TEL AVIV–Faced with an ongoing threat to its citizens from rocket attacks the past eight years, particularly in areas near the Gaza Strip, Israel has been able to pinpoint where the rockets will land, allowing it to localize warnings so that only its citizens that need to take cover can do so, Israeli security officials said here last week.
However, the warning times remain slim, usually no more than 10 seconds, giving terrorized citizens little time to get to a bomb shelter or behind a strong wall for cover, the officials said.
In the middle of the night that’s “hardly any time” to respond,” Kobi Harush, chief of civilian security at the Sderot Police Headquarters told reporters.
The warnings are broadcast through sirens to allow residents to quickly respond to attacks. During the Persian Gulf War in 1991 when Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles into Israel, the country had 10 alarm districts and now it has 27, Lt. Col. Itai Peleg, director of planning for the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Home Front Command, told reporters during a briefing last week.
The impact of the Scud attacks revealed Israel’s “soft underbelly,” Peleg said. Those attacks killed two people and wounded 228, and also destroyed 28 buildings while damaging over 4,000 more, he said.
Two years ago during Israel’s second war in Lebanon, Hezbollah fighters in Southern Lebanon fired over 4,000 rockets into Northern Israel during the month-long war, killing 42 civilians. One of the lessons learned from that conflict was that having the warning sirens go off combined with training for the civilians minimizes the casualties, Peleg said.
Those more localized warning systems allow citizens that are not going to be near the impact zone of a rocket attack to continue with their daily routines. During the 2006 war Israel realized that having people huddle in bomb shelters when they weren’t under attack created its own problems (Defense Daily, Oct. 17, 2007).
At some point Israel may have even more alarm districts, which would better let citizens know that a rocket is heading to their area, Peleg said.
In the past eight years, Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip have fired over 8,000 short-range rockets into Israel, with most of them landing harmlessly because they lack guidance systems. In many instances the rockets land inside the Hamas controlled territory, one official said.
Sderot, an Israeli town located several kilometers from the northeastern section of the Gaza Strip, has borne the brunt of the attacks. Since 2000 15 people have been killed and about 230 have been injured, Harush said.
Harush said the biggest damage that has been done from the rockets has been emotional. The town’s population has gone from 25,000 in 2000 to around 19,700 today. Grown children are wetting their beds, he said. Mothers don’t buckle their children in cars while driving around so that they can more quickly respond to the attacks, he added.
Israel continues to work on a defensive system called Iron Dome that may be able to provide protection against some of the short range rockets but this is about two years away from deployment, and IDF spokesperson said. Iron Dome is being developed by Israel’s Rafael.
In the back of the Sderot Police Headquarters several dozen exploded rockets fired from inside the Gaza Strip are arranged on shelves. They include the Nasser, which has two mile range and a 2.5 pound warhead and was used earlier in the decade. Others are variants of the Quds, which have a range of about 5 to 6 miles and carry warheads ranging from between seven and 15 pounds. Hamas also fires various types of Kassams, which have ranges between 1.5 and 7 miles.
Most of the rockets are home made, according to Harush.
Beginning about a year ago, Hamas started firing Grads, which have a range of around 16 to 17 miles and can carrying a 33-pound warhead and land at a 90 degree angle. When the missile lands straight down it can send shrapnel in a 360 degree spray, which increases the potential damage that can be done, Harush said. They are also loud enough to give someone a headache, he noted.
The smaller rockets typically have a danger zone of about 50 to 80 meters although the spray is limited due to their angled trajectory. When a Grad explodes its metal can reach 160 meters from the impact zone, Harush said.
Of the missiles fired from the Gaza Strip, about 100 have been fired toward the city of Ashkelon, which is about five to seven miles north of the Gaza Strip along Israel’s West Coast.