Based on satellite images, analysts believe that Israel’s Nevatim air base may have been hit by more than 30 Iranian missiles in the raid on October 1.
Satellite images from Planet Labs, a company that provides satellite imagery for NPR, showed damage to hangars, taxiways, and buildings at Israel’s Nevatim Air Base. Videos posted on social media showed multiple warheads hitting the base.
“We saw more than 30 craters and damaged buildings, we saw more than 30 missiles hit the base,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
On the night of October 1, Iran fired about 200 missiles at Israel in retaliation for the deaths of a number of Hamas and Hezbollah commanders. In addition to Nevatim, Iran also targeted other Israeli military bases, including Tel Nof in central Israel, and the headquarters of Israel’s intelligence agency (Mossad).
Based on rough calculations of what happened in Nevatim, Professor Lewis believes that a significant number of Iranian missiles may have hit their targets.
“If we take Nevatim as an example, that means more than half of Iran’s missiles hit their targets,” he said.
In other words, Iran’s missiles penetrated Israel’s multi-layered defense system. There are many reasons why many Iranian missiles were able to penetrate Israel’s air defense system.
Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system can only intercept short-range, low-flying missiles of the type used by Hezbollah and Hamas. To intercept Iran’s medium-range ballistic missiles, Israel needs the more powerful and expensive Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 defense systems.
According to Professor Lewis, it is possible that the Arrow system did not work as expected. However, he did not rule out the possibility that Israel decided not to defend Nevatim, reserving the interceptors for the protection of population centers such as Tel Aviv.
“It’s possible that they don’t have that many Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 missiles. If that’s true, Iran has succeeded in overwhelming Israel’s defenses, forcing Israel to choose. My guess is that they don’t prioritize protecting this base,” Lewis said.
On the other hand, Mr. Lewis noted that although more than 30 missiles hit the Israeli base, the damage to the base was limited even when Iran used the Fattah, Iran’s most advanced missile. This coincides with Israel’s claims that the missile attack only caused insignificant damage to their air base and did not affect the combat capabilities of the Air Force.
“Even these missiles, which appear to be more accurate, still have difficulty doing damage. The problem is that Iran can strike important targets inside Israel,” he said.
