The Israeli air defense system, known as Iron Dome, is known around the world for being virtually impenetrable.
New Delhi:
Israel was plunged into crisis when Hamas fired 5,000 rockets at them from the Gaza Strip on Saturday, an attack that came fifty years and a day after the outbreak of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.
The Israeli air defense system, known as Iron Dome, is known around the world for being virtually impenetrable. The Iron Dome is deployed in various parts of the country to counter missile attacks and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and has an accuracy of more than 95%.
But during Hamas’ surprise attack on Saturday, the system failed to tackle the rocket barrage
Although the Israeli Defense Forces have improved the Iron Dome’s rocket and missile interception capabilities over time, the country still faces challenges in dealing with heavy rocket fire.
The surface-to-air short-range system consists of three parts: detection and tracking radar, combat management and weapons control, and the missile firing unit.
Hamas launched a saturation attack on Saturday to overwhelm the system. They fired five thousand rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip within the span of twenty minutes. This seemed to cause the Iron Dome to achieve its ability to intercept.
Hamas has been trying to find a weakness in the Iron Dome system for years and has often succeeded in landing some rockets in Israel by launching multiple rockets at the same time.
This time, the Iron Dome could only attack up to a certain point and could not intercept all targets.
The interceptors cost as much as $100,000, while each interceptor missile costs about $50,000. This means that if Israel had even managed to intercept all the Hamas rockets, it would have cost them Rs 2,079 crore.
Israel has launched airstrikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip – a densely populated enclave of 2.3 million people – in response to the militants’ surprise Saturday attack.
Israeli forces said 1,200 people, most of whom were civilians, were killed in the attack – the worst in the country’s history.
In Gaza, officials reported that more than 1,000 people have been killed in Israel’s ongoing campaign of air and artillery strikes.
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