Israel’s Iron Dome is TOAST and this confirms it.

Right, so Israel’s Iron Dome Defence System has come in for a fair bit of scrutiny in recent weeks for basically failing to deliver, failing to defend Israel from rocket attacks from Lebanon on the north of Israel, failed to protect Haifa from drone attacks by Islamic Resistance in Iraq and questions of whether or not the system is up to scratch, whether it has been overwhelmed by the wight of attacks upon Israel and simply cannot cope with it, or whether Israel is in enough military distress now, that they’re running out of the munitions and ability to maintain the system after more than a year of have to defend itself from it’s neighbours because of the genocide it has been enacting in Gaza. Have they run out of interceptor missiles to load into the iron dome batteries? Have they lost so many batteries now, they’re simply big holes in the iron dome coverage? Are they choosing to protect some areas with what they have left at the expense of others rather than do the obvious and decent thing by their own people and just bring an end to the genocide?
Well the answer seems to be that the Iron Dome defence system is now toast and although there are other air defence systems protecting Israel, losing this one is significant and we now know this seems to be the fact of the matter, due to a recent course of events that have basically given it away.
Right, so the Iron Dome defence system is toast, it is deader than Monty Python’s parrot so to speak, at least in terms of the nationwide coverage it formerly offered, it might still be limping on to a small extend in patchy areas, but it has seemingly had its day. Whether that be because Israel are running out of interceptor missiles and are rationing them, or they don’t have batteries any more in some places to load them into, $50m a pop these batteries are and Hezbollah were taking them out with cheap drones.
Whatever the true and accurate status of the Iron Dome is though, it isn’t what it was and so as per usual, the US are coming to the rescue in what is also a very dangerous escalation.
To make up for whatever shortfall there is right now in the Iron Dome defence system, the US are deploying, as has been reported in recent days the THAAD air defence system in Israel. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defence, or THAAD. Only US soldiers can operate these things, so by handing one of them to Israel and the US only have seven of these THAAD systems, it means US soldiers will be deployed against any nation that attacks Israel requiring THAAD to be deployed by response.
Now one thing I’d like to point out at this point is that Ukraine wanted one of these THAAD systems deployed there and the US wouldn’t give Zelensky one, so Israel getting one is going down like a cup of cold sick, but it also to my mind shows that escalating in Israel is either more important than Ukraine, or US concerns over Russia far outweigh any concerns the US has regarding those attacking Israel right now, possibly not the smartest line of thinking, but then protecting Israel incessantly given what they are doing isn’t either in my view.
At any rate, deploying this THAAD air defence system in Israel is basically confirmation that the Iron Dome is in trouble, it can’t cope and this is a hole patching exercise in it. The one thing protecting Israel more than anything given the state of the Iron Dome is the belief that everything is actually fine with it, so all the reports getting out of successful missile strikes getting past it are the last thing Israel needs are hurting them more than anything, I can’t imagine why they won’t let western journalists in to cover what is going on can you? But equally those there already feeding reports out are themselves ending up in significant bother as the video I did the other day covering the arrest, beating and detention of GrayZone journalist Jeremy Loffredo has shown, arrested for aiding and abetting the enemy when actually all he was doing was reporting the facts.
So what is THAAD and how will it help Israel then?
THAAD is I suppose the next generation of Iron Dome Battery really. Where the Iron Dome is designed to tackle short range missiles and drones with other air defence systems in Israel designed for longer range ordnance, THAAD should be able to cope with anything from short to long range and it’s interceptor munitions can apparently take out anything up to 200km away, that means they can even tackle missiles outside of the Earth’s atmosphere.
I said interceptor munitions rather than missiles on purpose because THAAD doesn’t actually use a missile, too heavy, they literally work by hitting the target warhead so fast, that the kinetic energy of the impact is what sets it off.
THAAD batteries usually are made up of 95 soldiers, six truck-mounted launchers, 48 interceptors – eight for each launcher – one radar system, and a fire control and communications component.
So what are the drawbacks? Well a finite number of interceptors before it needs reloading, so more than 48 missiles coming in at once and it’s done and we’ve certainly seen volleys come from Lebanon in far larger numbers than that. It also can’t detect anything small, It is completely useless against drone attacks because they aren’t a big enough target and don’t come in from a point of high entry. The cost of one of these THAAD batteries? Well if you thought Iron Dome batteries were eye watering in their cost of $50m a piece, this thing comes in at $1bn minimum according to Al-Jazeera, it could be twice that as their high end estimate.
It seems like a lot of risk for the US to take, with a defence system so expensive and on the face it so vulnerable to much of the type of attack we’ve seen come from the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis, not to mention the risk involved by putting US boots on the ground to operate this thing, because it is now direct involvement by the US against those attacking Israel or retaliating against Israel as is more accurate given their propensity to be the ones striking first and of course the responses as many of these strikes have been for Israel’s assault on Gaza.
So why are the US doing this? Are they so far gone in their pro Israel leanings that nothing is beyond question in order to stand by their genocidal allies? Biden of course promised not so long ago there would be no boots on the ground in Israel, so he’s broken his word on this.
For one, Israel need it. With the Iron Dome toast and them still being hell bent on striking Iran again after their most recent retaliation at the beginning of this month, it’s still a matter of how dare the Iranians strike us back after we hit them. Twice Iran have hit Israel this year, the first time they have directly struck Israel in their history and both were responses to Israeli strikes first. Now Israel want to go for round three, but don’t have the necessarily air defences to protect themselves against another Iranian strike on what will be their military targets. Biden also thinks he’s got Israel convinced to not hit nuclear sites in Iran this time, but military targets instead, however, this will again be an unprovoked attack. Iran’s last strike was a response to the previous Israeli one, where the US should be telling Israel to back off and pack it in, they no longer have any control over Netanyahu or his insane hard right government and they’ll do as they please, so THAAD is there to protect Israel from it’s own Prime Minister essentially, though Iran of course haven’t targeted anything but military targets in line with international law.
There’s two more reasons for this move by the US as I see it though. Firstly, this is an opportunity for the US to test an air defence system they devised against Iran, who’s arsenal for the most part, their capabilities are still largely unknown. I don’t think Iran have shown their hand fully at all and Israel keep poking them and provoking them to escalate. So this is an opportunity for the US here.
There are certainly enough hawkish people in the Biden administration just looking for a reason to send even more armaments to Israel, despite the 30 day limit Biden put on Netanyahu to start getting aid into Gaza, but nobody really believes that will be enforced, since Biden will no longer be president in 30 days time.
Those hawkish US figures lead me into my second reason for this and that comes down to an expected Iranian response in light of Israel’s plan to hit them again. A direct strike on the US in Israel will give the US, or some on that administration at least, the excuse to possibly go to war more formally with Iran at that point, absolutely what Israel has wanted for ages, but that could be something the US is ill prepared for too.
Looking at this as someone not military n any way, but just having gone over this whilst writing this video, it seems overwhelming the THAAD battery’s ability to cope, and with the Iron Dome licking it’s wounds as it is too, sheer strength of numbers would overcome it. It makes complete sense to me if Iran’s response to whatever Israel do next ignores THAAD completely, giving the US no excuse to attack them, but humiliating them with strikes on military targets getting through again. It seems the obvious response to me.
So whilst there is tactical advantages perhaps as the US see this move, it wouldn’t be happening at all if Israel were not determined to strike Iran again, it wouldn’t be happening if there was a ceasefire being enforced, it wouldn’t be happening if the Iron Dome was fully functional, which it quite obviously isn’t. It wouldn’t be happening if Joe Biden didn’t ignore every one opf the red lines he’s drawn for Netanyahu to the point Netanyahu thinks he can now do what he likes and will suffer no repercussions and the US will keep on arming him at the US public’s expense. Nothing it seems, not even what amounts to a significant escalation on Israel’s part, will stop the US standing by Israel. I debate whether anything can.
Little wonder Israel are so keen to gag the media is it really? Shame I made this video then isn’t it! I also made this one here documenting what happened to the real heroes getting the truth out to the west, such as Jeremy Loffredo, still confined to Israel as he is investigated for aiding and abetting the enemy, a capital offence and also complete garbage since he was just doing his job, but get all the details of that story here as your suggested next watch and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks