By ANN Staff Writer
Israel’s Iron Dome mobile defense system may have racked up yet another trophy of Israeli ingenuity and technological wizardry in response to defense challenges on the ground. Commissioned by Defense Minister Amir Peretz in February 2007, Israeli engineers labored around the clock to replace the joint US and Israel Nautilus laser defense system with a home grown Israeli defense shield able to intercept incoming artillery rockets in midair.
The Iron Dome battery – the functional unit that fires guided missiles at incoming rockets – spans three meters high and weighs only 90 kilos. Light and mobile, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) can maneuver the battery speedily into position to intercept short-range rockets and incoming 155 mm artillery shells within a 70 km radius, in all weather conditions.
Early IDF tests recorded successful interceptions by July 2009. By April 7, 2011 the Rafael Advanced Defense Systems-built apparatus had triumphantly blasted an incoming Grad rocket headed for the southern Israeli city of Be’er Sheva from Gaza. To date, eight rockets fired from Gaza, have been intercepted by two Iron Dome Defense systems batteries.
Early successes have led the IDF to accelerate plans to deploy four more batteries within the next two years.
Yet Iron Dome has its limitations as a defense system. Shrapnel rain, the fallout of contact made with incoming rockets, can wound citizens on the ground. Therefore Israel continues to build protected bus stops, schools, safe rooms and youth centers in addition to beefing up it’s early warning systems in areas most threatened by incoming rocket attacks.
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