David's Sling air defense system successfully intercepted medium to long-range missiles.

According to a statement released on March 19, 2019, by the Israeli Ministry of Defense, Israel's advanced missile defense system David's Sling successfully intercepted medium to long-range missiles in a joint exercise with the United States. This test series, designated David's Sling Test-6 (DST-6) was the sixth series of tests of the David's Sling Weapon System.

Archive image David's Sling air defense missile system firing test (Picture source Wikipedia)

The test series examined the capabilities and performance of the entire David's Sling Weapon System. These successful tests are an important milestone in operational capability of Israel to defend itself against existing and future threats in the region.

The information collected during the test is being analyzed by program engineers and will be used for ongoing development and fielding of the David's Sling Weapon System. This test series provides confidence in future Israeli capabilities to defend against large-caliber rockets and other developing threats.

The David's Sling Weapon System project is a cooperative effort between the United States and Israel to develop a defense against large caliber rockets and short-range ballistic missiles. The Davids Sling is part of Israel's multi-layer defense system, which also includes the Iron Dome, a system aimed at intercepting short-range rockets from Gaza, and the long-range Arrow-3, an anti-ballistic-missile system.

The David's Sling is an Israel Defense Forces military system being jointly developed by the Israeli defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and the American defense contractor Raytheon, designed to intercept enemy planes, drones, tactical ballistic missiles, medium- to long-range rockets and cruise missiles, fired at ranges from 40 km to 300 km.