The Israeli Air Force (IAF) is set to discard its outdated Patriot missile defence systems in the coming months, replacing them with more advanced systems of air defence, Israeli media reported on Tuesday.
In February, the Israel Air Force announced it was in the process of shutting down several Patriot batteries, with its personnel to be trained to operate the Iron Dome instead. The Patriot complex, known in the IAF as Yahalom, Hebrew for “diamond”, will be decommissioned within two months.
We are currently in the process of reducing the [number of] batteries until the entire system is closed.
US-operated Patriot missile batteries were successfully deployed against some Scud missiles fired from Iraq into Israel during the 1991 Gulf War. The US system officially entered Israeli service that same year, but did not make its first intercept until 2014, shooting down a Hamas drone launched from Gaza.
Over the next decade, the system, designed to shoot down aircraft, intercepted only about 10 targets, including Syrian fighter jets that violated Israeli airspace in 2014 and 2018, according to the military.
The interceptor was not always successful, failing to shoot down many targets over the years. The Patriot has been used several times amid the ongoing war in Gaza, although most of the time the interceptors were launched on false identifications.
The system would be replaced with more advanced air defence systems, the air force officials stated.
We realised that we need to move forward and improve our defence methods. The innovations in the [air defence] array bring a better operational and maintenance response.
The announcement came two weeks after Israel’s air defence system was subjected to the largest test in history with the launch of hundreds of missiles and drones from Iran, almost all of which were shot down with the help of the US, Jordan, the UK and France.
In mid-April, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that his country had agreed to send the Patriot air defence system to Ukraine, while refusing to provide Kyiv with Taurus cruise missiles. However, German journalist Julian Roepcke earlier criticised the Ukrainian military for improper use of the Patriot systems, previously destroyed after being parked less than 10 metres apart.
Roepcke stressed that the two Patriot launchers were placed less than 40 kilometres from the front, spaced less than 10 metres from each other, which ultimately allowed Russia to launch a “short-range ballistic missile” and destroy both of them.
Mobile launchers are critical components as well as Ukraine’s most effective and best air defence system, but the Ukrainians have lost up to 13% of their Patriot launchers in a single incident.
