Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system. Photo: Israel Defense Forces.

JNS.org – The Iron Dome missile defense system would be unable to fully protect Israel against a massive missile attack by Hezbollah, a senior defense official warned Thursday.

“Ben-Gurion International Airport would have to be shut down from early on in the fighting against Hezbollah,” the official told Israel Hayom. “Iron Dome won’t be able to duplicate its interception rate from Operation Protective Edge.”

The Iron Dome was designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells fired from distances of 2.5 to 43 miles. Hezbollah’s arsenal is believed to contain 100,000 missiles, including surface-to-air and surface-to-sea missiles whose range could cover all of Israel.

The defense official said that while Hezbollah is currently “knee-deep in the fighting in Syria, it would be wrong to say that it was struggling.” Despite the fact that the Syrian civil war has “blurred the borders between Syria and Lebanon, we haven’t seen the massive transfer of weapons to Lebanon,” he said.