For a moment, it sounded as if Israel was finally changing its long-standing policy on the Russia-Ukraine war. Defense Minister Benny Gantz had announced, in a meeting with ambassadors of European Union countries this week, that Israel was going to supply warning systems to the Ukrainians.
This seemed at least like a departure from Israel’s refusal to send military supplies to the beleaguered Ukrainians. Warning systems may not shoot, but they are certainly military and are at the very least components of weapon systems.
But a closer look at what Gantz actually said to the ambassadors proved to be rather underwhelming.
“For operational and regional considerations,” he said, “I don’t see us sending offensive military equipment.” So far, nothing new. “Maybe we can support them with an early-warning systems [sic] that will allow them to alert the right population in a more accurate manner which will then allow them to have some kind of life, long-perspective I would say emergency routine.”
Once you decipher Gantz’s rather garbled English, it emerges that he’s offering Ukraine very little. In fact, he’s “maybe” offering them something they already have.
Gantz was talking about the Israeli Home Command system that tracks the trajectory of an incoming rocket from Gaza or Lebanon and sends an alert to the cellphones of those in the area where the rocket is about to hit, giving them time to seek shelter. Over the years, this system has taken the form of various smartphone apps, some developed by the Israel Defense Forces and others by commercial high-tech companies.
Over a year ago – long before Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 – the Kyiv government, anticipating a war, had asked Israel for help in developing such a warning system. Israel, fearful of Russia, refused at the time. But Ukraine has its own vibrant high-tech sector and, weeks after the war began, there was already a range of locally developed apps offering Ukrainians a similar service and warning them of incoming Russian missiles.
Gantz’s statement on Wednesday added insult to injury. Not only had Israel refused to help in developing such a system in advance, denying the Ukrainians a critical resource that could have helped save lives in the first stage of the war. But now, in a patronizing Israeli manner, he was offering them – with that “maybe” caveat – something they have proved perfectly capable of developing themselves, albeit with a delay.
It’s true that the Israeli civilian warning system is more accurate. Also, unlike in Ukraine, where the warnings are for entire regions, where millions of citizens rush to take shelter even if the missiles are falling far away, the alerts in Israel specify much smaller areas. This is a major advantage as many more civilians, living further away, can continue life as normal. But that’s not because the Israeli online apps are better.
Ultimately, these civilian systems are based on the intelligence collected by military air defense networks. Israel has a massive array of radar and other electronic sensors concentrated on the Gaza Strip, providing pinpoint data on the launch and trajectory of missiles, as well as drones.
Ukraine’s air defense has to cover a much wider territory and is still largely based on Soviet-era radar, which is only now beginning to be reinforced by modern Western systems.
In addition, there is another app for civilians and soldiers alike to update online any sightings of incoming missiles and drones. With these resources, pinpointing the impact sites is near-impossible.
Israel could certainly help with that, but not by providing a warning system that the Ukrainians have already developed themselves.
While the focus so far has been on Kyiv’s repeat requests for Israeli interceptor missiles such as Iron Dome, Barak and Arrow – the kind of “offensive” weapons Gantz was quick once again to rule out – there are components of Israel’s missile defense systems, radar, command-and-control cabins and advanced software, which provide both the targeting data for these interceptors but also those accurate warnings for civilians. However, Gantz isn’t offering any of these to the Ukrainians either.