Iron Dome queries after Eilat attack
JERUSALEM – Confusion surrounds the Israeli military’s decision not to activate the Iron Dome missile defence system last week before two grad rockets fell in the resort city of Eilat.
JERUSALEM – Confusion surrounds the Israeli military’s decision not to activate the Iron Dome missile defence system last week before two grad rockets fell in the resort city of Eilat.
Apparently acting on intelligence, the Israel Defence Forces had deployed the system in early April. But last Wednesday when terrorists launched two rockets from the Sinai Peninsula — which ultimately didn’t cause injuries or damage — officers didn’t activate it.
The IDF has declined to explain why, beyond citing “operational reasons.” There has been speculation in the Israeli media that Eilat’s geography proved unsuitable for the system.
Yiftah Shapir, senior research fellow and director of the Military Balance Project at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies, told The AJN that the decision may have been taken out of concerns that the system could interfere with air traffic arriving at the city’s airport, or may have been due to maintenance.
Within seconds of hearing the bomb alarm, some 10,000 school and college students entered shelters, as did tens of thousands of residents and tourists. Dana Zenati, spokeswoman for the city, told The AJN: “The community was very strong. Things were back to normal an hour after it happened.” She said that she doesn’t expect to see any impact on tourism.
Eilat’s mayor Meir Yitzhak Halevi voiced a hope after the attack that “justice will be meted” on its perpetrators. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel will “exact a price for this.”
An Islalamist group called the Mujahideen Shura Council of Jerusalem has boasted that it carried out the attack, posting a video of masked men launching them. It is believed to consist of Gaza-based militants who travelled to Sinai to lunch from there. The video — which was subsequently removed from YouTube for breaching its terms — protested Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners and the “Judaisation” of Jerusalem.
It showed American President Barack Obama, during his recent visit to Israel, looking at the Iron Dome with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and claimed: “The cardboard domes will not protect you.”
Israel views attacks from Sinai as a symptom of the instability that has taken hold there since the end of Hosni Mubarak’s regime in 2011. “All kinds of jihadist elements are trying to find fertile ground there just like in any place that you have a lack of a strong central authority,” IDF spokesman Arye Shalicar told The AJN.
NATHAN JEFFAY
Israel’s Iron Dome defence system proved its efficacy during Operation Pillar of Defence (Photo: JTA)
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