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Lessons from the Iron Dome

(Military and Strategic Affairs-INSS-Tel Aviv University) Yiftah S. Shapir - Israel has been under rocket attack for many years. Particularly memorable are the shelling of Galilee panhandle towns in the 1970s, the Second Lebanon War in 2006, when Israel suffered over 4,000 rocket attacks in one month, and the ongoing rocket fire from Gaza over the past decade. Israel is the first country in the world to deploy an operational anti-rocket system to protect the civilian population. Very few countries in the world have suffered such severe attacks on their civilian populations for such an extended period. Iron Dome is a system for intercepting rockets and artillery shells with ranges of up to 70 km. Today there are 5 Iron Dome batteries. By late 2013, there are expected to be 9, and the current plan is to purchase a total of 13. By April 2012, the Iron Dome system had demonstrated 93 interceptions. Its most conspicuous success was during Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012 when it intercepted 421 rockets. Iron Dome, in spite of its success, does not provide total protection. Rockets penetrated its defense, causing damage to property and casualties. However, the real problem was not the physical damage, which was negligible. The problem was that in every one of the incidents, some one million residents of the State of Israel were forced to sit in shelters, and schools were closed. The other side of the coin can be seen in the victory rally held in Gaza. The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).
2013-06-07 00:00:00
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