Israel seeks to upgrade passive missile-defence system

Israel is improving its passive-defence capability against ballistic-missile attack as part of its current programme of upgrades to its missile defences. Details of the scheme first appeared in the Israeli press in mid-October. According to these reports, the objective of the improved passive-defence system is to boost the country's ability to endure a sustained bombardment by long-range ballistic missiles, such as Iranian Shahab or Syrian-manufactured 'Scud' variants. It does not address the threat of short-range rocket attacks that are intended to be countered by the Iron Dome system. A central component of the new scheme is an enhanced impact point prediction (IPP) capability that is currently being developed by the Israel Air Force . This will fuse trajectory data on incoming missile threats provided by multiple radars, including the United States' TPY-2 X-band radar that has recently been deployed to the Negev in southern Israel , and from electro-optical sensors. The process of data fusion is intended to provide an enhanced estimate of where a hostile missile will impact, if not intercepted, and to identify the areas that may be affected by debris if the missile is intercepted by Israeli active defences. Israel's passive-defence system, as organised during the 1991 missile attacks from Iraq and modified during the 2006 Lebanon conflict, currently divides the country into ten areas for warning purposes. The population must either be warned to take cover nationwide or throughout one of these areas, halting all activity until the all-clear is given. The upgraded system is reported to have the goal of dividing the country into a larger number of warning areas, so that military and economic activity can continue normally in areas not deemed to be at risk from an incoming missile. By early 2009, the new system will be able to handle 27 target areas; when it becomes fully operational in the second quarter of 2010, it will be able to handle about 100 areas. Other elements of the passive-defence upgrade include improvements to Israel's long-standing siren warning system. This now covers almost all of the country and will be made able to respond to the more precisely targeted warnings.