Here’s how Israel’s’Iron Dome’ stops rocket fire
How Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ stops rockets — and why Ukraine doesn’t have it, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Some of the ways in which Hamas initially attacked Israel on the weekend — taking down communication towers with improvised explosives, paragliding over the border and gunning down civilians — subverted one of Israel’s strongest defenses: its Iron Dome.
The Iron Dome is a system that protects against short-range rockets. It was conceived in the early 2000s and became operational in 2011.
Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at Center for Strategic and International Studies, says there are three parts that make it work.
“For rockets and artillery, for ballistic missiles, it’s pretty predictable. So if you see something traveling on a particular arc, you kind of know where it’s going to be going on the rest of its trajectory, you also know where it’s going to end up,” Karako told NPR.
Third, if the system calculates that the rocket is going to land in a populated area or a place of strategic importance, it activates the last piece of the system — the launcher — which fires Tamir interceptors to collide with the rocket mid-air.
Each missile costs between $40,000 to $50,000 and the U.S. spends billions on its development and maintenance.
More than 5,000 rockets have been launched into Israel since the attacks from Hamas began Saturday, according to the Israeli military, which says the Iron Dome successfully neutralized most of them.
Source: Here’s how Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ stops rockets — and why Ukraine doesn’t have it
The U.S. Navy’s Iron Dome and its Support for the Safess of the Ukrainians and the Jews: a bipartisan bipartisan resolution of the Biden-Gostheimer bill
“Their approach to acquisition has been not the most exquisite and most expensive interceptor, for the perfect interceptor rate — but rather, large quantities of interceptors that are lower cost and good enough to get after the threats.”
And there is likely more U.S. aid in the pipeline, with President Joe Biden saying on Tuesday that the federal government is “surging additional military assistance, including ammunition and interceptors to replenish Iron Dome.”
Biden’s pledge and the bill that would authorize an additional $2 billion to bolster the Iron Dome are both part of the bipartisan bill introduced in the House this week.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., said the move would be “critical to increasing American security assistance for Israel’s missile defense system, which is saving millions of innocent lives.”
The Ukrainian government has made a number of requests for Israeli-made defense systems — including the Iron Dome — since Russia first invaded in February, 2022.
The Ukrainian President called on the Israeli Knesset in March, 2022, to help protect the lives of Ukrainians and Ukrainian Jews.
“There are other countries in Europe and elsewhere in the world that are certainly looking at this … for its relatively lower cost, for its sooner availability, and for its proven record.”
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