Israel used for the first time a maritime missile defense system to shoot down a drone that approached from the Red Sea and that it had activated sirens in the port city of Eilat, the Army announced Tuesday.
Eilat was a frequent target of Iranian-backed Houthi launches in Yemen as a show of support for Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules Gaza and is also backed by Iran.
Israel placed missile boats in the Red Sea after the start of the war in Gaza, the military said. One of those missile boats shot down the drone with the new system called C-Dome.
Videos circulated on social networks that showed the use of the C-Dome on Monday. The videos captured flashes of light as the projectiles were apparently intercepted in mid-air over the sea.
“Overnight, For the first time, an IDF Sa’ar 6-class missile corvette successfully intercepted a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) that had approached from the east and had crossed into the Gulf of Eilat area,” the Israeli Army reported.
The C-Dome is the naval version of the Iron Dome or Iron Dome, Israel’s missile defense system that has intercepted thousands of rockets fired from Gaza. The Iron Dome, which was activated in 2011 and is about 90% effective, uses radar to detect short-range rockets before destroying them with its own missiles.
He C-DomeAccording to Israeli defense contractor Rafael, uses the same interceptors as Iron Dome. It complements Israel’s multi-tiered air defense system against the Arrow-3, which is designed to intercept ballistic missiles outside the Earth’s atmosphere.
The C-Dome, which was first unveiled in 2014, was declared operational in November 2022 and was hailed at the time as a “major milestone.” Unlike the Iron Dome, which has its own dedicated radar, the C-Dome, according to its developer Rafael, a state-owned defense technology company, It is integrated into the ship’s radar to detect incoming targets.
“C-Dome guarantees comprehensive protection of vessels and a high probability of death against a full spectrum of modern threats: maritime and coastal”, says Rafael on his website. “It consists of three components: TAMIR interceptors, a modular vertical launch unit (VLU) and a command and control component (C2). By using the ship’s surveillance radar to detect and track threats, the need for a dedicated radar is eliminated,” he adds.
Last June, hethe Israeli authorities announced that they had completed a C-Dome test series aboard the Sa’ar 6-class corvette, a series of German-made warships for the Israeli Navy. The Sa’ar 6-class corvette was used in combat for the first time last October, after the Hamas attack on October 7and continued to be deployed in Israel’s military campaign.
Other defense systems deployed for the first time during the ongoing conflict They are the Arrow 2 and the Arrow 3missile interceptors that were used last year against targets launched toward Israel from the Gaza Strip and the Red Sea.
“The war in Gaza continues and we are far from stopping”IDF Chief Herzi Halevi said in a statement on Sunday, six months after October 7.
Source: Ambito
