It cost Israel more than $1bn to activate its defence systems that intercepted Iran’s massive drone and missile attack overnight, according to a former financial adviser to Israel’s military.
“The defence tonight was on the order of 4-5bn shekels [$1-1.3bn] per night,” estimated Brigadier General Reem Aminoach in an interview with Ynet news.
“If we’re talking about ballistic missiles that need to be brought down with an Arrow system, cruise missiles that need to be brought down with other missiles, and UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], which we actually bring down mainly with fighter jets,” he said.
“Then add up the costs - $3.5m for an Arrow missile, $1m for a David’s Sling, such and such costs for jets. An order of magnitude of 4-5bn shekels.”
How much would it cost NOT to shoot them down?
A better way to put it would be: how much would it have saved to not have to shoot them down to begin with?
Israel is desperate to keep wars going to justify their annexing of Gaza and West Bank and leech off the US.
Israel is desperate to keep wars going to justify their annexing of Gaza and West Bank and leech off the US.
Ah yes, Iran who famously has nothing at all to do with Hamas and was best buds with Israel until last fall.
Israel struck an embassy/consulate. They knew what they were getting into.
Iran was using that embassy/consulate to direct weapon shipments and strikes on Israel
When does it stop being off-limits?
If iran is fair game for Isreal then under the same logic the US becomes fair game for Hamas.
The US is fair game to them. Hamas just won’t dare touching the US.
More a capability issue and the fact rhat they’d be glassed overnight if they touched the US, because no one thinks the US is fair game. Unfair game at best, but no one important in international politics would stand up for Hamas should they attack the US, theyd sit and watch the genocide accelerate. The same way no one should be standing up for Isreal after attacking Iran.
That’s the point of iron dome system. It only shoots down rockets that would otherwise hit targets that would cost more to rebuild/restore. At least that’s the case with hamas rockets - they are predictable enough. Drones are a different story.
It didn’t cost Israel anything. The U.S. and UK covered the cost.
I don’t believe that that’s true. We used some of our weapons. And we do provide some military aid. But we don’t pay Israel’s military budget, and assuming that Iron Dome was a major factor here, that’s an Israeli system.
From 2011 to 2021, the United States contributed a total of US$1.6 billion to the Iron Dome defense system,[11] with another US$1 billion approved by the US Congress in 2022. Source
So about 250 million a year. This one attack cost four times as much.
Don’t forget the billions more we give them every single year https://www.axios.com/2023/11/04/us-israel-aid-military-funding-chart
You should address the person I was responding to.
Note that a significant amount of the interceptor missiles and planes used were American and a small part British, so israel is not footing this bill by itself.
