Major UAS role in suppressing the rockets from Gaza

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The unmanned air systems (UAS) in the Israeli airforce (IAF) Palmachim airbase are playing a major role in the effort to suppress the rocket launching from Gaza into Israel

From the beginning of the “Protective Edge “operation, the UAS of  the “First UAS” squadron have been conducting constant flights around the clock over the Gaza Strip with its Heron-1 UAS.

“Our main goal is to prevent high-trajectory fire on the State of Israel”, says First Lieutenant Matan, Head of the Planning Team in the squadron. “We are conducting a mission in which we track launching teams in order to identify them even before they have executed a launch and we have already succeeded in doing this a few number of times in recent days”. The officer told the IAF website.

The squadron participates in the strikes before, while and after it takes place. It identifies targets and verifies that they are not located near concentrations of uninvolved population and then it directs fighter jets to targets. Later it verifies the results of the strike (BDA).

According to the IAF , the squadron identifies changes in the behavior of Hamas members. “Just as we improve, so they improve their methods all the time in every field”, says Second Lieutenant E’, security officer in the squadron. “So, we track and identify new fighting doctrines that they develop and learn how to deal with them”.

The squadron cooperates with other intelligence squadrons that operates the  “Heron TP” UAS and with manned reconnaissance planes .

The IAF’s UAS are equipped with special payloads that help identifying the launchers before and during their use by the  Hamas