It would appear that the BBC Jerusalem bureau is experiencing a shortage of staff – unless there is some other explanation for bringing in a “BBC Climate/Environment correspondent” to report on a missile defence system.
Late on October 14th the BBC News website published a report by Jonah Fisher titled “Drone attack on Israel puts spotlight on Iron Dome’s limitations”.
Around eleven hours after its initial publication, that report was amended to correct assorted grammatical and factual errors, including the following presentation of Israel’s minister of defence.
Other errors escaped that belated clean-up, including the re-naming of one of Israel’s missile defence systems:
The system to which Fisher refers is of course called David’s Sling (referencing the biblical story of David and Goliath) as CAMERA UK pointed out to the BBC in a complaint. Notably, less than two weeks earlier the BBC News website had published a backgrounder titled “What are Israel’s Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow missile defences?” which is even linked at the bottom of Fisher’s article.
Some seven hours after the submission of our complaint we received the following response from the BBC:
“Thank you for contacting us on the BBC News website. I see that David’s Sling was correctly named in the graphic accompanying this article entitled Israel’s air defence systems, but unfortunately the wrong name appeared in the body of the article. This has now been corrected and we apologise for the error.”
The graphic had in fact been added after the submission of our complaint. Of course the fact that such an elementary inaccuracy remained in situ for some fourteen hours before being corrected prompts the question of why this report did not undergo adequate proof reading before publication.
Fisher’s report includes quotes from a senior researcher at the INSS.
““Most, if not all, of the drones are manufactured by the Iranians and then supplied to the armed groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen,” Dr Yehoshua Kalisky, senior researcher of the Institute of National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, told the BBC.”
The amended version of the report closes as follows: [emphasis added]
“More permanent solutions to take down drones are currently being developed.
“High powered lasers are being worked on and the other technology is using microwave cannons to burn the drone electronics,” Dr Kalisky said.
She says these technologies should be “available in the very near future”.”
As his first name suggests, Dr Yehoshua Kalisky is male. That error remains in situ.
Fisher tells readers that:
“Some parts of the air defence system work well. Here in northern Israel we hear booms at regular intervals as the Iron Dome intercepts rockets that Hezbollah fires from southern Lebanon. Israel says it hits more than 90% of its targets.
But the Iron Dome works because Hezbollah’s rockets are crude – and it’s possible to calculate where its rockets will go at take-off and then intercept them.”
In fact, Hizballah’s vast arsenal includes a variety of rockets and missiles with different ranges and differing capabilities. As correctly noted in the BBC’s October 2nd backgrounder, Israel’s various missile defence systems are designed to deal with different categories of threats, with the Iron Dome being “designed to intercept short-range rockets, as well as shells and mortars, at ranges of between 4km and 70km from the missile launcher.”
Fisher’s portrayal of drones (UAVs) is similarly superficial.
“Slow, small and relatively cheap to make, drones have become a deadly headache for Israelis in this year-long war.
Hezbollah’s attack on an army base near Binyamina in northern Israel on Sunday, which killed four men and injured dozens more, was the most damaging drone strike on the country to date.
It’s led to fresh questions about how well equipped Israel’s hugely expensive air defence system is to stop them. […]
Stopping drones is more complicated. And has in this war become a recurring problem. […]
Drones have a small radar signature and can fly at low altitudes which makes early detection difficult. They can even occasionally be confused for birds.”
Fisher fails to clarify that Hizballah has several different types of UAVs – including some that are not “small”.
“Complementing its rocket arsenal, Hezbollah has invested heavily in UAV technology. Its drone fleet includes the Ababil-T and Mirsad-1, both with a 75-mile range and a track record of deployment against Israel dating back to 2004. The Mirsad-2 and Mohajer-4, also used for reconnaissance against Israel in 2004, have an extended range of 93 miles. The Mohareb and Quds Yasir drones, based on American designs developed by Boeing, can reach targets up to 124 miles away.
The Saegheh-Karrar represents Hezbollah’s venture into smaller, more versatile drones. With a range of 620 miles, it can carry either a single 550-pound bomb or two smaller explosive devices, alternatively configured with anti-ship missiles. However, the crown jewel of Hezbollah’s UAV arsenal is the Shahed-129. Modelled after the Israeli Hermes 450, this large drone boasts a 52-foot wingspan, 24-hour flight endurance, and a maximum range of 1,240 miles.”
Hizballah is of course not the only source of UAV attacks on Israel throughout the past year: as Fisher correctly notes, other Iranian proxies besides Hizballah have used the same method, with drone attacks having been launched from Yemen and Iraq. Not mentioned by Fisher in his report are attacks by Hamas and from Syria and Iran.
While UAV attacks undoubtedly present a new challenge to Israel, most of those launched from more distant locations have been intercepted.
“Data from the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS) at Tel Aviv University shows that since the conflict began a year ago, 180 drones have been launched by Houthi rebels, 150 by Shia militias in Iraq, and 170 by Iran. Most of these drones have been intercepted, many before entering Israeli airspace.”
As was already reported by the Times of Israel in June, UAVs launched from Lebanon present more of a problem.
“The topography on the Lebanon border, with many ridges and hills, can potentially be a challenge for Israeli radar as drones fly through. This, combined with the often very short flight paths, makes it difficult for the IAF to respond in time to an attack when it does detect the drone.”
While Fisher’s reporting on the “Iron Dome’s limitations” does not adequately inform BBC audiences that additional methods are also used to intercept UAVs, it does bring back memories from eleven years ago, when the BBC published several reports claiming that the Iron Dome did not in fact achieve its declared “success rate”:
BBC’S JONATHAN MARCUS AND THE IRON DOME
MORE SUBSTANCE-FREE BBC ‘REPORTING’ ON THE IRON DOME
Unsurprisingly but notably, Fisher has nothing at all to tell BBC audiences about how and why Hizballah has managed to launch hundreds of attack drones from a region in Lebanon in which over 10,000 UN ‘peacekeepers’ are deployed.
