Tel Aviv: Israeli companies are accelerating the development of anti-drone systems. The new comer to this growing family of systems is the Ghost Hunter jet interceptor developed by Rafael.
During the recent 12 days war with Iran, when the Israeli Air Force attacked the Iranian nuclear sites, this country launched many armed drones to hit Israel.
Some weeks ago, such a drone after a long chase was intercepted by an Israeli Air Force Apache helicopter.
Since the war with the Hamas terror organisation in the Gaza strip broke out on October 2023, the threat of armed drones was put higher on the threat list of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). The Hezbollah, also an Iranian proxy is using armed UAVs to attack Israeli target in northern Israel.
Iran in recent months has at least doubled the production of armed drones supplied not only to the main client – the Russian forces that’s fighting in Ukraine, but to all its proxies in the Middle-East and Gulf regions – the Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen and to some affiliated terror groups in Syria.
Israel Identified the threat posed by armed UAVs and drones in an early stage and that has resulted in the development of many defence systems against this growing threat. The massive use of Iranian made armed drones by the Russian forces in Ukraine, is according to Israeli experts another anticipated development in the growing phenomena of using armed UAVs and drones in war.
The Ghost Hunter is fully autonomous and has a range of 30 kilometres. Loitering time is 10 minutes.
According to Rafael, the seeker has a range of 3-5 kilometres. The company said that the new system is based on combat proven technologies.
-The writer is an Israel-based freelance journalist. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda