WarSclerotic

Iron Dome battery moved south after Gaza-rocke… JPost – Defense.

    Due to escalation in rocket fire from Gaza Strip, Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided Friday to deploy a battery from the Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system outside the southern city of Ashkelon.

Barak’s decision came after close to thirty rockets have been fired into Israel since the beginning of July.

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) currently has two operation Iron Dome batteries and is expected to receive a third by the end of the year.

On Friday morning, the Air Force struck five targets in the Gaza Strip following several strikes earlier Thursday, coming in response to increased rocket fire emanating from the Strip in recent days, including one rocket which reportedly landed in the Lachish area but caused no damages or injuries.

The IDF Spokesman’s Office confirmed that the IAF struck four terror tunnels and one terror activity base in the central Gaza Strip. Another target was struck in the southern strip. A statement added that the precision strikes were identified as hitting their targets.

Palestinian sources reported that several buildings were on fire in Khan Yunis following the strike but there were no reports of injuries.

The IDF Spokesman noted that the attacks were precision strikes and came as a response to the rocket fire in recent days. It added that the IDF holds Hamas responsible for maintaining calm in Gaza.

According to IDF estimates, the rockets were fired by terrorist groups affiliated with al-Qaida and global jihad elements, and not by Hamas or Islamic Jihad, even though the larger groups likely turned a blind eye to the rocket fire.

The Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system successfully intercepted 9 Katyusha and Kassam rockets fired from Gaza Strip in April and has since been moved throughout the country to different cities where the IAF is setting up potential deployment sites in the event of a larger scale conflict in the future.

This entry was posted on August 5, 2011 at 1:05 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.