Aug. 3 (UPI) — U.S. military Oshkosh trucks were delivered to Israel on Monday, to be fitted for the Iron Dome defense weapons system, hours after Raytheon Co. and Israel’s Rafael announced a joint venture produce the Israeli system in the United States.
The U.S. Army purchased several Iron Dome batteries for testing in 2019.
“This will be the first Iron Dome all-up-round facility outside of Israel, and it will help the U.S. Department of Defense and allies across the globe obtain the system for defense of their service members and critical infrastructure,” Sam Deneke, vice president of land warfare and air defense business execution at Raytheon, said in a press release.
A site location in the United States will be announced by the end of the year, the companies said.
The portable system then targets incoming rockets and fires an interceptor missile, typically a Skyhunter missile made in the United States by Raytheon, to destroy the incoming projectile in the air.
The companies claim the system has a 90 percent success rate, with over 2,500 intercepts.
“After a virtual meeting with the USAFE-AFAFRICA [U.S. military commands in Europe and Africa], the Israeli Air Force & the U.S.A.F. [U.S. Air Force] signed a document defining the interoperability between the American THAAD missile & the Israeli Iron Dome in case of an emergency in Israel,” the Israel Defense Forces said on Twitter on July 30.