Israeli navy prepares for new upgraded warships amid Hezbollah threat
05 October, 2020
After a coronavirus-related delay, Israel’s navy is preparing for the arrival of its next generation of missile boats - giving it a powerful new tool to guard its natural gas industry from the threat posed by Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The first missile boat of Project Magen is scheduled to reach by early December, with three more of the German-made corvettes to reach in the next two years.
“It’s bigger. It’s newer. It’s faster. It’s better,” said Rear Adm Eyal Harel, head of Israeli naval operations, throughout a rare tour of Israel’s offshore Leviathan gasfield.
The vessels, often called Saar 6 corvettes, will be at the forefront of Israeli efforts to safeguard its 370-kilometre exclusive economic zone.
The gas industry reaches the heart of those efforts.
More than a decade after finding sizeable reserves off its Mediterranean coast, Israel now generates about 60 % of its electricity from gas, based on the national electric company, and has begun to export gas to Jordan and Egypt.
Israel can be pursuing a project with Greece and Cyprus hoping of fabricating an Eastern Mediterranean gas pipeline to Europe.
With so much on the line, Iran-backed Hezbollah has discovered Israeli gas installations as high-priority targets.
In a 2018 speech, the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said he could destroy Israeli gas assets “within a few hours” if there is an order to take action.
Israel takes such threats seriously. Throughout a month-long war in 2006, a Hezbollah missile strike on an Israeli Saar 5 warship killed four soldiers.
Lt Col Eitan Paz, a flotilla commander, said the brand new vessels would bring a welcome upgrade to the Saar 5s, which are about 30 years old.
He said they would be equipped with newer and better radar and other electronic systems.
The ships could handle rough seas superior to their predecessors, he said.
The 90-metre vessels include rocket and missile defence systems, anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles, torpedoes and an upgraded launch pad for Israel’s hottest attack helicopters.
“Physically, it’s very little bigger compared to the Saar 5. But it adds most of these systems,” he said.
He said the first boat, the INS Magen was likely to arrive in August, but delivery was delayed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
He said it might be put to sea immediately and reach full operational capacity within almost a year after it had been outfitted with Israeli weapons systems in several phases.
Because the 2006 war, Hezbollah has reatly beefed up its arsenal with about 150,000 rockets and missiles, according to Israeli estimates.
Israel accuses the band of trying to build up precision-guided missiles, which would make that arsenal a lot more lethal.
Rear Adm Harel said the navy’s main concerns are Chinese-made C-802 missiles, including the one which hit the Israeli ship in 2006, and Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship missiles possessed by Hezbollah’s ally Syria.
But he said the military learnt lessons from that war.
“We are prepared and we'll be even more prepared when we have the brand new battleships,” he said.
Israel agreed to choose the vessels in a 2015 deal valued at roughly €430 million ($480m at that time), with the German government covering about a quarter of the cost.
Several Israeli businessmen, including a former commander of the navy and confidants of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are suspects in a graft scandal linked to the purchase of the warships and submarines from German conglomerate ThyssenKrupp.
Mr Netanyahu, who's on trial in three other corruption cases, was not named as a suspect in the scandal and no person mixed up in Israeli navy was connected.
Source: www.thenational.ae