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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Israel Launches Huge Missile & Drone-Detecting Balloon As Iran Expands Reach

Courtesy of ZeroHedge View original post here.

Israel’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday unveiled the latest upgrade to its anti-air defenses, citing a heightened continued threat from Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and increasingly sophisticated drones, also possessed by Lebanon’s Iran-backed ally Hezbollah.

The blimp will be deployed over northern Israel. Image: Defense Ministry/TOI

One of the key developers, Israeli Aerospace Industries, described in a statement that “The elevated sensor system provides a significant technological and operational advantage for early and precise threat detection.”

“This technology increases the reliability of the aerial surveillance picture, and increases efficiency against a range of targets,” company CEO Boaz Levy added.

Crucially the high-tech balloon was developed with US military help. Israel’s Missile Defense Organization and the United States’ Missile Defense Agency worked together in developing the project in order to ensure Israel’s “qualitative military edge” against regional threats, according to director of the American Missile Defense Agency, Vice Admiral Jon Hill. Maintaining the Jewish state’s military dominance is currently a defined US foreign policy and strategic goal.

After years of testing the balloon’s capabilities in detecting long-range threats, which officials say have proved successful, it’s likely that more of the radar equipped balloons will be deployed in the coming years. Currently Israel’s sees the greatest external threats as against it’s northern region, given also the proximity to southern Lebanon and Syria. According to The Times of Israel

The Israeli military fears that in the coming years that superiority may be tested as Iranian-made and -designed drones and cruise missiles flood the Middle East, representing a greater threat to Israel than the simple rockets that terror groups in the region have possessed until now.

In light of this threat, the IDF intends to have full, permanent defensive coverage in place over the airspace of northern Israel within the next two years, with plans to eventually expand it to the entire country.

Despite Israeli leaders consistently framing the military’s posture as primarily “defensive” – in recent years the air force has conducted literally hundreds of raids and strikes deep inside Syria, which Tel Aviv says is toward disrupting pro-Iranian networks in the country, particularly Hezbollah.

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