IRAN FORCES ISRAEL TO BLOW $550 MILLION FOR ONE NIGHT OF DEFENCE

In terms of financial costs, Iran was clearly the victor after launching a massive missile strike against Israel the other night.

This is despite the strike causing almost no casualties and minimal damage. The real damage for Israel was the exorbitant cost of its air defence, which has been estimated at 2.1 billion Israeli shekels, or more than $550 million by Yehoshua Kalisky, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a think tank in Tel Aviv.

The estimate takes into account expenses associated with intercepting half of the Iranian missiles and drones, including the use of the David’s Sling air-defense system, and also takes into account the cost of keeping 100 Israeli warplanes in the air for six hours, including fuel and weapons.

“These are enormous costs,” Kalisky told media, adding that they were comparable to costs in major wars fought by Israel such as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. But he added that the price tag was unlikely to have an immediate or long-term negative impact on Israel's economy. 

By contrast, the cost to Iran of launching a grand total of 185 drones, 36 cruise missiles, and 110 surface-to-surface missiles is not known with any clarity, but is significantly less.

A Shaheed drone of the kind used by Iran in its attack can be produced for around $20,000, which would give a total cost of around $3,700,000 for the 185 drones used the other night. 

Also, Iran has been making a considerable profit by selling thousands of these same Shaheed drones to Russia, as reported by The Warzone website:

"The Iranians initially asked Russia to pay $375,000 per Shahed, but that figure was eventually negotiated down to $193,000 per drone for 6,000 units or $290,000 each for 2,000 drones, the publication reported. The total value of the production contract, including the transfer of technologies, equipment, 6,000 UAVs, and software, was $1.75 billion, according to Militinaryi."

It is also clear that the attack on Israel was not intended to cause significant causalities as Iran is capable of launching a much larger number of missiles to swarm Israel's defences and could also call upon thousands of missiles held by its proxy Hezbollah just over the border in Lebanon if it so chose. The most parsimonious analysis of the attack suggests that it was much more of a "dry run" and a warning to Israel -- as well as a financial punishment for the attack on the Iranian embassy in Syria at the start of the month.