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When Israel carries out airstrikes and artillery bombings in Gaza, the Palestinians have few sources of protection. But when Palestinians fire rockets at the Jewish state, its citizens can test one of the most proven air defense systems for security: the Iron Dome.
Hamas, a Palestinian militant group that controls the New Gaza Strip, has since Monday fired about 1,800 rockets at Israel, targeting large cities and other towns such as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
The Islamist movement has maintained its outreach like Israeli fighters, artillery and tanks it hit the poor Palestinian territory 2m people. At least 122 people have been killed in Gaza since Monday, including 31 children and 20 women, and another 900 have been injured, Palestinian medical officials said.
But, according to the Israeli military, about 90% of Palestinian rockets have been extracted by the Iron Dome, a system built by Israeli defense companies and funded and developed in conjunction with the United States. Palestinian rockets have killed nine Israelis, including a child, while a woman was running to a shelter and a soldier was being killed by a similar fire.
“The number of Israelis killed and wounded would have been much higher if it had not been for the Iron Dome system, which has always been life-saving,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the Israeli army.
The Iron Dome was specially designed to withstand with rougher missiles and shorter range Palestinian factions fired on Israel, and 10 years ago they first used it to intercept Hamas shots fired from Gaza. Its development accelerated in 2006 after a month-long war with Israel over Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese movement, and three years later the conflict with Hamas.
Justin Bronk, a researcher at the U.S. Royal Defense and Security Investigation Service, said much of the success of the Iron Dome is due to its sophisticated radar system, which could surely hit built-in areas with incoming rockets. which will do no harm in the open ground.
The Iron Dome has 10 batteries spread across the country, each with three interceptors capable of firing 20 interceptors, giving the system the ability to fire 800 missiles at incoming rockets without recharging.
Designed to deal with shorter-range and slower rockets, the missiles it uses are relatively small and inexpensive compared to those used in air defenses, such as the U.S. Patriot system, and interceptors between $ 40,000 and $ 100,000, Bronk. he said.
The Obama administration increased funding for the U.S. Iron Dome to some extent in favor of Israel. But he also hoped it would help prevent escalating conflicts.
“It was a deliberate calculation by the Obama administration to fund it [general] Rather than U.S. military aid, it is ultimately about $ 1.5 billion in military aid, “Bronk said. He added that it was a condition that Americans could use the interception data for their own research and development purposes.
Ulrike Franke, a senior politician at the European Council on Foreign Affairs, said this week’s events underscored the “political importance” of the Iron Dome, which has allowed Israelis to “continue a relatively normal life while under attack”.
“It allows the government – if the Hamas attacks kill hundreds of Israeli civilians, the Israeli government would push very hard to intervene with a ground operation,” he said. “By protecting the Iron Dome, the government has more freedom to maneuver. However, on the other hand, it gives the government the freedom not to try for a peaceful solution – because it can withstand attacks, at least temporarily.”
But the scale of the salutes fired by Hamas this week has still shocked the Israelis, who have sparked panic in neighborhoods where rockets have broken their defenses.
“I know I won’t be afraid, but you hear sirens and you feel panic. What if you’re the most unfortunate man in the country today?” said Tomer, mingling in a garage in Jaffa with his baby. Minutes later, an Iron Dome interceptor fired a rocket over his head, leaving traces of smoke in the sky.
The Israeli army was also surprised that Hamas was ready to launch a campaign against the most sophisticated and sophisticated military forces in the Middle East and to jeopardize the consequences.
Hundreds of persistent rocket fire is in danger of overtaking the system. Hezbollah has a larger and more sophisticated rocket stack than Palestinian militants.
“Hezbollah has an arsenal of more than 100,000 rockets and is much better equipped to launch large numbers of permanent waves,” Bronk said. “Many of its rockets are also being supplied with Iranian guidance devices, so they are more accurate, which also increases the number that the Iron Dome should detect.”
But he added that the Iron Dome was never meant to be an “absolute defense”.
“It changes behavior psychologically in many ways rather than changing the overall balance of forces of any large-scale group,” Bronk said.
Additional report by Mehul Srivastava in Tel Aviv
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