Houthi ballistic missile fired at Israel contained cluster munitions, IDF says

The IDF put its failure to shoot down the missile down to some other still unidentified human or technical failure.

An investigation by the Israel Air Force on Sunday found that the ballistic missile launched by Yemen’s Houthis on Friday night contained cluster munitions, the first time during the war that they used this category of weapon.

On one hand, such a weapon tends to have a less harmful impact if it achieves direct hits as opposed to a classic ballistic missile.

But on the other hand, this kind of missile can have a higher chance of causing at least some minor harm because it splits into many parts, which can have many impacts.

According to the IDF, the fact that it failed to shoot down the missile was due to some other still unidentified human or technical failure and not due to the missile including cluster munitions.

However, it is possible that given a ballistic missile with cluster munitions’ ability to break up into pieces, there are some instances where the IDF would need to shoot it down at an earlier point to avoid its break-up point being able to impact Israel.

The Arrow 2 and 3 used to shoot down such missiles do have the capacity to strike missiles at different and earlier points where necessary, but sometimes a first interceptor misses and with a classic ballistic missile, shooting it down with a later second interceptor will have the same outcome, whereas with cluster munitions, this may sometimes be too late.

On Friday, the IDF had already said that the Houthi missile fired from Yemen that triggered sirens across central Israel likely fragmented mid-air, but it was unclear if this was planned by the Houthis or a defect in the missile.

Magen David Adom (MDA) said that there were reports of shrapnel impacting a house in the central Israeli moshav of Ginaton. The fragment landed in the house’s backyard.

As a result of the missile launch, loud booms were heard around Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan. The IDF said it made several attempts to intercept the missile.

Iran’s use of cluster bombs during war with Israel

During the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, Iran occasionally used cluster bomb warheads with smaller explosives attached in its attacks on Israel.

According to an initial investigation in June, somewhere around seven kilometers above the ground, when Iran used cluster munitions, the missile would split into several smaller bombs, each of which had an impact of an eight-kilometer radius.

Each one of the smaller bombs carried around two kilograms of explosives. The cluster bombs were used in an Iranian attack on Azur.

Jerusalem Post Staff and TPS contributed to this report.