Documentation: Iran's missile attack on Israel/social networks
How much did the night of the interceptions cost Israel and the defense budget? The numbers thrown into the air last night started with a billion shekels and ended with 5 billion - every number is a winner.
So first of all let's start with the obvious - there is no price for protecting our security in the face of an Iranian attack. There is no price for a night of that time that began with a dystopian and unbelievable picture of Israeli citizens in front of the screens waiting for the Iranian explosive that was on its way to them, and ended with the natural awakening of the majority of Israeli citizens who did not hear a single alarm.
A night when we feared that terrible scenarios would materialize and instead we started the week with aerial and technological superiority, with an amazing and extraordinary achievement, and with a reminder to the hostile environment that despite the failure and collapse of 7/10, the State of Israel, the IDF and the Air Force have a few more exercises up their sleeves.
And perhaps the most Important - it was the first day in six months that the citizens of Israel could stand up proudly and feel for a moment the Israel of the past: a strong and powerful regional power, a place where military power and technological brains come together for a peak moment, a moment of joy and relief within a nightmarish six months.
But even if you look at the matter from a cold economic point of view, apparently paying billions for a night of interceptions of hundreds of destroyers sent to us - anti-aircraft missiles, cruise missiles and surface-to-surface missiles - is a reasonable price.
"The answer we give is an economic answer. Such events are not judged by the cost of the system and its operation, but by the potential for damage. Imagine what would have happened without this system," said Aerospace Industries CEO Boaz Levy to Udi Etzion in Vala yesterday.
You don't have to imagine much to understand that hitting Israel with hundreds of missiles and anti-aircraft missiles at the same time would have a huge cost to the Israeli economy.
An IDF spokesman said yesterday that Iran launched 60 tons of explosives in our direction. What would happen if even a quarter of it landed on the streets of Israel, on houses, hospitals and schools, roads and important infrastructure? What would the pictures of the night and the morning after look like?
One can only think of a sprout base that includes, among other things, three "Adir" F-35I squadrons, and the price it would cost to replace these planes. Only recently was there a battle over the purchase of two additional F35 and F15 squadrons when the amount the government had to approve was NIS 35 billion. So what was the cost of destroying a sprout base?
Shabbat night's display of purpose greatly strengthens the Israeli defense companies - Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit and Rafael. The companies have already enjoyed a strong year of record results, which started with the Russia-Ukraine war and ended with the war of iron swords. The companies are also expected to record a very strong first quarter in 2024, and the hand is still tipped.
IAI, the manufacturer of the Arrow, recorded an all-time record year in 2023 with a 49% jump in net profit to $318 million and accumulated orders of $18 billion.
The bulk of the increase came from the sales of the company's military divisions, which, in addition to the Arrow 3 and Barak 8 missiles for air defense, also produce land and sea attack missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, intelligence systems, and more. One of the most prominent transactions of the past year was the sale of the Arrow 3 system to Germany for billions of dollars and the sale of Barak-8 system for a foreign customer, according to foreign publications,
Elbit also recorded record results in 2023, with a 17.8% jump in orders, when alongside an increase in orders from Europe, many products took part in the war in Gaza - starting with tank shells and cannons, "Mi HaZik and the Attacking Star, as the UAVs guided by the laser stinger and more.
Rafael, the smallest company of the three, recorded the most significant increase in sales and orders in 2023, and this is even before the effects of the Iron Swords War and the American special aid Besides the Iron Dome interceptors, the David Slingshot and the new laser interception system,
the company recorded an impressive increase of 85% in new orders which amounted to 8.177 billion dollars, with the backlog of orders jumping by 47% to 14.5 billion dollars. Some of the new orders were for customers abroad.
After the celebrations of the first day, a series of points are now emerging that may slightly reduce the achievement: for example, that a significant part of the missiles and anti-aircraft missiles were shot down by Israel's partners in the coalition against Iran, many of them exploded on the launch pad and so on.
However, even if Israel received significant help from its coalition partners, and even if there were vulnerabilities in the Nabatim base, it is understood that the bottom line is a phenomenal success, almost beyond the limits of logic and imagination.
The extraordinary success did not go unnoticed by the countries of the world, who received another reason to arm themselves with the best products of the Israeli defense industry, after testing tools under real conditions and with worldwide attention.
According to the data of the Ministry of Defense in 2022, the all-time record in the country's defense exports will be broken with more than 12.5 billion dollars, which at that time was about NIS 45 billion. This after the volume of test exports doubled in less than a decade. It can be expected that the last year and the results of the defense companies will bring another step up, and with it the taxes that the state deducts from these deals.
The defense industries will not be able to replace high-tech as the engine of the economy, their numbers are still far from the revenue in dollars brought in by the Israeli technology companies. But on days like this, every point of light is welcomed and thanked, not a little.
And above all, we have to remember the most important thing - within half a day we went from a state of anxiety and suffering from the first direct Iranian attack on us, to joy, pride, and a reminder to us, to our hostile neighbors and to the world - Israel is a strong regional power, and we are not going anywhere. It is difficult to estimate the economic value of "national mood" or "deterrence", but if it were possible, they would probably be worth more than a few billions.