has never dreamed of,” she said. “I would say hundreds of lives are expected to be lost, thousands of casualties are expected and it’s going to be a very challenging time locally.”

The Lebanese Shia group was born with Iranian funding during the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon in 1982 and is now considered one of the best-armed non-state groups in the world.

“Most estimates credibly put Hezbollah’s missile and rocket stockpile at 150,000,” Victor Tricaud, a senior analyst at consulting firm Control Risks, told CNBC. By comparison, Hamas’ rocket and missile inventory is estimated to be 150,000. There are tens of thousands of them.

What’s more, Hezbollah has far more advanced weapons systems than Hamas, including guided Fatah missiles and drones provided by Iran, Tricord said.

“Such munitions would have a greater chance of evading Israeli air defense systems… and could cause significant damage to critical economic infrastructure across Israel,” he said.

A report from Israel’s Reichmann University titled “Fire and blood: The chilling reality Israel faces in its war with Hezbollah“Outlined a scenario in which Hezbollah would launch between 2,500 and 3,000 missiles and rockets per day over several weeks at Israeli military and civilian sites. For reference, Hezbollah fired an estimated 4,000 rockets into Israel throughout the 2006 war.

Philip Smith, an expert on Iranian proxies and a former senior fellow at the Washington Institute, said Hezbollah’s rate of fire and number of rocket launches have “far exceeded” what was seen during the 2006 war.

Hezbollah “has demonstrated the ability to domestically produce short-range, less accurate rockets that can be used to destroy the Iron Dome,” he said. He said these, coupled with the group’s newer high-precision missiles and an increasing supply of suicide drones, “could create a more dangerous problem for Israel than it did in 2006.”

“Improving the accuracy of these weapons systems is a big problem,” Smith warned. “I believe Iron Dome can deal with many medium-range missiles. The number of these missiles may be smaller, but combined with the accuracy shown by some drone attacks, it may cause more damage.”

—CNBC’s Sam Meredith contributed to this report.