IAI Arrow

The Arrow is the Israeli anti-ballistic missile system, a long-range interceptor family that Israel Aerospace Industries developed with help from Boeing, Elta and Elbit Elisra. The United States Department of Defense began developing it in 1988, the Arrow 2 version was first tested in 1995, and the system became operational in 2000, with one battery deployed near Tel Aviv and another near the port of Haifa. A system normally comes with four or eight launchers, each carrying six missile tubes, and the launchers, the fire control centre and the radar are usually moved by truck. The Arrow 2 uses a two-stage booster, and the radar can detect incoming missiles from 500 kilometres away. Israel counts it as one layer of a five-tiered air defence structure with Iron Beam, David's Sling and Arrow 3. In October 2023 it was used to intercept a missile fired from Yemen over the Red Sea, reported as the first operational interception since the start of the war with Hamas.