Tehran says it has sent hypersonic missiles against Israel for the first time
Iran launched 200 missiles against Israel, including for the first time several hypersonic missiles, during its attack on Tuesday evening, Iranian state television said. The Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s ideological army, claimed that “90% of the missiles” had “reached their targets”.
The Israeli army, for its part, had earlier claimed that Iran had fired around 180 missiles towards its territory, and that most had been intercepted.
In June 2023, Iran unveiled an intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile, called Fattah, capable of traveling at fifteen times the speed of sound. The president at the time, Ebrahim Raïssi, had affirmed that this weapon would strengthen the “power of deterrence” of Iran and would bring “peace and stability to the countries of the region”.
Hypersonic missiles fly at low altitude in the atmosphere and are maneuverable, which makes their trajectory difficult to predict and their interception complex.
