
In the event that Iran attempts to fire missiles at Israel, Jerusalem will  deploy giant drones stationed in neighboring Azerbaijan to destroy the missiles  before they leave the ground, the London-based Sunday Times  reported.
According to the report Sunday, an American-made X-band radar  system deployed at the Nevatim airbase in the Negev “can detect an Iranian  missile on its launchpad 1,000 miles to the northeast,” giving Israel up to 13  minutes of warning.
The report quoted an Israeli military source as  saying “We’ll try to ‘kill’ them at the booster stage - the moment their engines  are ignited.”
Reportedly, such a preemptive strike would be carried out  with American Hellfire missiles, delivered by Eitan drones - also known as  Herons - based in Azerbaijan.
“If that happens, and it isn’t as easy as  it sounds, then the remaining missiles will be finished off by our Air Defense  Command,” a “well-informed Israeli source” was quoted as saying.
The  story was written for the British newspaper by the Tel Aviv-based Uzi Mahnaimi,  who in the past has reported that the IAF used Eitan drones in an alleged attack  on a Gaza-bound Iranian arms convoy in Sudan.
The Eitan has a range of  over 7,400 kilometers, over four times the distance between Israel and Iran. It  can also remain airborne for over 70 hours, which means that if Israel were to  jam Iran’s radar system and/or destroy its air-defense batteries - as it  reportedly did to Sudan in another alleged attack, on an arms factory in October  - the drones could hover, unimpeded, above Iran, as their operators located  targets.
The IDF claims that during the initial hours of November’s  Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza - a coming-out party of sorts for Israel’s  anti-missile technology - IAF aircraft destroyed hundreds of rocket launchers,  decimating Hamas’s sizable stockpile of mid-range Fajr-5 rockets capable of  reaching Tel Aviv.