Advanced Israeli missile captured by Russians in Syria, reports say

A David’s Sling interceptor has fallen into Russian hands, reports say. 

By World Israel News Staff

A complete, undamaged state-of-the-art Israeli missile has been in the hands of the Russian military since 2018, it emerged on Wednesday, according to a Chinese news site.

The website Sina says that the interceptor landed unharmed in Syrian territory, was located by Syrian forces and transferred to Russian hands.

On July 23, 2018, Israel launched two interceptors from its new David’s Sling anti-missile system in response to the launch of two OTR-21 Tochka missiles. Tochka is a Soviet-era surface-to-surface missile.

When it was determined that the Russian missiles would not enter Israeli air space, one of the David’s Sling interceptors was detonated by the IDF. But the second fell virtually undamaged into Syrian territory when it missed its target.

According to the Chinese report, immediately after it fell, Syrian military were dispatched to retrieve it. It was then taken to a Russian-Syrian base, and from there flown to Moscow, where its technology would be examined with an eye to reverse engineering its advanced components.

If the report is accurate, it would be a major blow to Israel’s efforts to maintain its qualitative military edge in the region. Ironically, it was the first time that Israel had employed its David’s Sling system.

David’s Sling is designed to intercept medium and long-range missiles and complement Israel’s Iron Dome system, which focuses on short-range missiles, and its Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 systems, which focus on long-range, outside-the-atmosphere threats.

David’s Sling was developed by Israel’s Rafael defense company in conjunction with America’s Raytheon. It became operational two years ago.