A Houthi drone struck Ramon Airport in the Arava on Sunday. The aircraft injured a passenger who sustained light wounds from shrapnel, along with seven others - one from falling and the rest from shock. Brig.-Gen. (res.) Ran Kochav, former IDF air defense chief, spoke on Monday with Anat Davidov and Udi Segal on 103FM radio about the failed interception.
"A failed interception is always a weakness, and this is a serious incident, unfortunately, not the first, and I hope the last," he said. "It happened yesterday in Ramon. It happened at the time when an Israeli citizen was killed in Jaffa, and it happened to us that one of the Houthi ballistic missiles fell near Ben-Gurion Airport."
"There is a paradox of success here. The air defense system works magic with 98% interception of drones," he continued.
"The paradox is that at the end of the day, a goalie only counts the goals he intercepts. No one in Ramon is interested in having a 98% success rate if the airport is closed for two hours and, fortunately, without fatalities. Let's try to understand why it doesn't always happen, except for the correct statement that there is no hermetic defense and that not everything is perfect," he added.
"This word of identification is divided, like everything in the military, into three parts. First, the drone, UAV, or unmanned aircraft must be detected, usually by the air force's radars. After that, it must be classified according to the type of vehicle, even before being classified as 'companion or predator,' and it must be understood whether it is a fighter jet, a passenger plane, or a drone, and of what type."
Kochav later explained the stage at which, according to the initial investigation, the error occurred: "Only in the third stage does the essential classification stage come, namely, whether it is a friendly or predatory aircraft. Here we need to understand exactly what happened in the regional air control unit - was it a human error or a technical engineering error?"
"If I understand correctly from the initial investigation carried out by the air force, this is a human error in the human control unit. This is a fact: they managed to intercept the other drones in the Nitzana area from the same flight. We need to understand whether this is a phenomenon or a loophole and whether it can be closed."
Public relations is important
He then addressed the issue of Israel's public relations, or lack thereof, in the world: "Public relations is not everything, but it is important, and Netanyahu understands this better than we do. It is challenging to convey a reality that is itself complex and difficult to comprehend, and the policy here is equally complex and difficult to explain. In some places, it is even illogical."
"This thing is a continuous failure, especially since Moshik Aviv left the head of the national public relations system. There is no national public relations department, and there is no Foreign Ministry or embassy system. This thing is one big failure. With all due respect to the IDF spokesman, and there is respect for his abilities, no one in Berlin, Barcelona, or London wants to see an officer in uniform with a beret and an Israeli accent, as we sneer when we see the Houthi military spokesman trying to explain."