Today's Headlines

Israel’s Iron Dome defence system

GS Paper - 2 (International Relations)

The Hamas militant group launched its worst attack inside the Jewish state’s territory since 1948, killing at least 250 Israelis and abducting several others. Israel’s retaliatory strikes, meanwhile, have resulted in over 230 casualties in Gaza. The attack has raised concerns over Israel’s defence system, with many questioning the intelligence failure.

What is the Iron Dome?

1. It is a short-range, ground-to-air, air defence system that includes a radar and Tamir interceptor missiles that track and neutralise any rockets or missiles aimed at Israeli targets.
2. It is used for countering rockets, artillery & mortars (C-RAM) as well as aircraft, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles.
3. The genesis of the Iron Dome goes back to the 2006 Israeli-Lebanon war, when the Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets into Israel.
4. The following year, Israel announced that its state-run Rafael Advance Systems would come up with a new air defence system to protect its cities and people. It was developed with Israel Aerospace Industries.
5. The Iron Dome was deployed in 2011. While Rafael claims a success rate of over 90%, with more than 2,000 interceptions, experts agree the success rate is over 80%.
6. Rafael says on its website that it can “protect deployed and manoeuvring forces, as well as the Forward Operating Base (FOB) and urban areas, against a wide range of indirect and aerial threats”.

How does it work, and what makes it so effective?

1. The Iron Dome has three main systems that work together to provide a shield over the area where it is deployed, handling multiple threats.
2. It has a detection and tracking radar to spot any incoming threats, a battle management and weapon control system (BMC), and a missile firing unit. The BMC basically liaises between the radar and the interceptor missile.
3. It is capable of being used in all weather conditions, including during the day and night.

Palestinian militant group attacked Israel

GS Paper - 2 (International Relations)

Israel declared a state of war after Palestinian militants launched barrages of rockets into southern and central Israel and dozens of them with guns crossed the border fence in several locations. Attributing the attack to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the Israel Defence Forces began to carry out air strikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the organisation. Meanwhile, Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas, said 5,000 rockets had been fired into Israel to launch what he called “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm”.

What is Hamas?

1. Hamas is the largest Palestinian militant Islamist group and one of the two major political parties in the region.
2. Currently, it governs more than two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The organisation, however, is also known for its armed resistance against Israel.
3. Hamas as a whole, or in some cases its military wing, is designated a terrorist group by Israel, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and other countries.

How was Hamas formed?

1. The group was founded in the late 1980s, after the beginning of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip — the Jewish state had captured the two Palestinian territories after winning the 1967 Israeli-Arab War.
2. Hamas is essentially “the internal metamorphosis” of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, which was established in Jerusalem in 1946.
3. The Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood remained on the margins of Palestinian politics for decades till the 1980s and They believed they needed to Islamise the Palestinian society and it was a prerequisite for an engagement with the wider battle against Israel.
4. But in 1987, when the first Palestinian intifada took place, the organisation decided to transform itself — and “established Hamas as an adjunct organisation with the specific mission of confronting the Israeli occupation,” the professor wrote in his book.
5. The main reason for Hamas’ creation was a deep sense of failure that had been set within the Palestinian national movement by the late 1980s.
6. This primarily happened after the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) — involved in the armed struggle against Israel from the mid-1960s to ‘liberate Palestine’ — made two massive concessions.

How did Hamas begin its ‘resistance’?

1. Hamas gained prominence after it opposed the Oslo Peace Accords signed in the early 1990s between Israel and the PLO, the body representing most Palestinians.
2. The accords aimed to bring about Palestinian self-determination, in the form of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
3. The Palestinian militant group, however, was against them as it believed “a two-state solution would forgo the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the historic lands seized from them in 1948 when Israel was created.

How did Hamas gain political power?

1. In 2006, the militant group registered an astonishing victory in the democratic elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) of the limited Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
2. There were several factors behind Hamas’ win. Some supported the group’s tactic of carrying out the bombings against Israelis to avenge their own losses. Others recognised its efforts to help the poor and needy by organising schools and clinics.
3. Another reason was the “failure of the peace process, combined with the ever-increasing brutality of the Israeli occupation, left the Palestinians with no faith in the option of negotiating a peaceful settlement with Israel.