Iron Dome nearly 99% effective against incoming missiles, maker Rafael’s chairman says
By Steven Scheer
TEL AVIV, May 11 (Reuters) – Israel’s Iron Dome is almost 99 percent effective against missiles from Hamas and Hezbollah militants and neutralizes most missiles from Iran, the head of state-owned Iron Dome maker Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd said on Monday.
Since Hamas’ raid on Israel in October 2023, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon have fired nearly 40,000 rockets at Israel, Rafael’s Yuval Steinitz told a conference at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
“Iron Dome caught most of these with not 100% but close to 100% success rates. Around 98%, even 99%, so not perfect but almost,” Steinitz said.
Iran has fired nearly 1,500 ballistic missiles at Israel in two rounds of hostilities since 2024, he said, and “only a few dozen” have not been intercepted.
He noted that there was no shortage of missile interceptors.
Steinitz said that without the Iron Dome missile defense system, which is largely financed by the United States, Israel’s economy would be “completely paralyzed” because people would not go to work, schools would be closed and military bases would be difficult to operate.
“We, too, would have shed blood in all our major cities… Without the Iron Dome, thousands of Israeli civilians would have been killed,” he said.
Steinitz, who served as minister of intelligence and strategy in a government led by Benjamin Netanyahu more than a decade ago, was Israel’s chief negotiator on the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed by the United States to restrict Iran’s nuclear program.
Steinitz was opposed to the JCPOA, which President Trump withdrew from in 2018.
Steinitz said any agreement between the United States and Iran must include a minimum period of uranium enrichment of at least 20 years and that Iran must commit not to develop “other types of weapons of mass destruction – chemical and biological weapons.”
(Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Alex Richardson)
