Israel’s much-vaunted Iron Dome missile defence system is intercepting a barrage of rockets fired by Hamas and different Palestinian militants from Gaza as bloody clashes escalate.
According to the Jewish state’s military, 200 of the greater than 480 rockets which have been fired since Monday have been shot out of the sky by the system.
They declare that round 150 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip in the direction of Israeli territory exploded contained in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli-designed Iron Dome system is supposed to guard populated areas and important property by neutralising short-range aerial threats.
The first battery was deployed in March 2011 close to the southern metropolis of Beersheva — 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Gaza Strip, and a favorite Hamas goal — to fight Soviet-designed Grad rockets fired from the Palestinian territory. Israel now has 10 such batteries.
2,400 projectiles intercepted
The head of the Israel Missile Defense Organization, Moshe Patel, stated that as much as January Iron Dome had intercepted over 2,400 projectiles through the previous decade.
With every launch costing reportedly virtually $50,000, he advised the Times of Israel that it had “saved lots of of lives”.
Each battery has a radar detection and tracking system, a firing control system and three launchers for 20 interceptor missiles. Each has a range of between four and 70 kilometres (2.5 and 44 miles).
Iron Dome was developed by Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, a state-owned arms company based in the northern city of Haifa. But it is also partly funded by the United States, which committed $5 billion to its development costs in 2016.
It is one of the strategic pillars of the US-Israeli alliance which has been followed by successive Democratic and Republican administrations.
In August 2019 the US Army signed a contract to purchase two Iron Dome batteries to enhance its own short-range missile defence capabilities.
Israel has other missile defence systems such as the Arrow, to counter ballistic missiles, and David’s Sling, for medium-range rocket or missile attacks.
Military experts say 13 Iron Dome batteries are needed to be able to defend the whole of Israeli territory, with its tense border with Syria also particularly at risk of attack.
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