Spike missiles are believed to have been used in the attack on an aid convoy in Gaza which killed three British charity workers. The deadly weapons are manufactured by Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, a company based in Israel.
It is wholly owned by the Israeli state and plays a vital role in supplying their military.
On its website the company boasts that its products have “years of combat-proven experience,” and that it receives £3.7billion ($4.7bn) in annual orders.
It is estimated that they have sold more than 30,000 missiles worldwide, which can be launched from more than 45 different platforms.
Besides Israel, another 38 countries including the UK use the weapons system.
The aid convoy, consisting of two armoured SUVs and a soft-skin car, was hit while making its way to the staging area at the Rafah crossing.
The aid workers – three Britons, an Australian, a Pole, an American-Palestinian and a Canadian-Palestinian – were working for the World Central Kitchen (WCK) food charity and had coordinated their moves with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in advance.
Despite this, they were targeted and killed in a deadly attack that has stunned the world.
In the days before the attack, WCK had been preparing for a delivery of 400 tonnes of aid – enough food to make a million meals.
Chris Lincoln-Jones, a former British Army major, told The Times that there was a “high likelihood” that three Spike missiles fired in quick succession smashed into the vehicles on Monday night.
Mr Lincoln-Jones, who spent five years studying military hardware in Haifa and Tel Aviv, added: “If you aim at the driver’s side, you will hit the driver full-on.
“If you were across the street from the car, you’d be shaken up and you might be hit by a few splinters, but you would survive.”
Military sources told Haaretz newspaper that “undisciplined, rogue commanders” were responsible for the attack.
A source in the intelligence branch said that the IDF’s Southern Command “knows exactly what the cause of the attack was: in Gaza, everyone does as they please.”
