Jericho Missile

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Context

• Israeli lawmaker has called to deploy a ‘doomsday’ weapon against Hamas and Palestine in the ongoing war. This has put the limelight on nuclear weapons in the region, namely the Jericho missile system.

Jericho

About

• ‘Jericho,’ refers to Israel’s original ballistic missile program.

Initiation

• It was initiated in the 1960s and named after the biblical city located in the West Bank.

Collaboration

• The Jericho Ballistic Missile System was initially a collaboration with the French aerospace company Dassault.
• France withdrew in 1969, and Israel continued its development.

Note:  Initially, the Jericho-1 model, which was operational during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, came out as an accomplishment of the said program.

Jericho-1 Missile System

• The Jericho-1 missile system, was retired in the 1990s.
• It had a weight of 6.5 tons, a length of 13.4 meters, and a diameter of 0.8 meters.
• Jericho-1 missile system had a range of 500 kilometers.
• It could carry a 1,000-kilogram payload, though it had a 50 percent chance of hitting within a 1,000-meter radius of its target.

Jericho-2 Missile System

• After the Jericho-1 missile system, later, Israel developed the Jericho-2.
• It was a longer-range missile in the late 1980s, with a length of 15 meters and a diameter of 1.35 meters.
• But it had the same payload capacity.
• The Jericho-2 missile system had a range between 1,500 and 3,500 kilometers.

Jericho-3 Missile System

• Then, Israel developed the Jericho-3 missile system.
• It was an intermediate-range system that entered into service in 2011.
• The latest weapon featured improvements over the previous models.
• It has a longer length than Jericho-2 and a larger diameter of 1.56 meters.
• The single warhead of the Jericho-3 missile system weighed approximately 750 kilograms.
• It had a range of 4,800 to 6,500 kilometers.
• Moreover, the payload capacity extended to about 1,300 kilograms.