A debate is raging over whether Israel’s sending Arrow air defense missiles to Germany during the middle of the Iran war, when it was being showered with ballistic missiles, cost Israeli civilian lives.
The Jerusalem Post has confirmed that Israel continued to send Arrow missiles to Berlin mid-war as part of a contract between the countries, even though Israel had a shortage of its own interceptors.
Some commentators upon learning this information have accused the Israeli government of allowing at least five persons to die and hundreds to be injured when the IDF did not use the Arrow to defend from certain attacks.
It has already been widely reported that two mass casualty events from Iranian ballistic missiles in Dimona and Arad resulted from the IDF’s decision to use the David’s Sling air defense system in place of the Arrow system, with David’s Sling missing its mark in both cases.
David’s Sling has also successfully shot down Iranian ballistic missiles, but it was never originally intended to be used for such long-range threats, but rather for medium-range threats like cruise missiles.
In contrast, the Arrow was specifically built to shoot down Iranian and other long-range ballistic missiles, including outside Earth’s atmosphere.
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the producer of the Arrow, directed questions toward the Defense Ministry
Israel delivered Arrow missiles to Germany during Iran war
Why did the delivery of Arrow missiles to Germany continue during the Iran war, and what benefits does Israel get from such sales other than the obvious direct economic gains? (which by themselves would probably not be enough to justify risking Israeli lives)
Previously, and pre-Iran war, the Post was told by Israeli sources that there was no concern that selling Arrow systems to Germany would leave Israel less prepared to defend itself from a future potential war with Iran.
This had been a large concern even during the June 2025 Iran war, and was raised repeatedly in the media following that war, including when Israel finally delivered its first Arrow defense system to Germany to much fanfare in December 2025.
As Israeli sources explained, the benefit of billions of dollars in German capital for purchasing Arrow systems not only brought economic benefits to Israel and IAI.
They told the Post that the funding from a large and powerful foreign country meant that Israel and IAI could actually in the long-term produce more Arrows both for Israel and for foreign customers, than would have been possible without such a large client.
In addition, on December 4, 2025, the Post exclusively reported in an interview with German Air Defense Commander Col. Dennis Kruger that Berlin’s historic deployment of Israel’s Arrow 2 and 3 defense systems would pave the way for additional European countries to purchase the system.
Moreover, Kruger committed in the same interview to purchasing Israel’s Arrow 4 and 5 systems, systems which it is currently working on developing.
According to Israeli sources, this shows that the deal with Germany and selling Arrows to Berlin actually saves Israeli lives over the long-term by providing greater funding and economies of scale for production.
More recently, Israeli sources made even bolder statements about the contribution of sales to Germany to Israeli security.
According to sources, two separate but interrelated deals with Germany regarding the Arrow system and its interceptors, one in 2023 and one in 2024, will enable Israel to produce seven to 10 times as many Arrows as it would have without those deals. These deals total $6.7 billion in payments from Germany, by far the largest defense deal in Israel’s history.
The first deal with Germany helped double the volume of Arrows which Israel could provide for its own defense, while the second deal tripled or quadrupled the production capacity, and enabled a near future where the production capacity will reach seven to 10 times what would have otherwise been.
That still leaves open the question of why Israel did not pause transfers of Arrow systems specifically and only limited to the around 40-day war with Iran, so as to maximize defense against the imminent threat, with the option of restarting transfers immediately once the war concluded.
A Maariv report indicated Israeli sources were concerned that if they did not maintain the pace of Arrow deliveries to Germany, it could harm relations or the already signed and potential future defense deals.
The Post understands that in addition to general economic benefits, and economies of scale benefits heavily increasing Israel’s own volume of Arrows for self-defense, that the deal with Germany provided two other crucial items.
Over the last year, sources said that the Finance Ministry repeatedly stalled requests from the defense establishment, including by preventing the convening of the Knesset subcommittee to approve major force-buildup spending.
At certain points, the purchase money which Germany provided to Israel was all the government had to make payment for increasing the pace of Arrow interceptors because of the Finance Ministry’s stalling, said sources.
In fact, the Post has learned that for much of the last year, since the June 2025 war with Iran, the defense establishment directed IAI and other defense industry companies to greatly increase their production of Arrow interceptors, including purchasing needed building materials and hiring more workers, paying them only partially with German funds, and partially promising to pay them later.
When the Finance Ministry finally allowed the Knesset subcommittee to meet to approve Arrow force buildup spending two weeks ago, it was only after the latest Iran war was already over, meaning too late to have provided funds for Israel’s increased air defense needs during the war.
That was the first additional benefit from the deal with Germany.
The second benefit is more strategic and long-term.
During the war with Hamas, Germany was among the last countries to put a partial embargo on Israel, resisting the trend for around two years, and being the first to reverse the embargo nearly the moment that the war ended, whereas others have maintained post-war embargoes.
This and other areas of unique defense and intelligence cooperation (including a new cyber full-time senior cyber liaison being based in Germany soon) with Germany have also likely influenced Israeli calculations to maintain the pace of Arrow deliveries.
How negatively a 40-day freeze in sales might have impacted strategic relations and the other issues may be a Pandora’s box that Israeli officials decided it was better not to open as long as shoot down rates of Iranian aerial threats were relatively high at 90%, and relative Israeli casualty counts were low.
At the end of the day, sources would say that even with deliveries of Arrows to Germany mid-war, Israel still ended up having far more interceptors for its own self-defense than if it had not made the deals with Berlin.
That said, sources would not deny that at times during the Iran war, the IDF might not have frozen some other defense deals, where it thought it immediately needed an item, and believed th eother party would understand a delay of the item being shipped to them.
Source:
www.jpost.com
