As they sat at their computer screens at the pit in the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, mission officers rubbed their eyes in disbelief. Prepping for yet one more routine sortie in the north, they were convinced the sensitive strategic system had a serious bug in it.
All anti-tank missile signals from Syria, red lines and icons, which had cluttered the screens for years, had disappeared. It was as if they never were. The skies had opened, clean of the enemy. The Middle East was in tatters. Fighter pilots, if they wanted, could now merrily fly in pairs, with visible operating systems, at any altitude, to any range, to any spot in Israel’s first circle of defense.
IDF eliminates Hezbollah anti-aircraft cell in Lebanon
(Video: IDF)
In the first months of the war, there was no consensus within the IDF about revisiting flying the Lebanese skies. IAF chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar insisted, despite the then focus on Gaza and Hezbollah successfully downing state-of-the-art IAF UAVs at a rate of one a month in the war’s first six months.
For this, Bar joined up the Military Intelligence Directorate and the Air Intelligence Group to one end – finishing this war by restoring Israel’s air supremacy in Lebanon. He didn’t know that Syria’s skies would also soon open. So, he pushed decision-makers to attack Syrian anti-aircraft defenses too.
“You must understand, our more veteran pilots are used to practicing for all the Syrian anti-aircraft dodging systems,” says a veteran IAF pilot. “These systems took down one of our F16s last decade in the Galilee, and has affected every mission to the point of having to deploy more manpower on almost every sortie, limiting flights and implementing a totally different flight operation.
"Our people saw the screens and were in a state of shock. We used to invest so much organization and preparation before each flight just to address this very danger. In two days, we destroyed the main threat to the IAF, that’s been with us for 50 years. Suddenly, this dangerous situation, which had been going on for decades, disappeared - as if it never was. It’s as if all the missiles and rockets aimed at Israel no longer existed.”
This dramatic change would never have come about were it not for, in a matter of 25 hours, the IAF destroying over 100 surface-to-air batteries of the densest anti-aircraft system on Earth – dependent on advanced Russian systems that Bashar Assad bought as new at his lowest moments last decade when his army had collapsed.
“He invested every lira and ruble to purchase anti-aircraft batteries that we destroyed in interwar attacks from the beginning of last decade, even at the height of the civil war.” The pilot adds, “Anti-aircraft systems we attacked were sometimes replaced within the week. As the main threat to the IAF, this array was at the very heart of our intelligence.”
This threat has almost doubled in recent years. Hezbollah’s appetite was whetted, and Hassan Nasrallah made it the first terrorist organization on Earth to have a state-run anti-aircraft system, albeit with slightly different operating systems, but the same Russian and Iranian-made batteries. A few weeks before destroying Syria’s anti-aircraft system, the IAF also ticked off destroying Hezbollah’s anti-aircraft system in more graduated and cunning moves, first revealed here.
The air force operation destroying the Syrian army took only a few days. Assad’s arsenal was its main and most important target, certainly when compared to the MiG and Sukhoi squadrons, anyway inferior to Israel’s F15s and F16s. For years, including over the past decade, these jets conducted Israel’s real aerial warfare in Syria.
“Syrian aerial defense systems have been activated” was a code of sorts from initial official statements coming out of Damascus that could be reported in Israel, following any of the thousands of attacks in Syria for which Israel did not claim responsibility.
On Syrian soil, there are still active, even highly advanced, anti-aircraft batteries, such as the S-300. These, however, have always been, and still are, in Russian hands at air bases such as Khmeimim. The IDF isn’t ruling out the possibility of destroying them to prevent them from falling into the hands of dangerous elements.
Assad’s army deployed its anti-aircraft array wisely: Primarily around the capital Damascus, not far from the Golan Heights, and in “Little Syria” where the Alawite community, of which Assad’s family is part, is concentrated; the coast above Lebanon that includes the strategic port cities of Latakia and Tartus.
The radars themselves are deployed across the whole country. The Syrian air force’s operational, command and control capabilities have always gotten good grades from the IAF. There were many very close encounters with hundreds, sometimes only dozens of meters, separating these missiles from blue and white planes. “These bases, that we knew so well, like the Syrian army camps, have been simply abandoned,” says an IDF source.
To what extent was the IAF caught by surprise?
"The air force had no contingency plan for destroying the Syrian army and its anti-aircraft array. The vast operation of around 400 attacks in 72 hours was prepared swiftly in a matter of days, literally out of thin air - witness to the IAF’s tremendous operational flexibility.
"Syria’s entire surface-to-air array was destroyed along with both its mobile and portable batteries, the kind greatly absorbed by Israel in the Yom Kippur and 1982 Peace for Galilee wars. They’re fast and deadly, with efficient ranges covering 20-40 km, and there are the SA-17 and SA-22 with further ranges. Some have proven effective in not only endangering jets but also perusing and downing IAF bombs.
"The IDF noticed Assad’s army starting to move around some of its batteries, apparently to protect them from rebels who had begun their conquests, mobilizing Israel into preparing for action. The anti-aircraft danger now remaining in the second circle in Iraq has also suffered serious blows from Israel this past year. This system, however, is considered lower quality than that of Syria.
"Iran also, obviously, has advanced aerial defense, including S-300 batteries. They too suffered severe blows by the IAF in October. We now know that Syria’s anti-aircraft array, along with its radars, seems to have been linked up to Israel’s number one enemy’s ground-to-air batteries."
Saturday night, October 7, 2023, at precisely 8 p.m., a select planning, operations and intelligence team convened in a side room at the Air Force’s new base at the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv.
As the IDF was struggling to recover from its loss of control from the Hamas invasion, and fighter squadrons were landing their first strikes on Gaza, this group of Air Force officers conducted their first situation report for a distant and strategic mission in a sector that was, in fact, calm on that horrific day.
The discussion was led by head of the IAF’s air supremacy division Lt. Col. I. who was hardly four months into the job at the time. The aim was to destroy this air anti-aircraft array built up by Hezbollah over the years preceding the war. The Air Force rarely flew over Lebanon in recent years for fear of its manned aircraft being shot down by Hezbollah.
The situation worsened between 2021 and 2023, as the IAF kept even simple high-altitude photographic sorties to a bare minimum. One of the world’s most powerful air forces was compelled to use more satellites to investigate a rocket factory in the Bekaa Valley or keep tabs on Hezbollah officials in Beirut's Dahieh district.
Hezbollah’s gamble of invading Israel also involved it becoming the first terrorist organization on Earth to set up an anti-aircraft array of 100 large surface-to-air missiles. This included advanced, unique and innovative detection radars reliant on Syria’s anti-aircraft array - the densest on Earth - alongside Iranian and Russian systems and information.
In closed-door talks over the past decade, Air Force officials sought to calibrate and reduce expectations. “It was clear that at least one plane would be shot down in the Third Lebanon War, not only helicopters like in the Second Lebanon War,” they said. “The public should know that’s what we’re preparing for.”
Israel’s deterrence against Hezbollah and the unprecedented erosion of its air supremacy delved into an almost humiliating nadir in February 2020. Hezbollah exhibited an extraordinary and daring display of its surface-to-air capabilities: An SA-8 missile was launched at an advanced Hermes 450 UAV conducting a reconnaissance mission in the north. The UAV was downed, but Israeli policy remained unchanged: Serious targets in Lebanon must not be attacked, even more so north of the Litani River – so as not to be drawn into escalation with Hezbollah.
A danger to Israeli planes
By the evening of October 7, Lt. Col. I. already realized that air supremacy would not be achieved in one single strike. A startling image flickered on the screen before the convened team. Hezbollah’s anti-aircraft rings covered a line from Haifa, east across the Jezreel Valley, and included the Ramat David Air Base.
As the months passed, and intelligence probes accumulated, it became apparent that Hezbollah’s cover stretched as far as the Atlit-Kineret line. This meant that any Israeli aircraft, military or civilian, flying over the northern third of Israeli sovereign airspace was in danger of being taken down by Hezbollah.
“From that October 7 discussion onward, we went into fighting mode, with an ever-growing operational team,” says Air Intelligence Group Lebanon Air Supremacy Division chief, Lt. Col. A. “Unlike in the Military Intelligence Directorate, here at IAF intelligence, we don’t gather intelligence for information about the enemy, but rather we collect information needed for each operation. At that first discussion, we already understood we were heading toward a multi-front war. We prepared an array whose entire purpose was protecting the Air Force.”
This array was a far cry from the “Terrorists in flip flops with shoulder-held missiles” à la 1990s Afghanistan or Maroun El Ras 2006. In addition to the Russian-made S-300 and S-400s, which the Russians also have, a game-changing, effectively state-owned, anti-aircraft array was built up over the past decade in central and southern Lebanon.
It included relatively advanced versions of Soviet missiles such as radar-based SA-6, SA-8 and SA-22 missiles alongside the jet-based and optical target identification-based Iranian Sayyad, Taer and 67 anti-aircraft arrays. These are loitering anti-aircraft missiles that can “tour” in the air for 20 minutes, and when its homing device identifies a target, it locks into pursuit.
The Taer can reach a range of 100km and is similar in shape to a UAV. In the first months of the war, the IAF was concerned that such missiles would also shoot down civilian planes en route to Beirut airport. “Even if we swiftly deny involvement and show proof, just imagine what would happen if, in the middle of a war, a French passenger plane were shot down off the coast of Lebanon,” says an IAF source. “They’d blame us just like they blamed us in 2018 when 15 Russian soldiers were killed as a Russian Ilyushin plane was shot down by Syrian anti-aircraft during an attack on Latakia attributed to Israel.”
Hezbollah’s array included the deployment of SA-6 and SA-22 batteries around Beirut airport, that were attacked in recent months. “Lebanon also had vested interests in our taking out these batteries, endangering Lebanese skies,” says Lt. Col. I. “At the start of the war, we sent the world a warning: Whoever flies to Lebanon, risks facing an air defense systems reliant on a terrorist organization.”
Five advanced mid-sized Hermes UAVs shot down Hezbollah’s anti-aircraft array, mainly during the first half of the war when the learning race between the two sides peaked and incorporated Iranian weapons industries and engineers.
Lt. Col. I. and Lt. Col. A.’s team investigated and gathered information about the array, and understood the extent of the danger to the IAF’s freedom of action. This endangered Apache helicopters assisting forces on the ground as well as intelligence gathering sorties to Tyre.
The greatest concern was that these batteries would be moved around and further deployed. The SA-22 battery, considered the most dangerous of them all, can be placed on the ground floor of a three-story building in Nabatieh or an underground parking lot of a 14-story building in the crowded Dahieh district. The IDF wasn’t monitoring these hundreds of anti-aircraft Hezbollah targets 24/7. It was enough for a truck covered in tarpaulin, or a couple of missile trucks, to drive a few hundred meters to fire at IAF jets, and we’d lost.
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The Air Force also failed to appreciate the level of skill of Hezbollah's anti-aircraft cells that, in recent years, were returning from several-week operational training courses in the Iranian army with end-of-course air shows over Syria.
“They had no intention of totally paralyzing the IAF from operations in Lebanon," say IAF officials. “It was enough for them to show one success, like taking down an F-16 with a pilot abandoning a mission on Lebanese soil or, Heaven forbid, getting killed."
A month into the war, on November 8, scores were settled. Three weeks earlier, Hezbollah had managed, for the first time in the war, to shoot down its first Hermes 450 IAF done with an SA-67 battery. The IDF received the green light from the political echelon to kick off its offensive deep into Lebanon. General Staff Operations Directorate chief, Maj. Gen. Oded Basyuk gave Lt. Col. I.’s team the go-ahead. Operation Mountain Air was underway.
The IAF nicknamed the first surface-to-air battery attacked in Lebanon, an advanced SA-22 battery, the “Nexus.” The IAF used a small missile for “roof knocking” in the dead of night. Families living nearby fled for their cars within ten minutes. The massive secondary explosions in the house, reminiscent of a fireworks display, left no room for doubt. There had been at least eight large missiles on the destroyed multiple-barrel launcher.
Those hesitant months were utilized to gather deep intelligence on Hezbollah’s anti-aircraft array. The young officers in the colonel lieutenants’ team understood that an organized plan to destroy the enemy’s anti-aircraft array could be prepared only with ongoing aerial presence. The danger, however, meant that the bulk of the operation in the first months of the war was carried out by the use of drones.
“For Hezbollah, taking down a drone is an achievement,” says Lt. Col. I. “They know that doing so ostensibly restricts our monitoring or aerial assassinations of their commanders and operatives in the field.”
At some point, the air supremacy team learned something new about Hezbollah’s anti-aircraft array: The network connecting the batteries wasn’t dense, but rather dispersed and independent.
“If you were to ask a Syrian army battalion commander, he’d tell you it’s extraordinary and makes no sense, as anti-aircraft batteries were being deployed on some hilltop, next to the radar and other mechanisms protecting it,” says I. “We had to engage with this array, even at the risk of taking down our own drones. If we hadn’t done that, we might have saved a drone or two, but weakened our capabilities of harming Hezbollah.”
Hezbollah’s anti-aircraft array had 3,000 operatives and took serious blows in the war, losing its top commanders. Most operatives are alumni of professional training in Iran and Syria. They’re divided into three geographical areas: the southern anti-aircraft array; the Beirut unit and the Bekaa unit.
“Our young guys knew that there was an advanced surface-to-air battery in a certain place, but couldn’t say where,” says Lt. Col. A. Facing this challenge, the air force managed to develop covert ruses and deceptions to confuse Hezbollah’s anti-aircraft operatives. “We implemented these crazy ideas that came from below, from 20-year-old officers who invented a variety of aerial ambushes and knew the right moment to strike.”
At the end of December last year, the aerial supremacy unit caused a Hezbollah anti-aircraft cell to remove a truck with a large launcher on it from a hiding place in an orchard, that was destroyed in a precision attack, this time from an Israeli missile ship stationed near Tyre.
As the hesitation declined from one month to the next, Hezbollah’s ambitious anti-aircraft array, laying the groundwork for the opening shots of its planned September Operation Northern Arrows, was systematically eroded.
“The conditions for starting the major strikes we afflicted on Hezbollah, including those assassinating its leaders, was complete IAF freedom of action in Lebanon. Without that, we’d have been in a quite different place," I. continues. Complete freedom of action means F-15s, not just stealthy F-35s flying at 4000 feet, but rather actually over Beirut’s Dahieh high-rise rooftops.
A young aircraft supremacy officer also pushed for another method to make this difficult for Hezbollah: A supersonic boom used as a regular fighting pattern – generally by F-35 Adir planes. This is a deafening noise that can sound like a bomb, caused when a jet exceeds the 1.1 Mach speed of sound, creating a shock wave. In one of his final speeches before his assassination, Hassan Nasrallah and the residents of Beirut were treated to an especially loud supersonic boom.
“It can shatter windscreens, has a huge impact on the population, and moves things for Hezbollah,” says one officer. “To restore deterrence, it’s important to us that Lebanon should know that our planes are free in their airspace. I remind you, Beirut has no sirens or warning systems.”
The freedom of aerial action has another benefit for the Air Force. It’s more effective. Jets can get closer for strikes in Syria, as these strikes can be conducted from Lebanese skies, taking full advantage of the country’s topography.
Despite these achievements, the IAF believes Hezbollah still has firepower, albeit much less than before the war. IAF planes no longer face the same dangers. Israel believes that as soon as the cease-fire is fully implemented, the array will be rebuilt with Iranian support and lessons will have been learned. So, the IDF demands to counter in practice any effort to rearm Hezbollah.
Alongside the large surface-to-air missiles, Hezbollah also has thousands of shoulder-fired missiles (man-portable air-defense systems [MANPADS]), in its possession since the 1990s. This tactical array has been upgraded in recent years and includes an aerial rocket converted to explode in the air, triggered by a time-activated fuse; a broad range of classic anti-aircraft mortars (varying in diameter from 12mm through to 100mm) designed primarily to hit helicopters and anti-tank missiles converted into anti-aircraft missiles with a dedicated fuse for precision targeting helicopters - effectively “air mines”, used in areas such as valleys or the Litani or Saluki rivers where the IAF planes are expected to fly low. These mines explode a few dozen meters above the source of sound or movement detected by its dedicated sensors. They accordingly demand high maintenance and are battery operated.
A Hermes drone was shot down by one such MANPADS in the war in the north. During the Egoz unit’s difficult battle in early October, in which six soldiers were killed, Hezbollah operatives shot shoulder-held missiles that almost hit Apache helicopters descending to low altitude in a dangerous area to help soldiers.
“We live in the Northern Command and hold weekly meetings about freedom of action with its commander, Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin to whom this matter is very important, mainly as a critical matter for continuance,” the IAF says. “We have to continue flying unrestrictedly over Lebanon. Over the years, we lost our intelligence grip there, and we can’t make the same mistake again.”
Proof of the mission’s importance flickers on a screen behind these officers: Two pictures of a broad single-story building in Bekaa, deep inside Lebanon near the Syrian border, that was used as a warehouse for advanced Hezbollah weapons. There are two versions of this picture: one taken during the intelligence gathering sortie in recent months, the other before the war.
“Iran has invested many millions in Hezbollah’s surface-to-air anti-aircraft array, turning it into one of its heaviest arrays,” say the aerial supremacy officers. "The Lebanese army also has anti-aircraft capabilities but hasn’t used them against us. We couldn’t have carried out the major assassinations, including Nasrallah without close air reconnaissance.”