Israelâs Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, as seen from Ashkelon, in southern Israel, October 20, 2023.
Amir Cohen Reuters
On Thursday morning, Hezbollah said it launched 200 rockets into Israel â one of its biggest strikes â after killing one of the groupâs senior commanders, furthering fears of a major war between the two armed rivals.
An Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group, designated a terrorist organization by the US and Britain, said it fired on 10 Israeli military sites using a âsquadron of drones.â Israelâs military said âmany projectiles and suspicious aerial targetsâ violated its territory, many of which were intercepted, and there were no casualties.
Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets into Israel in the nearly nine months since the latter began fighting the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza on October 7. Rockets fired from Lebanon have killed 18 Israeli soldiers and 10 civilians, Israel said, while Israel. shelling has killed some 300 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and around 80 civilians, according to a Reuters tally.
The relatively low number of Israeli casualties is due to Iron Dome, a mobile all-weather defense system designed to protect Israeli territory by launching guided missiles to intercept incoming rockets and other short-range threats in the air. It has a success rate of about 90%, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
The system, which became fully operational in March 2011 and has been upgraded several times since then, has âsuccessfully prevented countless rockets from hitting Israeli communities,â Israelâs Defense Ministry said. Originally produced in Israel, the Iron Dome was developed by the state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems with US backing â and Washington continues to provide funding to this day.
An Iron Dome launcher fires an interceptor missile during a rocket launch from Gaza, in Ashkelon, Israel May 10, 2023.
Amir Cohen Reuters
The Iron Dome also intercepts about 90% of the daily rocket attacks from Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza, the IDF said. Israelâs war on Gaza has killed more than 37,000 people in the besieged Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian health authorities, in a bloody onslaught triggered by a Hamas terror attack on October 7 that killed an estimated 1,200 people in Israel and took an additional 253 hostages, 116 of which has been liberated.
But when Israel faces the prospect of a two-front war â with Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north â and with the fact that Hezbollah has vast numbers of missiles and is estimated to have 10 times the military capability of Hamas, the question is: can the Iron Dome be invaded? ?
âPayloads that Hamas could never dream ofâ
An all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah would destroy both sides. Already, at least 150,000 residents of southern Lebanon and northern Israel have been evacuated from their homes and internally displaced due to regular cross-border fires.
Retired Israel Defense Forces Colonel Miri Eisin, who directs the International Institute for Counterterrorism in Israel, said that the Iron Dome will not be defeated because it will not work at all; instead, the success rate of its interception will probably fall in the midst of large-scale missile attacks, meaning more damage to Israeli infrastructure and other victims.
âOur ability to intercept is very high. But the percentage will decrease and that means we will be able to attack and destroy the heart of Israel,â Eisin said, adding that it could include important infrastructure like power plants and the country. Tel Aviv international airport.
Hezbollah âhas a burden that Hamas canât even dream of,â he said. âI would say that there is an expectation of hundreds of deaths, thousands of casualties, and a very difficult time at the local level.â
The Lebanese Shiite Organization, which was born in 1982 during the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon with funding from Iran, is now considered one of the most heavily armed non-state groups in the world.
âMost reliable estimates put Hezbollahâs missiles and rockets at 150,000,â Victor Tricaud, senior analyst at consulting firm Control Risks, told CNBC. Hamas rockets and missiles, by comparison, number in the tens of thousands.
More importantly, Tricaud said, Hezbollah has more advanced weapons systems than Hamas, including Iranian-guided Fateh missiles as well as drones.
âThese munitions will have a greater chance of evading Israelâs air defense systems ⊠and will cause significant damage to critical economic infrastructure in Israel,â he said.
âMore damageâ
Israel and Hezbollah went to war in 2006, in a 34-day conflict that was claimed as a victory by Hezbollah and seen as a strategic failure in Israel.
A report by Israelâs Reichman University entitled âFire and blood: The terrible reality facing Israel in its war with Hezbollahâ describes a scenario in which Hezbollah will fire 2,500 to 3,000 missiles and rockets a day for several weeks targeting Israeli military and civilian sites. For reference, Hezbollah fired approximately 4,000 rockets at Israel during the 2006 war.
Pro-Iranian Hezbollah militants chant slogans as they march at the start of a funeral procession for top party commander Wissam Tawil in the southern Lebanese village of Khirbit Selem.
Image Alliance | Image Alliance | Getty Images
According to Phillip Smyth, an Iran proxy expert and former senior fellow at the Washington Institute, the rate of fire and the number of rockets Hezbollah has launched has âfar exceededâ what was seen during the 2006 war.
Hezbollah âhas demonstrated its domestic production capacity for short-range, more inaccurate rockets that can be used to deal with Iron Dome,â he said. This, combined with newer precision missiles and a newer supply of suicide drones, âcould create a more dangerous problem for Israel than it did in 2006,â he said.
âIncreased accuracy for this weapon system is a big deal,â Smyth warned. âIâm sure the Iron Dome can handle a lot of medium-range missiles. This is less likely, but combined with the accuracy shown with some of the UAV strikes, more damage is possible.â
â CNBCâs Sam Meredith contributed to this report.