A debate is raging over whether Israel sending Arrow air defense missiles to Germany during the Iran war, while Israel was being showered with ballistic missiles, had cost civilian lives.
The Jerusalem Post has confirmed that Israel continued to send Arrow missiles to Berlin mid-war as part of a contract between the countries despite Israel’s shortage of interceptors.
Some commentators, upon learning this information, have accused the Israeli government of allowing at least five people to die and hundreds to be injured when the IDF did not use the Arrow to defend from certain attacks.
It has already been widely reported that two mass casualty events from Iranian ballistic missiles in Dimona and Arad resulted from the IDF’s decision to use the David’s Sling air defense system in place of the Arrow system, with David’s Sling missing its mark in both cases.
Although David’s Sling has successfully shot down Iranian ballistic missiles in the past, it was never intended to be used against long-range threats. Instead, it was meant to be used for medium-range threats, such as cruise missiles.
In contrast, the Arrow was specifically designed to shoot down Iranian missiles and other long-range threats, including outside Earth’s atmosphere.
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the producer of the Arrow, directed questions toward the Defense Ministry.
Israel delivered Arrow missiles to Germany during Iran war
Why did the delivery of Arrow missiles to Germany continue during the Iran war and what benefits did Israel derive from these sales other than the obvious economic gains? And economic gain, on its own, is not be enough to justify risking Israeli lives.
Prior to the Iran war, the Post was told by Israeli sources that there was no concern that selling Arrow systems to Germany would leave Israel less prepared to defend itself from Iran.
This was a concern even during the June 2025 Iran war, and was raised repeatedly in the media following that war, including when Israel finally delivered its first Arrow defense system to Germany, to much fanfare in December 2025.
As Israeli sources explained, the benefit of billions of dollars of foreign German capital not only brought on economic benefits for Israel and IAI.
They told the Post that funding from a large and powerful foreign country meant that Israel and IAI could, in the long term, produce more Arrows both for Israel and for foreign customers; this would not have been possible without such a large client.
In addition, on December 4, 2025, the Post exclusively reported in an interview with German Air Defense Commander Col. Dennis Kruger that Berlin’s historic deployment of Israel’s Arrow 2 and 3 defense systems would pave the way for additional European countries to purchase the system.
Moreover, Kruger committed in the same interview to purchasing Israel’s Arrow 4 and 5 systems, which Israel is currently working on.
According to Israeli sources, this shows that the deal with Germany actually saves Israeli lives long-term by providing greater funding and economies of scale for production.
More recently, Israeli sources made even bolder statements about the contribution of sales to Germany to Israeli security.
According to these sources, two separate but interrelated deals with Germany regarding the Arrow system and its interceptors, one in 2023 and one in 2024, will lead to Israel being able to produce seven to 10 times as many Arrows as it would have been able to produce without those deals. These deals total $6.7 billion in payments from Germany, which is by far the largest defense deal in Israel’s history.
The first deal with Germany helped double the volume of Arrows that Israel could provide for its own defense. The second deal tripled to quadrupled Israel’s production capacity, and has enabled a near future where the production capacity will reach seven to 10 times what it otherwise would have been.
That still leaves open the question of why Israel did not pause transfers of Arrow systems specifically around the 40-day war with Iran, so as to maximize defense against the imminent threat, with the option of restarting transfers immediately once the war concluded.
A Maariv report indicated that Israeli sources were concerned that, if they did not maintain the pace of Arrow deliveries to Germany, it could harm relations, or perhaps harm the current and future defense deals.
The Post understands that, in addition to general economic benefits, that the deal with Germany provided two other crucial items.
Over the last year, sources said that the Finance Ministry repeatedly stalled requests from the defense establishment, including preventing the convening of the Knesset subcommittee for approving major force buildup spending.
At certain points, the money which Germany provided to Israel was all the government had to make payments for increasing the pace of Arrow interceptors because of the Finance Ministry’s stalling, said sources.
In fact, the Post has learned that, for much of the last year since the June 2025 war, the defense establishment directed IAI and other defense industry companies to greatly increase their production of Arrow interceptors, including purchasing required building materials and hiring more workers, paying them only partially with German funds, and promising to pay them fully at a later date.
When the Finance Ministry finally allowed the Knesset subcommittee to meet to approve Arrow force buildup spending two weeks ago, it was only after the most recent Iran war was already over. This means that it was too late to provide funds for Israel’s increased air defense needs during the war.
That was the first additional benefit from the deal with Germany.
The second benefit is more strategic and long-term.
During the war with Hamas, Germany was among the last countries to put a partial embargo on Israel, resisting the trend for around two years, and being the first to reverse the embargo nearly the moment that the war ended, whereas others have maintained post-war embargoes.
This and other areas of unique defense and intelligence cooperation (including a new full-time senior cyber liaison being based in Germany soon) with Germany have also likely influenced Israeli calculations to maintain the pace of Arrow deliveries.
How negatively a 40-day freeze in sales might have impacted strategic relations and the other issues may be a Pandora’s box that Israeli officials decided not to open. As long as Israel’s rate of shooting down Iranian aerial threats remained relatively high at 90% – and casualty counts were low – the proverbial Pandora’s box could remain closed.
At the end of the day, sources would say that, even with deliveries of Arrows to Germany mid-war, Israel still ended up having far more interceptors for its own self-defense than if it had not made the deals with Berlin.
That said, sources would not deny that, at times during the Iran war, the IDF might not have frozen some other defense deals, where it thought it immediately needed an item, and believed the other party would understand if the item's shipment was delayed.