Israel Deployed Iron Dome to Protect UAE During Iran War
The UAE has become the closest ally of Israel in the Arab world. It is one of four Arab countries to join the Abraham Accords. Israeli businessmen are doing deals in the Emirates, while Emirati businessmen are investing in Israel. The Moses Ben Maimon synagogue has been built in Abu Dhabi for Jewish and Israeli residents, visiting businessmen, and tourists. A Chabad House has opened in Dubai. The UAE and Israel have concluded both a reciprocal visa-free agreement, and a free trade agreement. The UAE has been buying large numbers of weapons from Israel. As of late 2025, the UAE was identified as the secret buyer in a record $2.3 billion defense contract with Israel’s Elbit Systems for advanced aircraft protection systems. This is the largest sale in Elbit Systems’ history. There are plans for the systems to be jointly manufactured in the UAE. Even before that sale, and just after the Abraham Accords had been signed in 2020, the UAE had bought Barak MX air defense systems from Israel Aerospace Industries. Both Elbit and IAI have opened offices in Abu Dhabi. In 2025, an Emirati state weapons contractor was reported to be investing in an Israeli defense supplier, reinforcing the ongoing military-technological cooperation between the UAE and the Jewish state.
And now we learn that during the Iran conflict, when Iran launched 550 ballistic missiles and 2,200 drones at the UAE, Israel’s military sent its Iron Dome missile defense system, along with dozens of Israeli soldiers to operate them, to help defend the Emirates. Israel also sent its laser-based Iron Beam missile defense system to the UAE, but apparently in the end, the Emiratis did not use it. More on this remarkable event — Israeli soldiers and weapons defending an Arab state — that shows just how close the relations between Israel and the UAE have become, can be found here: “Israel sent Iron Dome system, dozens of IDF soldiers to UAE during Iran war,” by Yonah Jeremy Bob and Goldie Katz, Jerusalem Post, April 26, 2026:
Israel sent an Iron Dome system and dozens of IDF troops to the United Arab Emirates during Operation Roaring Lion, its recent war with Iran, according to foreign sources.
Multiple Israeli officials have stated that the decision to send the Iron Dome battery and interceptors was made after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a phone call with UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ).
Dozens of Iranian missiles fired towards the Gulf state were intercepted by the system, according to foreign sources.
This is the first instance of the Iron Dome being utilized operationally outside of the United States or Israel, though Singapore has previously reportedly purchased and received Iron Dome, and Romania is expected to do so as well.
Military, security, and intelligence cooperation between Israel and the UAE has been on the rise since the countries signed the Abraham Accords in September 2020, but reached new heights during the recent Iran war….
In contrast, while Israel and Saudi Arabia both cooperated under a regional umbrella through the US as a conduit on regional air defense, there have been no reports of Israel providing such a system to Riyadh.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia are now supporting different sides in the Sudan, in Yemen, in the Horn of Africa. The UAE’s anger at the dominant role Saudi Arabia plays in OPEC, in setting production quotes for oil, exacerbates their geopolitical rivalry. The UAE finally decided it was being asked to limit its output by too much, and in a stunning development, it has withdrawn from OPEC altogether, and plans to produce as much oil as it can. Now that the UAE has done this, other oil producers, chafing at their own production limits, will now declare their intention — once the Strait of Hormuz is reopened — to produce as much oil as they can. The Saudis have lost control of the once-powerful oligopoly.
The UAE saw how well the Iron Dome performed in intercepting Iranian missiles and drones, and how quickly the Israelis came to their rescue, while none of their fellow Gulf Arabs offered to share any of their anti-missile weaponry. Israel’s intervention, and the spectacle of IDF soldiers firing Israeli Iron Dome missiles on UAE soil to protect the Emiratis, has convinced the UAE that in signing the Abraham Accords, and moving ever closer to Israel in security matters, with a massive purchase — $2.3 billion — of weapons from Elbit Systems, that it made the right choice of ally.
As for the Saudis, they will no longer be the de facto ruler of OPEC; instead, they will be trying, after the UAE’s announced intention to pump as much oil as possible, to keep other OPEC members in line, but for those countries to restrict their own production makes no economic sense. Right now, the UAE’s quota, which OPEC set in 2024, was 3.22 mbd; after having invested $150 billion in new wells, the UAE can now produce 5 mbd, and intends to do just that. At the same time, the world’s largest oil producer, the U.S., with proven reserves constantly growing, is producing at full capacity, of more than 14 million barrels per day. Finally, Venezuela, which has the world’s largest oil reserves but under the regimes of Chavez and Maduro, with their mismanagement, and the crippling American sanctions, saw its production fall to 800,000 to 900,000 barrels a day, when just a few years ago, it produced 3.5 mbd. After the removal of Maduro, American investment in Venezuela’s oil industry will now return, as President Trump has said, and Venezuela will again be producing more than four times what it produces at present.
In addition, there have been significant new oil discoveries in high-growth production areas. These are currently concentrated in South America (Guyana, Brazil, Argentina), Africa (Namibia), and in new, deep shale formations in the United States. The Permian basin in Texas now produces 1.3 mbd. The Bakken shale oil filed in North Dakota and Montana, one of the newest shale oil fields, now produces 1 mbd. Major recent finds, which advanced extraction technology has driven, include immense, untapped, and developing fields. Oil deposits that were once deemed too expensive to exploit can now, with the latest extraction methods, be exploited at a suitable profit. And a new entrant into the field is China, that has discovered in just the last four years 225 large and medium-sized oil and gas fields. The world is awash in oil, and Saudi Arabia has now lost its power to impose production cuts on the other members of OPEC. The UAE has been the first OPEC member to defy the Saudis by resigning from the group. This is likely to lead others to go and do likewise: they will produce as much oil as they can, and not allow OPEC quotas that the Saudis dictate to stop them.
Similarly, the UAE’s public embrace of a security arrangement with Israel, that recently proved so helpful for the country’s defense, saving many Emirati lives, may make several other Arab states more desirous of a similar arrangement with Israel. Morocco, Bahrain, and Oman are three of the countries most likely to make overtures.
AUTHOR
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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.
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