JERUSALEM – A U.S. government website has inadvertently publicized detailed information about an Israeli anti-ballistic missile launch site to be built as a first-line defense against potential Iranian nuclear missiles, the Times of Israel reported.
Jane’s Defense Weekly first reported that the details were spelled out on the U.S. Federal Business Opportunities website, which carried 1,500 pages of specifications for contractors interested in submitting bids for the contract. The site named in the tender was said to be an Israeli air force facility near the village of Tal Shahar between Tel Aviv and Ashdod to its south. The tender was subsequently removed from the website.
While the tender did not name the missile that the Israelis would deploy at the site, Jane’s said it was likely the Arrow-3, the latest version of a missile being developed by Israel with American funding. An earlier version of the Arrow is already deployed.
Unlike the Iron Dome anti-rocket system, which Israeli officials say has successfully intercepted hundreds of short-range rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, the Arrow is designed to intercept ballistic missiles. Such missiles would be intercepted at ranges of 1,500 miles, long before they reach Israeli air space. The Arrow-3 is scheduled to be deployed by 2015.
Additionally, the published tender included classified information on the design of the base, which would be built to survive a nuclear attack. It included diagrams showing four concrete-hardened launch sites, each designed to hold six rockets.
Jane’s reported that the Tal Shahar facility is already the location of an Arrow-2 battery. It said the four new launch sites would be cut into the surrounding hills. Each would contain six interceptors in vertical launch positions and gantry cranes for erecting additional missiles after the original ones had been fired.
"It means that Israel could potentially launch 24 Arrow-3 interceptors at an incoming wave of ballistic missiles and then engage any targets that were not successfully destroyed using its Arrow-2 interceptors," according to the magazine.
There was no reaction from any official Israeli source to the report.
Meanwhile, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has reported in its annual survey that Israel has 80 nuclear warheads, of which 50 are designed to be placed on missiles and the remainder as bombs to be dropped by aircraft.