Faced with the Iranian ballistic hypersonic threat, Israel is accelerating the development of the Arrow-4

Entering service in the early 2000s, the Israeli Arrow-2 anti-ballistic system was designed to counter the growing threat posed by the development in Iran of new medium-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching the state of Israel. It can detect ballistic targets up to 500 km away, and intercept them at a maximum distance of 100 km and an altitude of less than 50 km. Faced with the entry into service of longer-range Iranian ballistic missiles in the early 2010s, Tel-Aviv decided to develop an anti-ballistic capability complementary to that of the Arrow-2, the Arrow-3 allowing intercept exo-atmospheric targets, up to a distance of 2.400 km, thanks to the technology of kinetic impostors also employed by the SM3 missile on the US Navy's AEGIS system, as well as the US Army's THAAD system. The new system went live in 2017, and received broad US budget and technology support.

However, like the American Patriot PAC-3 and THAAD systems, the Arrow-2/Arrow-3 couple is currently having difficulty intercepting new types of ballistic missiles combining a semi-ballistic trajectory and maneuvering capabilities, capabilities which it seems that Iran is about to acquire, after Russia, China and North Korea. In February 2022, Israeli Prime Minister Benni Gantz therefore announced the start of design work on a successor to the Arrow-2, designated Arrow-4, intended precisely to counter this type of emerging threat, which he whether hypersonic missiles with low trajectory or equipped with hypersonic gliders capable of maneuvering until impact to thwart enemy anti-missile defenses, with the objective of bringing this new anti-ballistic capability into service by the end of the present decade.

The statements made last week Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the aeronautical division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, obviously led the Israeli authorities to accelerate the development of this new system. Indeed, according to Amir Ali Hajizadeh, Iran would now have a hypersonic missile capable of evolving in and out of the atmosphere, which could, in any event, directly threaten Israel by outclassing the anti-missile and anti-aircraft shield. -aircraft consisting of the Arrow 2 and 3 systems, as well as the David Sling medium and long-range anti-aircraft system and the Iron Dome short-range system. And obviously, Jerusalem takes these statements very seriously, since according to an article published by the American site Breaking Defense, the Israeli authorities, like the Missile Defense Directorate of the Ministry of Defence, have undertaken to accelerate the development of the Arrow-4, and this for already 2 months, without it being known precisely what the new timetable would be .

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