Air to air missile projects have started to occupy the IAF from the late 1950's. In 1959 Israel began to develop the Shafrir 1 air to air missile. Five years later in July 1964 the development was completed.

In March 1961 it was revealed that basic assumptions related to the missile's design were wrong. Before ending the development or conducting launch testing of the missile, engineers at Rafael had already started to think about ways to improve the missile's performance envelope.

These improvements included an offer to enlarge its dimensions diameter would be increased from 11cm to 14cm, length from 2m to 2.5m, weight from 30kg to 65kg, and the explosive material from 11kg to 30kg.

The designers at Rafael pointed out that these changes in the missile would enable them to use a larger rocket motor, thus increasing the missile's effective hit range from 1.5km to 3km at low altitude, and from 3km to 9km at 35,000ft.

Despite the fact that the designers were not satisfied with the basic design of the missile, a decision to equip the air force with 200 missiles was made.

The fear that improvement works would extend the development process and cause a delay in the missile's operational deployment was the main reason to reject these offers. Nevertheless, during 1962 some design works were done at Rafael to improve the existing model, but never came into realization .

In March 1963, the Shafrir 1 was ready to be tested for the first time. The testing took part in France , and the missile was about to show its ability in shooting a maneuvering target. The result was quite of a disappointment. This led to the recognition that the Shafrir 1 would not be able to answer the IAF's operational requirements. Considering the fact that no other substitute was available, it had been decided that the Shafrir 1 would be received in the air force in May 1963. In parallel, the improved missile's program would be completed and the improvements would be put into the missile.

Another issue which was discussed during the development process was the missile's proximity fuse. The fuse was based on a blast explosive, and was only efficient for about one meter from the target, so it was agreed that the explosive would be based on fragments. An option of increasing the warhead in price of performance decrease was considered also.

The testing in France had showed its sign in the Shafrir 1 operational manual which saw light on July 18 th 1963 , during the missile's reception in the Mirage C3 (Shahak) squadrons

•  Shooting would be done only on a non maneuvering target.
•  Launching would be done on a traverse angle of +10/ 10 degrees of the target's flight line.

Shafrir 1 performance was worse then its characterization had suggested. The missile's destroy rates were estimated at 21 percent without proximity fuse and 47 percent with the fuse.

It was cleared then, that a new air to air missile was needed to be developed. In May 1964, one year after being operational, it was agreed that the Shafrir 1 missile had not passed the reception test.

The Shafrir 1 was not satisfying as a weapon system, but had its credit for laying the foundations for the successful next generations of Israeli air to air missiles Shafrir 2.