Iran's attacks test Israel's Iron Dome

JerusalemThe war against Iran is putting Israel's defense system to the test. In just the last few days, an elderly couple in Ramat Gan, in the Tel Aviv area, were killed while trying to reach their shelter; four Palestinian women died in the southern West Bank, caught in a cluster missile while at a hair salon; and fragments of an intercepted missile fell in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, just a few hundred meters from the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. This is a new phase, marked by an escalation in the combined use of ballistic missiles and cluster munitions by Iran, a dynamic that is subjecting Israeli air defenses to increasing pressure. Since the start of the war on February 28, Tehran has reportedly fired more than 350 ballistic missiles at Israel, and approximately half of them carried submunitions, a proportion that has been rising, according to Israeli military sources.

Cluster missiles are capable of releasing between 24 and 80 bombs during descent, over an area of ​​up to 10 kilometers. This necessitates lin Iron Dome (Iron DomeThe missile defense system, considered for years one of the most effective in the world, now has to act before the missile fragments, increasing operational complexity. Furthermore, Iranian drone attacks, many of them inexpensive and mass-produced, are also contributing to this pressure. Since the beginning of March, as recorded by the Tzofar early warning system, "suicide" drones have surpassed rockets in the number of alerts for the first time, forcing the constant activation of defensive systems.

Risk of saturation

Although, according to the Israeli army, the interception rate remains around 90% for projectiles threatening populated areas, recent attacks have highlighted a key problem: system saturation. When the volume of simultaneous threats exceeds the response capacity, some projectiles inevitably penetrate the shield.

The limitation is not technological, but physical: the number of available interceptors, reload time, and Israel's capacity to manage multiple targets in the face of coordinated attacks from Iran and Hezbollah. According to analysts at the Institute for National Security Studies, no air defense system is designed to be impenetrable, but rather to reduce risks.

Israel has a multi-layered defense system. The Iron Dome intercepts short-range rockets; David's Sling (David's Sling) deals with intermediate threats, and the Arrow systems (Arrow) act against ballistic missiles. In parallel, the country is working on new tools such as the Feix de Ferro (Iron Beam), a laser system designed to reduce the cost of intercepting drones and smaller projectiles.

The question is whether the Iron Dome can sustain that pace over time. Information published by The Times of Israel They point out that this situation has created a constant dilemma for the Israeli Air Force: intercept all projectiles or preserve interceptors for more critical threats. In some cases, the option is being chosen not to neutralize all submunitions if the risk is considered limited and the population is protected in shelters.

The Israeli government maintains a message of control. Official sources insist that there is no critical shortage of interceptors and that the system is prepared for a prolonged war. However, the recent approval of more than €736 million in emergency purchases has reinforced the perception that supplies need to be accelerated.

According to the US media outlet Semafor, which cites Israeli and US sources, Israel has informed the United States that its interceptor stockpiles—especially the Iron Dome Tamir missiles—are at critical levels and could be depleted. According to these reports, Israel has consumed between 70% and 85% of its missile reserves since the start of the conflict, and Iran's use of cluster munitions is accelerating this depletion by forcing the firing of multiple interceptors for each threat. Sources cited by this publication indicate that if Iran maintains its current pace of attacks, within 7 to 14 days some batteries could be operating without available interceptors in various regions of Israel. Since Israel does not make its reserves public, the actual state of its arsenals and air defenses is difficult to verify. The challenge is also economic. Each interceptor is expensive compared to many of the threats it neutralizes. According to industry estimates, a Tamir missile costs approximately €40,000 to €50,000, and an Arrow 3 interceptor can cost up to €3.7 million per unit. This economic asymmetry—expensive interceptors against relatively affordable threats—is key to understanding Iran's strategy, which aims to combine low-cost drones with more sophisticated missiles to force Israel and its ally, the United States, to continue spending resources steadily and weaken the Iron Dome.