By Sabine Siebold<\/p>\n
BERLIN, June 15 (Reuters) – Israel expects more orders for air and missile defence systems from European countries soon, with at least one contract expected within \u200cweeks, a senior official at Israel’s defence ministry said.<\/p>\n
Demand continues to soar as European \u200cnations perceive a greater threat from Russia and seek to bolster their air defences, the official said, driving interest \u200bin systems designed to counter intermediate-range ballistic missiles and short-range rockets.<\/p>\n
“There’s a huge interest from Europe, from Western Europe,” said Moshe Patel, the director and general manager of the Israeli Missile Defense Organization, on the sidelines of last week’s Berlin airshow, declining to specify the nations involved.<\/p>\n
Israel has sold \u200cits air-defence system, Arrow – built to \u2060intercept intermediate-range ballistic missiles like Russia’s Oreshnik – to Germany. It was developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) in cooperation with the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.<\/p>\n
Finland has \u2060bought a shorter-range system called David’s Sling, which is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles fired from 100 km to 200 km (62 to 124 miles) away, as European nations brace for potential aggression by \u200bRussia. \u200bMoscow has denied that it intends to be aggressive.<\/p>\n
“It’s \u200bmainly (driven) by what’s happening between Russia \u200cand Ukraine,” Patel said. “Of course, they’re looking very carefully what is happening in Iran and whatever will be good against Russia could be good for Iran. Whatever they’re doing, it will be good for all those kinds of threats.”<\/p>\n
Asked whether European countries were interested in Arrow or David’s Sling, he said there was interest in the Iron Dome as well, a system designed \u200cto take out short-range threats.<\/p>\n
“It’s a huge advantage to \u200bthose nations that have enemies right on their borders, this \u200bis the main capability, and the \u200bability to protect a city, protect (a) strategic area,” Patel said.<\/p>\n
Asked about when Israel \u200cmight book further orders for any of \u200bthe systems mentioned, he \u200bsaid one contract was expected to land within the next few weeks.<\/p>\n
“And there are discussions that, maybe by the end of the year, we’re going to hear about more \u200bnations,” he said. “So, it looks \u200clike the decision making by those nations, it’s expedite.”<\/p>\n
Patel declined to elaborate on the \u200bexpected volume of the contracts, only pointing out the talks were “about not minor \u200bnumbers.”<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Sabine Siebold; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Sabine Siebold BERLIN, June 15 (Reuters) – Israel expects more orders for air and missile defence systems…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1027846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[254295,68419,71961,2000,299,5187,14017,69400,837,77493,283790,283791,332,17669],"class_list":["post-1027845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-air-defences","tag-ballistic-missiles","tag-defence-ministry","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-countries","tag-european-nations","tag-israel","tag-israel-aerospace-industries","tag-missile-defence","tag-moshe-patel","tag-russia","tag-western-europe"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116753526096802610","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1027845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1027846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1027845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1027845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1027845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}