Four minutes and twenty seconds. That's how long Iran's newest hypersonic missile took to travel from Tehran to central Israel. Israel's missile alert system requires six minutes to complete its warning cycle. The missile arrives one minute and forty seconds BEFORE the warning finishes. Sirens sound after impact, not before. THE WEAPON: Fattah-2 hypersonic glide vehicle. Range: 1,400km. Speed: Mach 15 (11,500 mph = 3.1 miles per second). Distance Tehran to Tel Aviv: 990 miles. Flight time: 4 minutes 20 seconds. Maneuverable reentry vehicle changes trajectory during descent — makes interception impossible. WHY DEFENSES FAIL: Arrow-3: Designed for targets above 100km altitude. Fattah-2 glides below 50km. David's Sling: Optimized for Mach 5-8 threats. Fattah-2 does Mach 15. Iron Dome: Short-range rockets only, not hypersonic missiles. Result: No deployed Israeli system can intercept this weapon. ALERT SYSTEM BREAKDOWN: Israeli Home Front Command needs 6 minutes for full warning cycle: detect launch, calculate trajectory, determine impact zone, transmit alerts, sound sirens, population reaches shelter. Fattah-2 completes flight in 4:20. Warning arrives after explosion. Alert becomes notification of attack that already happened, not warning of attack coming. HUMAN REALITY: Tel Aviv shelter reach time: 90 seconds minimum from most locations. Warning time provided: 20 seconds. People hear sirens, start moving, explosion happens while they're still moving. They don't make it. The system that kept Israelis safe for 15 years just stopped working.
