As Israel thwarted a barrage of Iranian missile and drone strikes last week, it received help from unlikely sources — Saudi Arabia and Jordan. A source close to the Saudi Royal family said the country had a system that automatically intercepted suspicious entities in its airspace as Israel claimed more than “99 per cent” of the Iranian weapons were shot down, The Jerusalem Post reported.
The development comes nearly a year after Saudi Arabia and Iran restored diplomatic relations and reopened embassies in their respective capitals with help from China.
The Arab nation has criticised Israel over its campaign in Gaza and in February warned of “very serious repercussions” for storming and targeting the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
The shortest distance from Iran to Israel is about 1,000 km and the drones and missiles had to travel over Saudi Arabia and Jordan to reach Israel.
Another Arab nation, Jordan, which has repeatedly hit out at Israel over its offensive in Gaza, claimed it shot down missiles fired by Iran that entered its airspace, a Business Insider report said. Moreover, Jordan also reportedly opened up its airspace to Israeli and US fighter jets.
Defending the move, a former Jordanian minister said the country’s foremost duty was to protect its lands and citizens. “What Jordan did yesterday was to simply protect its airspace,” the minister said.
A report in The Wall Street Journal, quoting US officials, said Iran tipped off several Gulf countries about the timing and nature of the attack.
“Arab countries quietly passed along intelligence about Tehran’s attack plans, opened their airspace to warplanes, shared radar tracking information or, in some cases, supplied their own forces to help,” the US officials said.
Apart from Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the unprecedented aerial attack by Iran was also thwarted by the US, the UK, and France. In fact, a report in The Intercept quoted US military officials as saying that a majority of the missiles and drones launched by Iran were shot down by the United States.
Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles towards Israel in retaliation for an airstrike on Tehran’s consulate building in Syria’s Damascus. The attack killed 13 people, including two Iranian generals.