Iran struck five Israeli military bases during 12-day war
Iranian missiles appear to have directly hit five Israeli military facilities during the recent
12-day war, according to radar data seen by The Telegraph.
The strikes have not been made public by the Israeli authorities and cannot be reported from within the country because of strict military censorship laws.
They will further complicate the battle of words between the enemies, with both sides attempting to claim absolute victory.
The new data were shared with The Telegraph by US academics at Oregon State University, who specialise in using satellite radar data to detect bomb damage in war zones.
It suggests five previously unreported military facilities were hit by six
Iranian missiles in the north, south and centre of Israel, including a major air base, an intelligence gathering centre and a logistics base.
Approached by The Telegraph on Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it would not comment on
missile interception rates or damage to its bases.
“What we can say is that all relevant units maintained functional continuity throughout the operation,” said a spokesman.
The strikes on the military facilities are in addition to 36 others known to have pierced Israeli air-defence systems, causing significant damage to residential and industrial infrastructure.
Despite the considerable damage to residential property across the country, only 28 Israelis died – a testament to the country’s sophisticated alert system and the disciplined use of bomb shelters and safe rooms by the population.
Analysis by The Telegraph suggests that while the vast majority of Iranian missiles were intercepted, the proportion that got through grew steadily in the first eight days of the 12-day war.
The reasons for this, say experts, are not clear but may include the rationing of a limited stock of interceptor missiles on the Israeli side and improved firing tactics and the possible use of more sophisticated missiles by Iran.
Although the Iron Dome is Israel’s best-known air-defence system, it is actually designed to protect against short-range projectiles such as mortars and is only one part of the “layered” air-defence system the country uses.
In the middle tier stands the David’s Sling air-defence system, which is optimised for intercepting drones and missiles with ranges up to 300km. At the top is the Arrow system, which engages long-range ballistic missiles before they re-enter the atmosphere.
Importantly, the Israeli systems were backed up throughout the 12-day war by two US ground-based THAAD missile-defence systems and ship-based interceptors launched from US assets in the Red Sea.
The US is estimated to have launched at least 36 THAAD interceptors during the war at a cost of some $12 million a time.
In Israel, a densely packed small country of just 9.7 million people, the piercing of the country’s famed missile-defence systems has come as a shock, with the authorities having to issue notices warning that they were “not hermetic”.
The 15,000 made homeless are especially conspicuous as they have been distributed to hotel accommodation throughout the country and the restriction of residential sites has been reported freely.
But there has also been growing suspicion within the country that military targets were hit.
Raviv Drucker of Channel 13, one of the country’s best-known journalists, said last week: “There were a lot of [Iranian] missile hits in IDF bases, in strategic sites that we still don’t report about to this day... It created a situation where people don’t realise how precise the Iranians were and how much damage they caused in many places”.
Corey Scher, a researcher at Oregon State University, said his unit was working on a fuller assessment of missile damage in both Israel and Iran, and would publish its findings in around two weeks.
He said the radar system data that they used to assess damage measured changes in the built environment to detect blasts and that absolute confirmation of hits would necessitate either on-the-ground reporting at the military sites concerned or satellite pictures.
The Telegraph’s data analysis shows the combined US and Israeli defence systems performed well overall, but were letting through around 16 per cent of missiles by day seven of the war.
This broadly accords with an earlier IDF estimate for the defence system that put the success rate at “87 per cent”.
In Iran, Islamic Republic officials and state media are using footage of missiles penetrating Israeli air defences in an attempt to convince domestic audiences they won the war.
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There are cartoons mocking the Iron Dome in Iranian media with revolutionary songs playing over videos of missiles hitting Israeli cities.
Iranian officials say that the main way Israel’s air defences were pierced was by using missiles and drones at the same time to confuse defence systems.
Fast missiles mixed with slower drones confused the defences and made them split their attention, officials claim.
“The main goal of firing [suicide drones] at Israel is always to keep their systems busy,” one Iranian official told The Telegraph. “Many don’t even get through – they’re intercepted – but they still cause confusion.”
Maj Gen Ali Fazli, the IRGC’s deputy commander-in-chief, appeared on state TV on Thursday night, claiming implausibly that Iran was “in the best defensive position in the 47-year history of the Islamic Revolution – never before have we been at such a level in terms of military readiness, operational cohesion, and fighter morale”.
This despite Israel’s proven ability to strike at will over the entire country and the substantial damage caused to the country’s military leadership and nuclear programme.
Nevertheless, it is likely that a large part of Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal remains untouched. Even by Israeli estimates, only half of its launchers were destroyed in the 12-day conflict and substantial stocks of missiles remain.
“Iran had about 400 launchers, and we destroyed more than 200 of them, which caused a bottleneck in their missile operations,” an Israeli military official said on Thursday
They added: “We assessed that Iran had approximately 2,000 to 2,500 ballistic missiles at the beginning of this conflict. However, they were rapidly moving toward a mass-production strategy, which could see their missile stockpile grow to 8,000 or even 20,000 missiles in the next few years.”
Maj Gen Fazli claimed that underground “cities” of missiles remained untouched in Iran.
“We have not yet opened the doors of even one of our missile cities,” he claimed on Thursday.
“We assess that so far only about 25 to 30 per cent of existing missile capability has been used and, at the same time, the production cycle is powerfully supporting this operational capacity.”
Strikes shown by radar data not made public due to IDF’s strict censorship
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