Detect, intercept: understand in 4 points how Israel’s Iron Dome works

O Iron Dome of Israel, an anti-missile system designed with help from the United States to shoot down projectiles that approach Israeli territory, works in four stages.

The defense is equipped with a radar that detects rockets and then uses a command and control system that quickly calculates whether a projectile poses a risk to the country’s population or structures.

If the rocket poses a threat, Dome fires missiles to destroy it in the air. Understand the four stages of defense below:

How Israel's Iron Dome Works

The Iron Dome is one of the most important tools in Israel’s arsenal, having saved countless civilian lives in various conflicts over the past decade, analysts say. Thus, it proved to be highly effective.

The Israeli military said the system had a 95.6% success rate during a hail of rockets fired by Islamic Jihad in May.

In the early hours of last Saturday (7), however, the extremist group Hamas managed to break through the barrier and reach several inhabited regions of the country, beginning the Israel War.

Analysts say CNN that it is still not known exactly what happened for the Iron Dome to fail and that the error will be questioned in the future by the population to the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The defense system was developed in 2007 and, after tests in 2008 and 2009, its first batteries were deployed in 2011. The Iron Dome has been updated several times since then.

*Published by Pedro Jordão, from CNN in São Paulo, with information from CNN Internacional

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