Iron Dome System Deployed: Israel Fearing ‘Day Of Rage’?

Israel has deployed the Iron Dome autonomous anti-missile defense system. Though it isn’t official, the country appears to be gearing up for the “Day of Rage” declared by the Gaza’s ruling Hamas organization.

The Israeli army has re-deployed an Iron Dome missile defense system in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. Incidentally, there have been reports of deployment even outside the southern port city of Ashdod. While the army, called the IDF, strongly maintains that the Iron Dome defense systems are regularly moved around the country and deployed at different areas as and when needed, this time around, it seems the country is gearing up for the “Day of Rage” called by Hamas.

What makes the “Day of Rage” a credible threat is the fact that other groups have strongly supported the movement against Israel. The event is being termed as “a strong retaliation against the daily Arab violence aimed at Jews from Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount.”

The tensions are particularly high between Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Though the IDF maintains the deployment of Iron Dome system as a purely precautionary measure, rumors indicate there is a strong possibility of clashes owing to the recent upsurge in violence on the Temple Mount and in other areas of Jerusalem, as well as the re-arrest of recovered Palestinian hunger striker Mohammed Allaan, reported Jewish Telegraph Agency.

Interestingly though, Col. Yoni Saada Marom, commander of Israel’s Active Defense Air Wing, said as follows.

“The military drills are not a direct reaction to recent events. We saw that during Operation Protective Edge [aka: 2014 Gaza War] the Iron Dome faced one kind of challenge in the south. Now, we are dealing with the challenges and scenarios that we think the enemies from the north will bring. One of the scenarios could be that, like Hamas, they will try and challenge us with a variety of threats simultaneously — which is a great challenge — but we are developing our concepts of operation.”

It is apparent that Israeli military officials are concerned about simultaneous offensives launched by Hezbollah and Hamas. It strongly believes that Iron Dome system should be effective under such testing times.

The IDF proclaims that the Iron Dome system, which can intercept airborne threats independently and can stay active 24/7, has a 90 percent interception rate. However, Israel knows well that Hezbollah remains a strong threat to Israeli security and has considerably advanced weaponry as compared to the Hamas in Gaza.

[Image Credit: Uriel Sinai / Getty Images]