Israel rejects as “rubbish” the report of a low intercept rate of “Iron Dome”

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“It’s like trying to perform an operation on a patient with closed eyes” one Israeli expert said in response to a ” scientific report” claiming that the Rafael “Iron Dome” interceptor achieved a very low kill rate in the recent war in Gaza.

After the war it became clear the system intercepted app. 85 % of the rockets launched from Gaza. This was based on a very thorough debriefing .

According to a report prepared by Theodore Postol, Dr. Mordechai Shefer, and an unnamed scientist who worked for Iron Dome’s manufacturer , and quoted in Haaretz daily , the Iron shot down only 5% of its targets.  The report claims that the Israel defense forces (IDF) reports about the high kill rate result from confusion about the explosion that often occurred as the missile approached its target. ” In the vast majority of cases, the explosion was that of the missile self-destructing when it detected it would not strike the Palestinian rocket.”

The experts also note a wide discrepancy between the number of damage claims by Israeli civilians (3,200) and the number of rockets the IDF concedes struck built-areas (58).  Even the Israeli police reported 109 incidents in which they investigated damage from Palestinian rockets, which is double the number that the IDF claims.

Israeli sources familiar with the Iron Dome operation said that what they call ” amateur research ” was made in the most strange way by sitting at home watching videos on YouTube., ” a research like this is possible only if you have all the raw material including videos and radar data ” one of the experts said.

The sources added that the report will probably be used by the supports of a laser based rocket interceptor “even if we pour billion of dollars into that effort , such an operational laser system will be operational in 2030 . The rockets will not wait”

They also said that the huge interest in Iron Dome is some countries that saw the real data is another proof that this report is based on “something that is solid like a piece of paper”

Pictures with courtesy of IDF’s spokesman unit