Israel’s Iron Dome put to test by large-scale Gaza rocket attacks
- Fast, large-scale launches challenge Iron Dome defences
- Twenty years in the making, some rockets reach distant towns
Named after slain Islamist commanders and fashioned mostly from makeshift materials in clandestine Gaza workshops, the rockets of Hamas and Islamic Jihad have long bedevilled a technologically superior Israeli military.
The current cross-border fighting has seen a new tactic by the Gazan militant groups: mass-launches aimed at exploiting the statistical failure rate of Israel’s air defences and increasing the chance of causing casualties in its cities.
The rocket fire has set off a near-incessant wail of sirens in Israeli communities near the Gaza border and prompted tens of thousands of residents to seek shelter. Twelve people have been killed in Israel since the hostilities erupted on May 10.
Israel has been heavily shelling densely populated Gaza, where officials say 227 Palestinians have been killed, many of them civilians. Israel says at least 160 guerillas have been killed, among them rocket operators and manufacturers.
According to Israeli officials, a Gaza arsenal of around 29,000 rockets or mortars before the violence began has now been halved. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have not confirmed that.