It cost Israel more than $1bn to activate its defence systems that intercepted Iran’s massive drone and missile attack overnight, according to a former financial adviser to Israel’s military.
“The defence tonight was on the order of 4-5bn shekels [$1-1.3bn] per night,” estimated Brigadier General Reem Aminoach in an interview with Ynet news.
“If we’re talking about ballistic missiles that need to be brought down with an Arrow system, cruise missiles that need to be brought down with other missiles, and UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], which we actually bring down mainly with fighter jets,” he said.
“Then add up the costs - $3.5m for an Arrow missile, $1m for a David’s Sling, such and such costs for jets. An order of magnitude of 4-5bn shekels.”
That’s the point of iron dome system. It only shoots down rockets that would otherwise hit targets that would cost more to rebuild/restore. At least that’s the case with hamas rockets - they are predictable enough. Drones are a different story.
You make it sound as if they calculate the cost of a rocket hitting X or Y, instead they just check if it would generally hit or not. Also, lives can hardly be valued anyway.