00:00On October 7th, Hamas militants launched a barrage of rockets from the blockaded Gaza
00:05Strip towards Israel as part of a surprise attack that has reignited the Israeli-Palestinian
00:11conflict.
00:13Key to repelling these rockets is Israel's Iron Dome, a missile defense system that has
00:18become a cornerstone of the country's security since its initial deployment in 2011.
00:24Iron Dome was a local project that involved the Israeli Armed Forces and Rafael, one of
00:31the biggest defense industries in Israel.
00:34The idea was to create a defense against rockets coming from Gaza.
00:40And since then, Iron Dome has been a major component of all the different conflicts between
00:47Israel and Hamas, or Israel and the Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip.
00:52The Iron Dome consists of three mobile elements, which can be deployed to different areas to
00:56intercept rockets, from a range of between 4 kilometers and 70 kilometers.
01:01You have three components.
01:03You have the radar, that is the one that will be detecting the coming rockets on Israeli
01:09territories.
01:10You have the interceptor, which is basically a missile, which is launched to intercept
01:16the incoming rocket.
01:18And then finally, you have, let's say, the software, the system, command control system
01:22that creates or sends the message from the radar to the interceptor.
01:29The sophisticated system has proven effective over the years, repelling over 90 percent
01:34of rocket attacks, according to Israeli officials.
01:38But still there is debate among experts over how successful it has been.
01:42So far, what the Israeli government has said is that the effectiveness of Iron Dome is
01:48pretty high.
01:49The question is, first, what does that interception rate exactly mean?
01:55There's the idea that Iron Dome only intercepts or destroys rockets which are considered to
02:03threaten civilian urban areas.
02:07So if you have a rocket that is sent from Gaza to an unpopulated area in Israel, Iron
02:14Dome will not be activated.
02:16The other element to consider is that no matter how effective Iron Dome is in destroying rockets,
02:26what we've seen in the last decade is that you still have major rocket attacks from Hamas
02:35on Israeli territory.
02:37Hamas doesn't seem to be really deterred by Iron Dome.
02:43Keeping the Iron Dome in action is an extremely costly operation, and it means Israel has
02:47had to partly rely on its longtime ally, the United States, to fund the system.
02:52Starting in 2016, the U.S. and Israel considered that support to Israel's missile defense,
02:58and in particular to the development and production of Iron Dome, was a central part of the bilateral
03:04relationship.
03:05We're talking about something like $3 billion over the last decade.
03:11And while the Iron Dome has undoubtedly protected the country's major urban centers,
03:16the system is not without limitations.
03:18At the end of the day, this is a military technology.
03:22This is not a strategy.
03:23It was a very good solution to protect the Israeli civilian areas, in particular in the
03:31But it does not provide a strategy as a whole to respond to the challenge of Hamas.
03:37I suspect that in coming days, Hamas will be struggling to maintain its ability to fire
03:45the same amount of rockets on Israel.
03:49But then the question becomes, what if there's a regional escalation?
03:54If you have Hezbollah in Lebanon starting to get involved in the conflict,
04:00Hezbollah has a much bigger firepower capability than Hamas.
04:07Hezbollah could very quickly overwhelm Iron Dome.
04:10So that would be the challenge.
Comments