US report details how Iranian missiles cracked Israeli defense systems
Iran Press TV
Wednesday, 16 July 2025 10:37 AM
Iran managed to penetrate Israel's boasted air defense systems during the 12-day war by changing missile launch tactics and identifying "gaps" in Israeli defense through "trial and error", The Wall Street Journal reports.
The paper details how Iran has incrementally improved its missile strategies against Israel by analyzing failures and adapting. Using drones, decoys, and hypersonic missiles in coordinated waves, Iran exploited Israel's multi-tiered air defense and exposed its vulnerabilities, particularly under saturation conditions.
According to the paper, which quoted air defense missile experts who analyzed images of missile fragments and open-source information during the 12-day aggression, Tehran began launching more sophisticated and longer-range missiles from a "variety" of locations deep within Iran.
Iran, the report said, also altered the timing and pattern of the strikes and increased the geographic spread of targets.
"As the war progressed, fewer missiles were fired, but more hit their targets," the report added.
Iran's most effective missile strikes occurred on June 22 when 10 of 27 launched missiles reached Israel, according to data from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA).
The data suggest that Iran successfully adapted "how, when and what" it was firing, said Ari Cicurel, associate director of foreign policy at JINSA.
The Israeli military declined to comment on JINSA's figures beyond saying it doesn't share specifics on interception rates.
An analysis of Israel's public statements indicates that its interception rate declined over the course of the war. During the act of aggression, the Israeli military claimed it was intercepting 90% to 95% of Iran's missiles. After the ceasefire on June 24, the military said it had intercepted 86% overall.
Iran also pivoted from firing large overnight barrages to launching smaller waves during daylight hours and from a wider variety of locations, the report said.
Tehran further tested Israel's interceptors by changing up its firing patterns, targeting far-apart cities and varying the intervals between strikes, according to the report.
As the aggression wore on, a declining number of interceptors and their high cost would also have compelled Israel to conserve resources and only target missiles from Iran that posed the greatest threat, missile experts said.
Israel boasts one of the world's most advanced aerial defense systems, notably featuring the Iron Dome, developed through close collaboration with the United States.
On June 13, Israel launched an unprovoked act of aggression against Iran, assassinating many high-ranking military commanders, nuclear scientists, and ordinary civilians.
In response, the Iranian Armed Forces, led by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), launched a powerful and unprecedented retaliatory campaign, Operation True Promise III, against the Israeli regime, using many of domestically developed new-generation missiles for the first time.
Hundreds of Iranian ballistic missiles and drones overwhelmed Israeli air defenses and struck key military, intelligence, industrial, energy, and R&D facilities across the occupied Palestinian territories.
On June 24, the Israeli regime, isolated and abandoned, declared a unilateral halt to its aggression, announced on its behalf by US President Donald Trump.
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