The administration, amid a brewing
dispute over establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, was also
said to have held up the processing of new Israeli arms requests.
The Israeli military used a range of indigenous munitions during the
22-day war with Hamas in January 2009. Most of the munitions were produced
by the state-owned Israel Military Industries and Rafael Advanced Defense
Systems.
The munitions were identified as the PB500A1 by IMI. The PB500A1,
reported to be a new advanced weapon, was described as a laser-guided
hard-target penetration bomb based on the 1,000-pound Mk-83 general purpose
bomb.
Officials said the PB500A1 was used against Hamas weapons tunnels in the
southern Gaza Strip. They said the bomb could penetrate two meters of
reinforced concrete.
Rafael was said to have used advanced air-to-ground missiles installed
on unmanned aerial vehicles. The missiles were said to have included
miniaturized versions of the Spike missile.
Each brigade combat team, in
the first such arrangement, was allocated a UAV squadron, which included
such assets as the Hermes-450 and the Heron systems.
