Special to WorldTribune.com

TEL AVIV — The Hamas regime and its Palestinian allies have focused
on finding vulnerabilities in Israel’s new Iron Dome missile and rocket
defense system, a report said.

The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies said Hamas and its
Palestinian militia allies have largely abandoned their shelling of Israeli
towns near the Gaza Strip. Instead, Palestinian gunners were firing salvos
of missiles and rockets toward Israeli cities that contained the Iron Dome.

“Here, the tendency of the Palestinian groups was to fire rockets at the more distant, larger cities in Israel’s south and not at the small Israeli communities adjacent to the Gaza border, like Sderot. Ashkelon, Ashdod and Beersheba were repeatedly targeted, as well as some smaller towns deep within Israel,” the report, titled “The Missile Threat from Gaza: From Nuisance to Strategic Threat,” said.

Authored by Israeli missile defense agency founder Uzi Rubin, the report cited the mini-war between Islamic Jihad and Israel in August. Rubin, a consultant to foreign governments, said the Iranian-sponsored Jihad ignored such longtime short-range targets as Sderot while focusing its fire on Ashkelon and Beersheba, the latter about 40 kilometers from the Gaza Strip.

“The Palestinian armed factions made intense efforts to break through the defense by launching larger salvos of rockets at the two batteries defending Ashkelon and Beersheba, while forgoing the temptation to seriously hit the yet undefended city of Ashdod,” the report said.

The sole Israeli fatality by Jihad missiles took place on Aug. 20 in a
rocket salvo on Beersheba. The report said the attack was meant to penetrate
the Iron Dome’s interception envelope.

“The fact that this barrage of rockets was aimed at Beersheba, with its
Iron Dome battery, and not at the equidistant but larger and undefended city
of Ashdod, may indicate that the Palestinians’ main priority was to probe
the defense system for weaknesses,” the report said.

Rubin said the effectiveness of Iron Dome remains uncertain,
particularly in confronting salvos. He cited estimates by the Israeli
military and prime contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems that Iron Dome
demonstrated an interception rate of up to 93 percent.

“Such use of saturated fire as a countermeasure to missile defense was
predictable based on numerous statements made by Iranian and Hizbullah
officers,” the report said. “The Palestinians, it seems, have lost interest
in harassing small communities; with longer range rockets now at their
disposal, they are finding it more profitable to harass larger cities.”

  Ahkelon, Ashdod, Beersheba, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Gaza Strip, Palestinian militia focus fire to probe for flaws in Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Uzi Rubin