Houthi ballistic and cruise missile barrages against Israel have provided the Israeli military with an opportunity to show off some of its latest military hardware, with the IDF publishing footage showing what's said to be the first-ever destruction of inbound missiles using the Arrow Aerial Defense System, and using Israel’s highly customized F-35I ‘Adir’ fighters.
The intercept, said to have occurred on October 31, is only the second-ever combat deployment of the Arrow system, with the first occurring in March 2017, when an Arrow missile was used to shoot down a Syrian S-200 air defense missile fired at an Israeli jet engaged in a bombing run against Syria over Lebanese airspace.
Media reports suggest the Arrow-2 variant of Israeli interceptor missile was used. The interceptor was developed jointly by Israel and the United States, and is designed to engage short and medium-range ballistic missiles. The weapon consists of a two-stage solid-propellant rocket, and was first deployed in the year 2000. Developers say the system’s interceptor can accelerate to hypersonic speeds to destroy enemy projectiles.
Footage released by the IDF of the intercept shows the faint outline of a cylindrical missile-shaped object flying through the air, followed by the rapid approach of a second projectile, and then an explosion.
The second video shows what the IDF says is footage of an F-35I fighter tracking and destroying an enemy cruise missile. The footage shows the enemy projectile flying at subsonic speed close to the ground, and suddenly bursting into flames after being struck by a bright object.
The Houthis are assumed to have hundreds of ballistic, cruise and anti-ship missiles in their arsenal, with most of them variants of Soviet-era weapons modernized over the course of the Yemeni militia’s five-year-long war against a Saudi-led Arab coalition backed by the United States and Britain. The militia is also known to possess long-range drones, which have been used to great effect against their adversaries.
Israel has deployed naval assets in the Red Sea to counter the Houthi missile and drone threat, with Saudi Arabia reportedly assisting in the interception of missiles targeting the Jewish State.