A report in “The Wall Street Journal” has claimed Israel’s stockpile of Arrow interception missiles is dwindling. The Arrow plays a key role in repelling ballistic missile attacks from Iran and Yemen. In the report, a senior US official said that Israel is running low on defense Arrow interceptors. It has also been reported that US officials and analysts estimate that Israel and the US have fewer interceptor missiles combined than Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles.
Israel’s military can call on a range of other interceptor systems. But with the threat of ballistic missiles with warheads weighing hundreds of kilograms, ploughing through the atmosphere from a distance of 1,500 kilometers, almost the only missile that can cope with a 90% success rate is the Arrow 3 missile. The Arrow 2 missiles, while helpful in dealing with the recent missile barrages, as well as the barrages fired from Iran last year, were discontinued in favor of increased production of the improved Arrow 3, so their stockpile is limited. The other systems, such as David’s Sling and Iron Dome, are irrelevant to the current threat as they are used for medium and short-range threats – the missiles launched against Israel earlier in the war from Lebanon and Gaza.
US naval destroyers
According to a report in “The Wall Street Journal,” the US is helping repel some of the ballistic missiles using two THAAD batteries – the US interception system able to intercept ballistic missiles in the atmosphere like the Arrow 2, but according to US Defense Department documents, only 605 interceptor missiles have been ordered to date for the THAAD system.
In addition, there are US naval destroyers being deployed to the region to intercept missiles using surface-to-air (SAM) missiles, with a stress on the SAM-3, which has a range of thousands of kilometers. F-16 and F-15E aircraft can also intercept UAVs and missiles.
However, the price of the SAM missiles is also high. An SAM-3 that can deal with a ballistic missile launched from Iran costs, according to a rough estimate, between $10 and $30 million, up to 15 times more than a single Arrow 3 interceptor. Considering the costs and the fact that the US is also currently managing an arms economy in preparation for a wide deployment throughout the Middle East, also as part of protecting its allies, Israel will be forced to rely more on the weapons it has at its disposal. In terms of costs, any interception carried out by a US system is at the expense of the US defense budget.
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According to estimates 800 long-range ballistic missiles have been launched at Israel since October 7, 2023. Half of this high number have been fired so far in barrages from Iran since last Friday, and another hundred missiles in each of the two barrages fired last year from Iran – the first in April in response to the assassination of a Revolutionary Guard officer in Syria and the second in October in response to the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah and Ismail Haniyeh, and another 100 missiles fired in total by the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The cost of intercepting with an Arrow 3 is estimated at about $2 million, while the cost of intercepting with an Arrow 2 is cheaper at $1.5 million. According to estimates, Israel has spent between $1 billion and $1.5 billion on interceptions using the Arrow in the 20 months of fighting so far.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Ran Kochav, the former commander of the Israeli Air & Missile Defense Forces, refuses to comment on the report in “The Wall Street Journal” or about Israel’s stockpile of interception missiles but he insists, “The State of Israel knows how to make the adjustments required to manage the armaments economy by increasing production, adjusting warhead weapons, and adjusting software – in cooperation between defense companies and the Ministry of Defense, while the Air Force adjusts defense policy and combat doctrine and manages the actual armaments economy based on understanding which missile goes to which target. If a rocket is fired from Tyre to Nahariya, it can also be intercepted with Iron Dome, which is considered cheaper to intercept, but the question is what level of risk is taken in relation to the interception percentage, because human lives are top priority.”
The Ministry of Defense is reportedly considering combining missiles from the David’s Sling system, which is designed for medium-range cruise missiles and precision missiles, in intercepting Iranian missiles. This is a system that has helped intercept missiles from Lebanon and Gaza, and its interception cost is estimated at $700,000, lower than the cost of the Arrow. Iron Dome may help intercept parts of ballistic missiles that have exploded into large interception fragments, which could cause significant damage. Iron Dome and David’s Sling, although they have together dealt with about 40,000 short- and medium-range missiles fired from Gaza and Lebanon since 2023, cost less. The cost of an Iron Dome interceptor is estimated at only $30,000.
No response has been forthcoming from the Ministry of Defense, the IDF Spokesperson or Israel Aerospace Industries, which manufactures the Arrow 3.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on June 19, 2025.
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