Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
The Israel Navy fired two advanced sea-to-sea missiles at a decommissioned ship, completely destroying it in an exercise on Tuesday.
A video released Thursday showed the launch of the Harpoon missiles and their fiery collision with the empty vessel over 100 kilometers (60 miles) away.
“The ships practiced firing missiles at a target in the middle of the sea,” Col. Ziv Rom, the head of the navy’s Missile Boats Flotilla, said in the video. “They hit their target precisely.”
The missile launch was one aspect of the naval exercise, which was meant to improve the soldiers’ “preparedness” and the navy’s operational capabilities, Rom said.
A decommissioned Israel Navy ship just after it gets hit by a Harpoon sea-to-sea missile during an exercise on July 5, 2016. (Screen capture: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)
The target was the Israel Navy ship Atzmaut, a Saar Class 4 missile ship that had been removed from operational activities in March 2014.
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The Harpoon missile has been in service for decades, but remains one of the premier sea-to-sea weapons used by navies around the world.
“The advanced warhead allows for long-range precision strikes at sea. These capabilities are crucial to the unique circumstances of battle at sea of static and moving targets,” the army said about the Harpoon.
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