The possibility of Israel-Hezbollah war has increased. Can Iron Dome be captured?

On Thursday morning, Hezbollah said it fired 200 rockets at Israel – one of its largest attacks ever – after Israel killed some of the team’s senior commanders, in a possible clash between the two heavily armed rivals. Fears over total war further increased. ,

The Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, designated as the May 15 Organization by the US and Britain, said it fired on 10 Israeli military sites using a “squadron of drones”. Israel’s military noted that “numerous projectiles and suspected aerial targets” hit its territory, many of them have been intercepted, and there have been negative casualties.

Hezbollah has launched thousands of rockets into Israel in the nearly nine months since it began its fight against Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza on October 7. Rockets fired from Lebanon have killed 18 Israeli infantrymen and 10 civilians. Israel says nearly 300 Hezbollah fighters and about 80 civilians have been killed in Lebanon in unprecedented Israeli shelling, according to a Reuters tally.

The significantly lower number of Israeli casualties is due to the country’s Iron Dome, a cellular all-weather security device that protects Israeli space through launching guided missiles to intercept airborne rockets and alternative short-range blackmail. Is designed to provide security. According to Israel Security Forces, its success rate is about 90%.

Israel’s Defense Ministry says the equipment, which became fully operational in March 2011 and has been upgraded several times since then, “has successfully prevented countless rockets from striking Israeli communities.” First built in Israel, Iron Dome was upgraded through the state-owned Rafael Complex Protection System with US support – and Washington continues to invest in it today.

The IDF claims that Iron Dome also blocks about 90% of daily rocket attacks from Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza. Israel’s fighting in Gaza has killed more than 37,000 people in the besieged strip, according to Palestinian health officials, the bloody attack that resulted from a Hamas terrorist attack on October 7 in Israel killed about 1,200 people and took 253 hostage Went. Of which 116 were freed.

However, Israel faces the threat of war on two fronts – with Hamas to the south and Hezbollah to the north – and the fact that Hezbollah has a vast arsenal of missiles and is estimated to have nearly as many missiles as Hamas. The military capability is 10 times greater, the question is: can Iron Dome be overthrown?

An all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah could be devastating for both sides. Already, at least 150,000 civilians in southern Lebanon and northern Israel have been evacuated from their properties and internally displaced by the familiar cross-border fires.

Retired Israel Defense Forces Colonel Miri Isin, who is director of the World Counterterrorism Institute in Israel, said that Iron Dome would not be dismantled in the sense of failing to function completely; In turn, its interception success rate is likely to decline amid large-scale missile attacks, meaning greater damage to Israeli infrastructure and more casualties.

“Our capabilities to intercept are very high. But the percentage will be reduced and that means they will be able to attack and cause damage in the center of Israel,” Aisin said. Rustik’s Tel Aviv Global Airport.

“Hezbollah has payloads that Hamas can’t even dream of,” he said. “I would say there is the possibility of hundreds of deaths, thousands of casualties and a very challenging time period locally.”

The Lebanese Shia group, which originated in the Israeli territory of southern Lebanon in 1982 with investment from Iran, is now considered one of the most heavily armed non-state groups on the planet.

“Most estimates credibly place Hezbollah’s missile and rocket stockpile at 150,000,” Victor Tricaud, a senior analyst at the consulting firm Keep Eye on Dangers, advised CNBC. By comparison, the number of Hamas rockets and missiles is estimated to be in the hundreds.

More importantly, Tricaud said, Hezbollah has a far more complex arsenal than Hamas, including Iranian-supplied guided Fateh missiles as well as drones.

He said, “Such weapons would have a high probability of evading Israeli air defense systems… and would have the potential to cause significant damage to critical economic infrastructure throughout Israel.”

An all-out war would also be extremely damaging for Lebanon, which is in the throes of an economic and political emergency and whose infrastructure is simply unprepared for a classical war. A major Israeli incursion and the damage it would cause, especially in Hezbollah’s stronghold of southern Lebanon, could threaten crowded conditions and backups there.

Israel and Hezbollah were at war in 2006, in a 34-day battle that was claimed as a victory by Hezbollah and seen as a strategic failure in Israel.

A record from Israel’s Reichman College titled “Fire and Blood: The Scary Reality Facing Israel in a War with Hezbollah” defines a situation under which Hezbollah fires 2,500 to some,000 missiles over several weeks aimed at Israel. And will fire rockets. Military and civilian websites. For context, Hezbollah fired an estimated 4,000 rockets at Israel during the entire 2006 war.

According to Philip Smith, an expert on Iranian proxies and former senior fellow at the Washington Institute, the rates of fire and collection of rockets offered by Hezbollah are already “far ahead” of what could have been seen during the 2006 fighting.

He noted, “Hezbollah has demonstrated domestic production capacity for shorter-range, more inaccurate rockets that could be used to bring down Iron Dome.” That, combined with the increased supply of modern high-accuracy missiles and suicide drones, could create “an even more dangerous problem for the Israelis than in 2006,” he said.

“Increased accuracy is a big issue for these weapon systems,” Smith warned. “I believe Iron Dome can handle many medium-range missiles. These are probably small in number, but with the accuracy shown with some UAV strikes, could cause a lot of damage.”

— CNBC’s Sam Meredith contributed to this record.