Officials say that despite new tactic by Gaza terror groups, relatively few projectiles managed to penetrate Israel’s missile defense system, which had an 86% success rate
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Hamas’s military wing boasted Monday that it had developed a new rocket-launching tactic that “overcame” Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, leading to the deaths and injuries of numerous Israelis over the past two days.
A spokesman for Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, said in a social media post that “The Qassam Brigades, thanks to God, succeeded in overcoming the so-called Iron Dome by adopting the tactic of firing dozens of missiles in one single burst.”
“The high intensity of fire and the great destructive ability of the missiles that were introduced by the Qassam [Brigades]… succeeded in causing great losses and destruction to the enemy,” he added.
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In fact, while Hamas and Islamic Jihad indeed attempted to overwhelm Iron Dome by repeatedly firing large fusillades at a specific location, few of the rockets actually succeeded in penetrating the system.
In one case, over the course of one hour on Sunday evening, at least 117 rockets were fired at the city of Ashdod, but only one of the projectiles aimed at Ashdod made it past Israel’s air defenses.
That rocket killed Pinchas Menachem Prezuazman, 21, a dual American-Israeli citizen, as he was running for shelter as the alert siren sounded.
Three other Israelis were killed in attacks from the Strip on Sunday: Moshe Agadi, 58; Zaid al-Hamamdeh, 47; and Moshe Feder, 68.
Feder was not killed by ballistic rocket fire, but by an anti-tank guided missile fired at his car as he drove on a road near the Gaza border.
He sustained a serious shrapnel wound to the leg, causing significant blood loss, and was pronounced dead at Ashkelon’s Barzilai Medical Center after resuscitation efforts failed. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
During the fighting, Hamas also attempted to use a new style of rocket, one with a short range and a heavy warhead, packed with dozens to hundreds of kilograms of explosives.
The terror group believed these rockets would get past Israel’s air defenses, just as, during the 2014 Gaza war, Iron Dome struggled to intercept short-range mortar shells.
However, the military said technological upgrades and other improvements to the Iron Dome allowed it to shoot down the short-range rockets this time.
In total, 35 rockets and mortar shells from the Gaza Strip struck populated areas over the course of Saturday and Sunday.
The military said that while this underlined that the Iron Dome is not impenetrable, the system was overall effective, with 240 interceptions and an 86 percent success rate — similar to previous rounds of intensive rocket fire.
The Iron Dome’s radars also successfully spotted every rocket and mortar launch, which ensured that Israelis were warned of incoming projectiles ahead of time by sirens.
In all, Gaza’s terror groups fired some 690 projectiles at Israel during the two days of fighting.
In response to the onslaught, the Israeli military conducted over 300 strikes from the air and land, including a rare assassination of a terrorist operative, who the IDF said funneled money from Iran to terror groups in the Strip.
“In the past two days, we’ve renewed the policy of assassinating senior terrorists. We’ve killed dozens of Hamas and [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad terrorists and we toppled terror towers,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also defense minister, said Monday.
A spokesperson for Hamas also said that although the recent flareup in violence had come to an end, the wider conflict would continue.
“The resistance managed to deter the IDF,” said Sami Abu Zuhri, according to the Kan public broadcaster, referring to the Gaza terror groups.
“Our message is that this round is over, but the conflict will not end until we regain our rights.”
The ceasefire between Israel and the Gaza terror groups went into effect at 4:30 a.m. Monday, according to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups.
The Israeli government refused to confirm the reported truce, apparently so as to avoid publicly acknowledging its negotiations with terrorist groups.
However, the military announced that, as of 7 a.m., it was lifting all security restrictions that had been in place in the south during the fighting, and that schools would be allowed to open, indicating that a ceasefire had indeed been reached.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said 29 Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes, including two pregnant women and a baby. Israel said one of the women and the baby were killed in a failed rocket launch inside Gaza and not as a result of IDF actions.
An IDF spokesperson could not immediately comment on the reported death toll in Gaza. The IDF said it only struck terrorist targets.
At least 11 of the Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip since Friday were members of terror groups, according to Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Eight of the eleven members of terror groups belonged to the Al-Quds Brigades, Islamic Jihad’s military wing.
The Al-Quds Brigades confirmed on its website the identities of eight of its members killed in Isaeli strikes.
Hamas’s Qassam Brigades similarly confirmed in statements that three others killed during the fighting belonged to its ranks.
Unlike past rounds of fighting, the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad was accused by Israel of being a main instigator of the violence over the weekend, rather than Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.
Content retrieved from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-boasts-it-overcame-iron-dome-with-concentrated-rocket-salvos-it-didnt/.