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Israel will deploy its "Iron Dome" multi-million-pound missile defence
system in southern Israel for the first time next week in the wake of
rocket attacks from Gaza, officials said on Friday. 7:12PM GMT 25 Mar 2011
The Telegraph UK "I authorised the army to deploy in the next few days the first battery
of "Iron Dome" for an operational trial," Defence Minister Ehud Barak
said as he toured the tense Gaza Strip border.
The order comes after a spate of rocket fire by Gaza militants in recent
days, some of them striking deep into Israel. The deployment of the Iron Dome interceptor, designed to combat
short-range rocket threats from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, has been
delayed until now with officials saying operating crews needed more
training and suggestions the system was prohibitively expensive. The system, developed by Israel's Rafael Advanced Defence Systems with
the help of US funding, is designed to intercept rockets and artillery
shells fired from a range of between four and 70 kilometres (three and
45 miles). Each battery comprises detection and tracking radar, state-of-the-art
fire control software and three launchers, each with 20 interceptor
missiles, military sources said. However, Mr Barak said the deployment would be experimental and partial
and complete protection could take years. "The complete acquisition of Iron Dome will take a number of years,
dependant on suitable funding," he said. Militants in Gaza and those allied with Lebanon's Hizbollah militia have
fired thousands of projectiles at Israel in the past. The system will first be along the border of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip,
from where militants fired a daily barrage of home-made rockets
prompting Israel to launch a devastating 22-day offensive in December 2008. It will then be deployed along the Lebanese border, from where Hizbollah
militants fired some 4,000 rockets into northern Israel during a 2006
war. It was that experience which prompted the development of Iron Dome. Israel believes Hizbollah now has an arsenal of some 40,000 rockets. In May, US President Barack Obama asked Congress to give Israel $205
million to develop the system, on top of the annual three billion
dollars Israel receives from Washington. Iron Dome will join the Arrow long-range ballistic missile defence
system in an ambitious multilayered programme to protect Israeli cities
from rockets and missiles fired from Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, Syria and
Iran. A third system, known as David's Sling, it currently being developed
with the aim of countering medium-range missiles.
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