International team inspecting possible site of Israeli radar components production

Photo: MTI/Krizsán Csaba

An international team of experts has inspected a plant as a possible Hungarian production base of some components of the radar system of Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system purchased by Hungary recently, the government commissioner for defence development said at the site in north-eastern Hungary on Friday.

Hungary purchased the radar system of Iron Dome, which provides protection from short-range rockets and artillery shell, last December, Gáspár Maróth said at the plant of HM Arzenal Elektromechanikai in Nyírtelek.

The future production of the radar system’s components will be carried out in Israeli-Canadian-German cooperation, Maróth told journalists, adding that he hosted representatives of the project companies at a visit to the plant.

Maróth said that “the region is Hungary’s ‘radar know-how hub’ with the largest number of radar technology engineers living there”.

The ELM-2084 radar system is capable of detecting low-flying aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, rockets and artillery shells, the news portal of Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth said in December last year.

The first items of the new radar equipment are scheduled to be delivered in late 2022, replacing outdated air defence radars used in Hungary since the Soviet era.