Israel will face more rounds of fighting against Iran, warns Defense Ministry director

 Defense Ministry director general Amir Baram warns that Israel will face additional rounds of fighting against Iran in the future, after what he deems Israel’s success in the 12-day war in June.

It “ended in a clear Israeli victory, but there will be additional rounds against Iran,” he says. “The Iranians have not disappeared, they are feeling humiliated and therefore are investing huge sums in defense and in accelerated force-building processes.”

Speaking during a speech at a conference hosted by the Finance Ministry’s accountant general, Baram also reveals the cost of Israel’s strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, and interceptions of the Iran-backed group’s missiles.

“To maintain military superiority, the Defense Ministry operates on three time horizons: in the immediate term, procurement; in the medium term, improving readiness for the coming decade; and in the long term, developing game-changing weapon systems for future arenas,” he says.

Baram says the ministry is in the midst of establishing a “Supreme Armaments Council,” which he says will enable Israel to “significantly expedite” its readiness for wars with Iran and other distant enemies.

“We must invest now in thinking about ‘the next surprises’ and about the next pager operations,” he says, referring to Israel’s attack on Hezbollah last year. “This is security economics.”

“Each such surprise has broad implications: Our strikes in Yemen cost on average about 50 million NIS ($15 million), but it has wide implications for our deterrence and global positioning. An Arrow 3 interception costs between 15–30 million NIS ($4.5-9 million), but the damage from a miss will reach nearly 300 million NIS ($90 million),” Baram says.

“Therefore, we must make a fundamental change in the production and procurement processes of critical defense and combat systems; a process that the Iranian regime completes in a month takes months and even years in Israel,” he says.

Lastly, Baram says that last week, the ministry signed weapons export deals worth $2.5 billion, despite a number of countries canceling defense deals with Israel: “I cannot mention the names of the countries, but there they understand the significance of long-term defense investment in an unstable world.”