As the Palestinian armed faction Hamas succeeded in a large-scale attack on the Israeli Gaza Strip on the 7th (local time), attention is focused on how it penetrated Israel’s vaunted defense system, ‘Iron Dome’. Iron Dome is a low-altitude air defense system jointly developed by the United States and Israel to defend Israeli territory from Hamas rocket attacks.
According to foreign media, Hamas confused the Israeli military by concentrating thousands of rockets, and then infiltrated Hamas members on electric paragliders into Israeli villages on the southern border of the Gaza Strip.
A video posted online showed several Hamas fighters flying over Israel’s border wall in a motorized paraglider. The electric paraglider consists of a seat, a motor, and a parafoil (a balloon-like part filled with air). At the same time, Hamas fighters crossed the northern and eastern borders and entered Israel’s Gaza Strip by land.
Hamas’ large-scale rocket bombing over a short period of time caused Israel to be unprepared for Hamas’ all-out attack. Hamas leaders named this operation ‘Al Aqsa Flood’, and while Hamas claimed to have fired 5,000 rockets into Israel, the Israel Defense Forces said that only 2,200 were fired.
It was not immediately clear how many rockets Israel’s Iron Dome and other missile defenses intercepted. Israel declared a state of war, mobilized reserve forces, and launched a counteroffensive called ‘Operation Swords of Iron’.
The failure of Israel’s two major intelligence agencies, Shin Bet (domestic intelligence) and Mossad (foreign intelligence), in information warfare was also one of the reasons why Israel was caught off guard.
In 2014, the Jerusalem Post reported that the Shin Bet had discovered that Hamas fighters had been trained in Malaysia to use powered paragliders to cross the border. However, information on the use of powered paragliders was only reported at this time, and such attacks had never been reported (to intelligence agencies or the media) until this Hamas operation.
“The entire (defense) system has failed,” Jonathan Conricus, a former international affairs spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, told CNN.
According to CNN, Ephraim Halevi, the former director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, also said that Hamas’ rocket attack exceeded expectations and that he did not know that it had this amount of rockets. At the same time, it was speculated that the rocket was manufactured in Gaza after parts were smuggled by sea.
It is known that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was also ‘blindsided’ by this information.
Iron Dome was developed by the Israeli defense company Rafael and has been deployed since 2011 to block rockets and mortar shells, which are slower than ballistic missiles but can be launched in large quantities. It is known that each interceptor missile that intercepts an incoming rocket costs about 60 million won.
This Hamas attack occurred one day after the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.