A ministerial committee responsible for weapons procurement on Monday approved a rapid increase in production of Arrow interceptors for the purpose of anti-ballistic missile defense for the second time in around a year.
The Arrow 2 and 3, manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries, are the main Israeli defense against ballistic missiles from Iran or the Houthis in Yemen.
Although Iron Dome (according to foreign sources) and David's Sling have, on occasion, been used to shoot down such missiles as well, they were never designed to do so and are significantly less effective.
There have been concerns dating back to 2024 that Israel would run low on Arrow interceptors, given how many it used to shoot down attacks from Iran, the Houthis, and even at the time, Hezbollah (the Lebanese group has not fired any ballistic missiles during the current conflict and is presumed no longer to have any.)
Those concerns became even greater after Israel had to try to shoot down around 550 Iranian ballistic missiles during Operation Rising Lion in June 2025.
Accordingly, the government previously made an announcement that it was increasing the pace and investment in manufacturing Arrow 2 and 3 interceptors to be ready for a possible future conflict with Iran, such as the current one.
Israeli predictions did not believe Iran war would last this long
However, most Israeli predictions did not believe a war with Iran would last more than a few weeks, and there are renewed concerns of running out of Arrow 2 and 3 missile interceptors, whether during the current war or in the event of a future one.
The latest decision appears to be doubling down on the prior decision to increase production.
The Jerusalem Post asked the Defense Ministry for clarification regarding how this latest decision was different from the prior one.
The ministry responded that it was an additional push in the same direction required by the current war.
