A total of a dozen aircraft were deployed for the strike, including four F-35 stealth fighters and eight F-15 fighter jets.
By IDF Club
Israel’s surprise airstrike on a Hamas meeting in Doha, Qatar last Tuesday caught the United States off-guard, and utilized advanced ballistic missiles launched over Saudi airspace, multiple senior US officials have claimed.
Speaking with The Wall Street Journal in a report published Saturday, the officials claimed that the IDF airstrike on a villa hosting a meeting of Hamas’ politburo last Tuesday was carried out using advanced air-launched ballistic missiles deployed from Israeli fighter jets and launched into space.
Most ballistic missiles must be launched either from static, ground-based launch sites, or from naval vessels, such as ballistic missile submarines.
Israel is one of only three countries known to have developed ballistic missile systems which can be launched from aircraft, the others being Russia and China.
While the United States pursued the technology during the Cold War, no operational system was completed.
Last year, Israel Aerospace Industries unveiled an air-launched version of its Long Range Artillery (LORA) ballistic missile.
According to the US officials cited in Saturday’s report, the Doha strike utilized multiple LORA missiles fired by Israeli Air Force fighter jets from neutral airspace over the Red Sea.
A total of a dozen aircraft were deployed for the strike, including four F-35 stealth fighters and eight F-15 fighter jets.
The 12 Israeli planes flew over the Red Sea, on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula from Qatar, at which point the aircraft carrying the LORAs launched the ballistic missiles into space.
After exiting the atmosphere, the missiles traveled above Saudi airspace before reentering the atmosphere in Qatari airspace.
Minutes before the missiles struck their target, Israel notified the US of an impending attack on Hamas, without providing details regarding the location.
However, American space-based infrared sensors picked up heat signatures from the ballistic missile launches and signatures indicating their trajectory, enabling the Pentagon to determine that Israel’s target was located in Qatar.
But the discovery came too late for the US to provide Qatar with advanced notice, the report said, with the warning reaching Doha 10 minutes after the missiles struck their target.
“Notice was given so close to actual launching of missiles that there was no way to reverse or halt the order,” a senior US defense official said, calling the operation “absolutely unimaginable.”
The strikes carefully avoided violating the airspace of Saudi Arabia and other moderate Arab Gulf states, the report said.
