The Nevatim air base in the Negev was the main target of last night’s Iranian attack on Israel. The F35 base from which, according to Tehran, the raid began on April 1st against his consulate in Damascus, in which Pasdaran general Mohammad Reza Zahedi was killed. It is the only one of the sites publicly indicated by the Guardians of the Revolution for the retaliation carried out with 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles, 99% of which were intercepted by Israel and its partners.
According to IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari, all drones and cruise missiles were shot down outside the airspace of the Jewish State by the Israeli Air Force and those of the United States, United Kingdom, Jordan, France and others. It took the UAVs several hours to reach Israel and the cruise missiles a little over an hour. Ballistic missiles, on the other hand, have a much shorter flight time, around ten minutes, which is why it is a little more difficult to intercept them and which is why some have managed to ‘pierce’ the Israeli air defence.
The Arrow defense system shot down “the vast majority” of the 120 ballistic missiles launched, but when they were already in Israeli airspace, the IDF specified. For this reason, the air warning sirens were activated, to warn the population to get away from possible falling shrapnel, as happened in the Negev, where a seven-year-old girl from a Bedouin village was seriously injured. Some of the ballistic missiles that managed to bypass the ‘Israeli shield’ hit Nevatim itself, causing only minor damage, so much so that it was fully operational today. It became clear that Israel considered that base as an Iranian target Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official state plane, the “Wing of Zion”, was taken off to protect him from the attack.
“Iran thought it would be able to paralyze the base and thus damage our capabilities, but it failed,” commented Hagari, according to whom “fighters will continue to take off and land at Nevatim, starting on offensive and defense, including the F35s which are now returning,” added the IDF spokesperson
