The Israeli Ministry of Defence has finalised plans to increase serial manufacturing of the Iron Dome brief ranged air defence system, and has signed a multi-billion-dollar contract with the defence producer Rafael to attain this. The contract will reported be absolutely funded by an $8.7 billion support package deal from the US, and can replenish shares depleted throughout months of hostilities with the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah and varied Palestinian paramilitary teams. The help package deal particularly allotted $5.2 billion {dollars} for air and missile defence methods, together with longer ranged methods such because the David’s Sling and Barak 8. The Iron Dome types the shortest ranged and lowest tier of Israel’s surface-to-air missile community, and in 2024 took losses tomultiple profitable strikes by Hezbollah, with the paramilitary group reportedly additionally neutralising the longer ranged David’s Sling methods.
Alongside appreciable financing for Israeli missile defence efforts, the US has additionally deployed its personal Army Terminal Excessive Altitude Air Defence (THAAD) and Navy AEGIS air defence methods to guard the nation during times of full scale hostilities with Iran. These air defence efforts have incurred a number of billion {dollars} in prices. Throughout 11 days of hostilities from June 13-24 alone, the U.S. Army expended over 150 anti-ballistic missile interceptors from the THAAD system to intercept Iranian ballistic missile assaults, which represented over 25 p.c of the Army’s whole arsenal deployed all over the world. With every THAAD interceptor launch costing $15.5 million, the defence of Israeli airspace utilizing these methods is estimated to have price over $2.35 billion. This was except for the multi-billion greenback prices of expending SM-3 and SM-6 anti-ballistic missiles from the U.S. Navy’s AEGIS methods.
