US Congress cancels the purchase of two Israeli Iron Dome

The US Congress decided on Sunday to cancel the purchase of two more Iron Dome batteries manufactured by the Israeli Rafael company.

The Israeli “12” channel said that the US military pushed for the purchase of the two batteries last year, but Congress decided to invest the budget in local systems produced by Dynetics and Raytheon companies to intercept missiles and drones.

The Israeli TV channel indicated that the US military had agreed to purchase 4 systems from the Iron Dome system, and obtained two of them, one of which was deployed on the island of Guam as part of Operation Iron Dome, where they tested the capabilities of the system and were trained to operate it.

Channel 12 added that the other two batteries were scheduled to be purchased by September 30, 2023, before Congress decided to advance the domestic project and cancel the purchase of new Israeli missile system.

According to the new agreement, “the order won’t cancel the army’s demand to deploy available defensive capabilities against missiles, which means that there will be a budget to operate the purchased Iron Dome that are in stock”.

The Israeli system were purchased to fill an existing gap until the arrival of the local “Enduring Shield” system, which has an advantage”.

Last August, Israel’s Rafael competed with the Iron Dome system in a tender for the US Army against the Dynetics and Raytheon systems”.

Channel 12 said: “The Israeli loss was surprising, given that the two US systems were under development, while the other Israeli systems proved themselves”.

“The prices were in favor of the Israeli system by a large margin.

The Iron Dome Tamir interceptor missile currently costs less than $20,000.

On the other hand, the US system interceptor based on the AIM-9X air-to-air missile costs about $500,000 per missile”.