Violence Flares Between Gaza and Israel

Over the weekend, four Israelis and 25 Palestinians were killed as the region experienced its worst fighting in years. Militants in the Gaza strip launched hundreds of rockets into Israel which resulted in retaliatory air and artillery strikes. A TV station run by Hamas has now announced that both sides have agreed to a ceasefire. This has not been confirmed by Israel.

According to the Israeli military, 690 rockets were fired from Gaza and 240 of them were intercepted by its Iron Dome missile defense system. Even though the Iron Dome has been praised for its effectiveness in destroying incoming rockets, it is not without its problems.

Yaakov Amidror, a former head of Military Intelligence’s Research Department and currently a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies, said that there is not enough time to intercept a rocket if it is fired from less than a few kilometers away. It also does not cover open and sparsely populated areas which was the case with a rocket that hit a car and killed its 67-year-old driver near Kibbutz Yad Mordechai on Sunday.