Approximately 45 days ago hostilities broke out between Israel and Gaza. Gaza is a very narrow strip of land inside the Palestine area, where the population is 17 Lakhs and growing three per cent every year. The fastest population growth rate in the world. Israel vacated Gaza in 2006. This strip of land is smaller than the smallest state of India, Goa (one-tenth the area of Goa).
The Gaza Strip, or simply Gaza is a self-governing Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Egypt on the southwest for 11 kilometres and Israel on the east and north along a 51 km border. Gaza with an area of 365 km2 and the West Bank (5,655 km2) are claimed by the sovereign State of Palestine. The governance of Gaza has been administered by Hamas since 2006. Hamas a Militant Islamist organisation has been at loggerheads with Israel ever since.
The present skirmish is after a lull of 6 – 7 years. The Map illustrates the narrow Gaza strip in the whole area. Gaza and the Fateh (Palestinian National Authority) have no love lost between them. Israel vacated the Gaza Strip in 1992-1993 as a part of the Oslo Accord. The fundamental difference between Gaza and Fateh is that Fateh recognises Israel’s right to exist, Hamas rejects it. Hamas fought with Fateh in 2006 and drove it away from Gaza Strip.
What led to this sudden flaring of the border 45 days ago?
At the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in 2021, Jerusalem Islamic Waqf officials said that on the night of 13 April, the Israeli police entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and severed the loudspeaker cables used to broadcast the muezzin’s ritual call to prayer, so that the Memorial Day speech being delivered by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin below at the Western Wall would not be disturbed. Israeli police declined to comment. The incident was condemned by Jordan. The Palestine National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called the incident “a racist hate crime”, but it did not draw other international attention. Immediately after, Israeli police blocked off access to the Damascus Gate where Muslim worshippers congregate during the holiday. The barriers at the Damascus Gate were eventually removed some two weeks later in the wake of protests. One more factor that led to the current violence in Israel and Gaza is the possible eviction of 13 Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in the disputed territory of East Jerusalem. Britain’s control over what had been Palestine ended after World War II and ownership and control of the land was partitioned by the international community through the United Nations. But there was no agreement on the borders of separate Jewish and Arab states. In 1948, the dispute resulted in a war, through which Israel declared independence and asserted control over more territory than had been initially proposed by the United Nations. The city of Jerusalem is important to both Israelis and Palestinians, who want at least part of it to be the capital of their future state. In 1972, almost twenty years after Palestinians settled in the Sheikh Jarrah area, Jewish settlers started launching legal challenges to the Palestinian claims to the land, initiating a legal battle that continues till today.
The settlers say they have a legal right to the land-based on an Israeli law that permits Jews to recover property abandoned during the war in 1948. There is no equivalent law for Palestinians, who have been unable to reclaim the land they abandoned or were forced to leave during the war.
The 13 Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah have been fighting efforts by settlers to evict them since 2008 in Israeli courts. Protests erupted several weeks ago after a court ruling in favour of the settlers, which cleared the way for some of the families (Palestine) to be evicted immediately. The evictions were put on hold by Israel’s Supreme Court, which said it would wait to deliver its verdict on an appeal of the previous ruling in a bid to ease the mounting tension in the Holy City. But as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan drew to a close, unrest at another flashpoint, the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, pushed the two sides back into armed conflict. Another factor that contributed was the attitude of Mr Netanyahu who was in the middle of coalition negotiations after an election in March — the fourth in two years — that ended without a clear winner. To form a coalition, he needed to persuade several extreme-right lawmakers to join him in order to retain power. He has been the PM of Israel for the last 12 years. On April 29, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority cancelled the Palestinian elections, which were eagerly awaited, fearing a humiliating defeat result. The decision made Mr Abbas look weak. Hamas saw an opportunity and began to reposition itself as a militant defender of Jerusalem. Hamas thought that by doing so, they were showing that they were a more capable leadership for the Palestinians. On May 4, the Head of the Hamas military issued a warning to Israel – if the aggression does not stop we will not be silent spectators.
Since Israel was founded in 1948, wars and Israeli settlement construction have led to the displacement of some 5 million Palestinians, according to U.N. estimates. The situation over the Jewish settlers’ bid to expand into more areas by pushing Palestinians out of the land they had occupied for ages. Who has the right to what piece of land is the question. This area has been a place of perpetual conflict. All these events escalated the tension and resulted in the biggest conflict between Israel and Hamas. In all its conflicts Hamas has been raining Israel with mortars and short-range rockets. The aim is to inflict as many casualties on the civilian population and hit the strategic assets of Israel.
In the first or second week of May, the social media was full of pictures that showed the rockets fired by Hamas on Israel hitting an invisible shield.
In the year 2006 more than 3000 short-range rockets were fired on Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah. In 2007 Israel Defence Forces (IDF) decided to develop a countermeasure to destroy rockets in their flight before it reaches their target to minimize human casualties and protect its strategic assets.
In February IDF selected Iron Dome as Israel’s defence 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. The system is designed to counter short-range rockets and 155 mm artillery shells with a range of up to 70 kilometres. According to its manufacturer, Iron Dome will operate day and night, under adverse weather conditions, and can respond to multiple threads simultaneously.
Iron Dome has three central components:
Detection & Tracking Radar:Detection & Tracking Radar: the radar system is built by Elta, an Israeli defence company and a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries, and by the IDF.
Battle Management & Weapon Control (BMC): the control centre is built for Rafael by mPrest Systems, an Israeli software company.
Missile Firing Unit: the unit launches the Tamir interceptor missile, equipped with electro-optic sensors and several steering fins for high manoeuvrability. The missile is built by Rafael. A typical Iron Dome battery has 4 launchers (5 missiles per launcher). The system’s radar is referred to as EL/M-2084. It detects the rocket’s launch and tracks its trajectory. The BMC calculates the impact point according to the reported data and uses this information to determine whether the target constitutes a threat to a designated area. Only when that threat is determined an interceptor missile is fired to destroy the incoming rocket before it reaches the predicted impact area.
Today the system can neutralise any kind of threat within the range of its vertically launched interceptor. In the beginning, only short-range rockets could be intercepted but today many different types of threats, cruise missiles, UAVs, and longer-range rockets and missiles, that fall within the system envelope can be neutralised. The Iron Dome was deployed in 2011. While Rafael claims a success rate of over 90%, with more than 2,000 interceptions, experts agree the success rate is over 80%. Rafael says on its website that it can “protect deployed and manoeuvring forces, as well as the Forward Operating Base (FOB) and urban areas, against a wide range of indirect and aerial threats”.
Once the missile is fired, it should be able to manoeuvre, should be able to see the small target on its own and thereafter go and shoot. But it is impossible to hit the target directly each time, which is why “there is something in each missile called proximity fuse” which is a “laser-controlled fuse”. When passing within ten metres of the target, this activates and blasts the missile with shrapnel that destroys the target. “The warhead is exploded in such a way that it caters for the velocity of the missile and the target.
Each battery, or the full unit, can cost over $50 million, and one interceptor Tamir missile costs around $80,000. In contrast, a rocket can cost less than $1,000. The system dispatches two Tamir missiles to intercept each rocket. Compared with the cost of the missile the countermeasure is very very costly, to say the least. But the return of investment on this system is the saving of lives of the civilian population and protection of Strategic assets.
The time, energy, and cost of rebuilding the destroyed infrastructure is colossal. It post-category-markerthat all its effort in firing the projectile on Israel being reduced to zero. To counter it the Hamas will have to introduce new generation Rockets or Missiles which can escape this INVISIBLE DOME. It will add an enormous burden to its already crippling economy.
IDF is not going to rest with this countermeasure introduced but will already be engaged in upgrading this system in terms of range and time of interception and to try this on the missile in its flight path before it reaches Israel air space. IDF will be looking at the deployment of a similar or improved weapon system in Lebanon or Palestine or even Jordan/Syria. The initial funding of this project was by Israel alone but in 2009 US also funded this project and helped Israel.
The Invisible Dome of Israel is a major game-changer in the Israel Palestine region. Hamas in spite of firing a large number of Rockets has not been able to inflict any great casualties to the citizens of Israel nor has been able to make any international headlines in the World arena. The primary aim of any terrorist organisation striving to make political gains against the existing ruling dispensation in any country is to make headlines in all media to draw attention towards the cause they advocate. This aim of Hamas has been defeated. So what next? Hamas will make efforts to counter the Dome platform created by taking the help of countries sympathetic to its cause and surprise Israel in the next encounter. It may be a better Rocket that can defeat the Missiles fired by the Dome by having decoys or using electronics to take the Missile away from the Trajectory and this action will result in misfire for the IDF. As already brought out, the IDF is already in the process of upgrading its Dome to counter the next round where Hamas will fire much more sophisticated rockets against Israel. This will add a new dimension to the Air Defence inventory.
post-category-marker
