Israel is under constant threat internally and externally. Internally 21% of its own Palestine Arabs cannot tolerate the existence of Israel? Then adverse neighbors like Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, regional power actors Iran and Saudi Arabia. Later we have Turkey and terror sponsoring Pakistan to name few and non state actors and terror groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, Jihadi Groups, Boko Haram, ISIS, Al Qaeda, Taliban and more. To say even Pakistan based Taliban to Terrorists hate Israel. “We are all Hamas” Pakistani branch of Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) Hafiz Saeed LeT’s founder “every child of the …. is ready to get cut & die for the defense of Jerusalem…. Israel will be obliterated.”
With this security threat directly by its bilateral and regional countries, Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, fired rockets into northern Israeli population centers in the 1990s, Operation Cast Lead, launched in 2008-2009 to stop Hamas rocket fire on Israeli civilian communities posing a security challenge for the Israel Defense Forces. Dragged into a ground operation, Israeli troops killed at least 300 Gazan civilians yet lost only nine soldiers. The international criticism that followed made Israel even more cautious. When it faced renewed rocket fire from Gaza, Israel preferred to not subject its own civilians to prolonged threat and the disruption of daily life. Nor was a ground operation viable that would have put Israeli troops at risk.
The Answer was Iron Dome or missile defense, in the Year 2004 itself Israel with this idea got momentum and appointed Brig. Gen. Daniel Gold as the head of the research and development bureau of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In February 2007, Defense Minister Amir Peretz selected Iron Dome as Israel’s defense against this short-range rocket threat. Since then, the $210 million system has been developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems working jointly with the IDF.
Israel’s Missile Defence System or Iron Dome or kippat barzel works as a mobile all-weather air defense system. The system designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells fired from distances of 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) to 70 kilometres (43 mi) away and whose trajectory would take them to an Israeli populated area. Iron Dome relies on a system of radar and analysis to determine whether an incoming rocket is a threat, firing an interceptor only if the incoming rocket risks hitting a populated area or important infrastructure. The interceptors, which are fired vertically either from mobile units or a static launch site, are designed to detonate the incoming rocket in the air, producing the explosions in the sky that have come to accompany warning sirens.
Iron Dome was declared operational and initially deployed on 27 March 2011 near Beersheba. On 7 April 2011, the system successfully intercepted a BM-21 Grad launched from Gaza for the first time. Over the past few days, Israel has been attacked with rockets from Palestinian fighters, some which have got past the country’s much publicized ‘Iron Dome’ defensive system designed to block rocket barrages.
In 2021 a report from Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim from the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, said Hamas’ armed wing fired their “largest barrage” yet from the enclave towards Israel 70 rockets were fired in 30 minutes. Palestine’s Dunya Al Watan news portal reported that the Al-Qassam Brigade, the military wing of Hamas movement that controls the Gaza Strip, said it had launched 100 rockets towards the Israeli city of Beersheba early this week.
This week the Israeli military said that 90 percent of rockets that reached Israeli airspace were destroyed by Iron Dome. The rocket firing by Hamas comes at a time when the Iron Dome has been upgraded to handle the next level of threats. In March this year, the Israeli Ministry of Defense (MoD) had announced an upgrade to the Iron Dome system that enhances its ability to address evolving threats such as UAVs, missiles and rocket barrages. Israeli Minister of Defense, Bnei Gantz was also quoted in the release: “The Israeli technological superiority provided through the Iron Dome and the multi-layered defense system is a cornerstone of Israel’s defense….thanks to which the citizens of Israel can sleep peacefully.”
Further Israel hopes to increase the range of Iron Dome’s interceptions, from the current maximum of 70 kilometres (43 mi) to 250 kilometres (160 mi) and make it more versatile so that it could intercept rockets coming from two directions simultaneously. In addition to their land-based deployment, Iron Dome batteries will in the future be deployed at sea on Sa’ar 6-class corvettes, where they will protect off-shore gas platforms in conjunction with Israel’s Barak 8 missile system. Iron Dome is part of a future multi-tiered missile defense system that Israel is developing to protect the country from threats ranging from mortars to ICBMs and which includes Arrow 2, Arrow 3, Iron Beam, Barak 8 and David’s Sling.
When Israel as a country is struggling to survive with adverse neighbours, the Iron Dome Defence System became a boon to save itself. In 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Prime Minsiter Narendra Modi have signed a deal to buy the Iron Dome system, for around $2 billion. Finally one can say that Nation needs a vision to survive: due to its vision when U.S. defense officials cautioned that it would be “doomed to fail” Israel as a Nation went for the Project with the Trust of its scientific community today Israeli is saving its people’s life and infrastructure with 90% of Missiles Protection.
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