JERUSALEM – The Israeli occupation's response to the Palestinian resistance rockets showed fundamental gaps in the Iron Dome system, which led to a decline in its performance in intercepting and shooting down rockets before hitting populated Israeli areas during the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.

This was revealed in light of the Islamic Jihad's recent launch of hundreds of rockets that targeted the Israeli depth as part of the response operation that the Palestinian resistance called "revenge of the free" after attacks that the occupation began at dawn last Tuesday and led to the assassination of 6 members of the military council of the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement.

Israeli media and military analysts have reported a decline in Iron Dome's interceptor capability despite attempts to fill the gaps by developing and innovating laser systems.

Iron Dome's weakness in providing protection to Israeli cities that have been hit by long and medium-range rockets fired by the Palestinian resistance over Tel Aviv in the past two days has been evident.

Two Iron Dome batteries on the Gaza border (Al Jazeera)

Iron Dome

The Iron Dome system, which began development in 2007 and was introduced into military service in 2011, is the first line of defense against the rockets of the Palestinian resistance.

Iron Dome is specialized in countering short- and medium-range rockets ranging from 40 to 75 kilometers at most.

One battery of Iron Dome has 8 launchers, each containing 20 interceptor missiles, and multiple missiles can be launched simultaneously, and the cost of one missile is $ 50,8, meaning that launching one battery launcher costs more than $ <> million.

The Iron Dome, developed by the Israeli military industry company Rafael, was used for the first time to confront the rockets of the Palestinian resistance during the military aggression on Gaza in 2012 during the Israeli military operation "Pillar of Defense", which the resistance called "shale stones."

A comparison with Operation Sword of Jerusalem in May 2021 and the current military aggression on Gaza indicates a decline in Iron Dome's ability to intercept rockets that targeted settler-populated areas, as its interception capacity has declined to 90% from more than 95% previously.


Improved capabilities and dome penetration

In light of the improvement in the rocket capability of the resistance factions during the current operation "Revenge of the Freemen" and in light of the talk about the penetration of the Iron Dome system by a group calling itself "Anonymous Sudan" in conjunction with the start of the current aggression on the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military institution acknowledged the decline in the dome's ability to intercept Palestinian rockets.

This acknowledgment means that the dome does not meet the objectives for which it was developed by intercepting rockets fired at populated areas, especially since the resistance rocket capability has reached a range of more than 150 kilometers and areas far beyond Tel Aviv.

In light of the launch of long-range rockets by the Al-Quds Brigades targeting the Israeli depth, the Israeli occupation army has used the defensive system called "David's Slingshot" in recent days.

The cost of launching a single missile from the David's Sling system is more than one million dollars (Reuters)

David's Slingshot

The next layer of Israeli air defense is David's Sling, designed to intercept advanced medium- and long-range missile threats and missiles with a range of more than 120 kilometers, including ballistic missiles.

The David's Sling system is designed to shoot down and intercept rockets and missiles with a range of 100 to 300 kilometers, as well as low-flying aircraft or cruise missiles and drones.

Development of the David's Sling system began in 2016 with the development of the rocket capabilities of the Palestinian resistance and the insufficiency of the Iron Dome to intercept it.

The system was tested during wars and military operations against Gaza, where it was developed by the US Missile Defense Agency and supervised by the Israeli companies "Rafael" and "Raytheon".


Between the dome and the slingshot

Yehoshua Kaleski, a military affairs specialist and researcher in defense systems, said Iron Dome rockets hover around rockets fired from Gaza until they collide with them, unlike the David's Slingshot missile system, which hits the target directly.

Kaliski explained in an interview with Al Jazeera Net that the Iron Dome system has gaps and shortcomings in the pursuit of rocket shells launched from Gaza, and therefore not intercepted all, including those targeting populated areas, and it is not able to move quickly, unlike David's slingshot, which can maneuver and pursue missiles and moves at supersonic speed.

In the opinion of the Israeli researcher, the first practical use of David's sling in Operation Protective Arrow was crowned with success and may be encouraging for fortifying the Israeli atmosphere.

But the defense systems researcher said that "the intensity of rocket fire by Islamic Jihad is not comparable to Hamas's rocket capability, and the cost of the interception operation carried out by David's slingshot is much more expensive than the Iron Dome, as the price of each interceptor missile is about one million dollars."

Israeli analysts believe that the development of the range of resistance missiles necessitated the resort to advanced interceptor systems (Reuters)

Test for the Northern Front as well

Itay Belmontal, a military affairs correspondent for the official Israeli channel Kan, believes that the Israeli security establishment, in light of the investigations it has opened into the hacking of the Iron Dome system by hackers, had to experiment with the "David Sling" system and use it during the ongoing conflict.

The military correspondent attributed in his interview with Al Jazeera Net the Israeli army to use David's sling to intercept medium and long-range missiles launched towards Greater Tel Aviv to recognize the decline in the interceptor capacity of the Iron Dome.

He explained that during the round of escalation on the Gaza front, the occupation army went to verify the effectiveness of the "David's Sling" against rockets and test the performance of the system in order to assess its capabilities against distant threats that may arise on the northern front of Syria and Lebanon.

Costs and damages

Strategic affairs adviser Kfir Adar said the costs of the Iron Dome rockets fired until the third day of the round of escalation against Gaza amounted to about $300 million, which he said were very high and constituted heavy losses.

Adar believes that talk of the decline in the interceptor capacity of Iron Dome in the current round of escalation is supported by the extent of the losses and damage caused by rockets and shrapnel that fell over populated areas, as well as the damage caused by the failure to intercept large quantities of rockets that fell and caused damage to infrastructure, roads, and various commercial and industrial facilities.

He pointed out that the damage caused by each missile that the Iron Dome system fails to intercept cannot be estimated in the first stage, but so far many roads, buildings and infrastructure have been damaged, and the death of a civilian has been recorded in the streets that were directly hit.

According to the strategic advisor, dozens of homes were directly damaged in the settlement of Sderot, the city of Ashkelon and in the Rehovot area deep inside Israel, "which raises the question of the effectiveness of the Iron Dome to fortify the atmosphere and the Israeli home front."