Two months ago you could see in this site a test of the Iron Dome system that defends the airspace of Israel.
This system, which uses Tamir surface-to-air missiles to shoot down other missiles, rockets and drones, is the one that is currently defending Israel's territory against the attack launched last Monday by Hamas terrorists. In recent days, surprising night photos taken from Israel have been appearing in the media, such as the AFP image that heads these lines, showing the trajectory of Hamas rockets and the sinuous trajectories of the Tamir Iron Dome missiles to intercept them.
Each Tamir missile costs much more than the rockets launched by Hamas
The Iron Dome has been active in Israel since March 2011. By October 2014 it had intercepted more than 1,200 Hamas rockets. Of course, this defensive system is not cheap: although the Israeli government has not disclosed the cost of each unit, it is estimated that a Tamir missile can cost up to $ 100,000, while the rockets launched by Hamas cost only about $ 300 per unit. In other words, it is much cheaper for Hamas to try to kill Israeli civilians than it costs to Israel to protect them, but the high efficiency of the Iron Dome (around 90% killings) shows that the investment is worth it. Saving innocent lives is priceless.
Hamas carries out a strategy of attrition against Israel as in 2014
Obviously, Hamas terrorists are trying to saturate Israeli defenses by expending large numbers of Tamir missiles. In the 2014 war, Hamas did the same: it wants to ruin Israel by forcing it to invest more and more money in its defense. The figures for Hamas's attacks this week show that it is following the same strategy. Today the Israel Defense Forces have indicated that this week Hamas has launched 2,968 rockets. If this trend continues, we would be talking about figures higher than those recorded in the 2014 war between Gaza and Israel: then, in 50 days Hamas fired 4,594 rockets and mortar shells at Israel; of them 188 fell in Gaza.
Hamas rockets have already killed twice as many Gazans as Israelis
In the current case, Hamas's unsuccessful shots at Israel are being much more numerous. According to data released today by the Israel Defense Forces, in the attacks carried out by the jihadist terrorist group since Monday, 439 of the rockets launched by Hamas "have missed and fallen and exploded in Gaza, causing around 20 deaths", which represents 15% of the total launches. One in seven Hamas rockets ends up crashing in Gaza. According to the IDF, these rockets have already killed 20 Gazans, while Hamas rockets have already caused 10 deaths in Israel. Hamas has already killed twice as many Gazans as Israelis in its attacks.
These figures show the priorities of both sides of this war. Hamas attackers are more concerned with killing Israeli civilians than protecting their own population, while the attacked country, Israel, spends large sums of money protecting its citizens, with remarkable efficiency. One wonders whether Gaza should seize its own Iron Dome to defend itself against Hamas terrorists, because these fanatical Islamists are a greater threat to Gazans themselves than to Israelis.
The reality about Hamas that the media and politicians should be aware of
It must be remembered that Hamas is an anti-Semitic organization that seeks to exterminate Jews and maintains an Islamist dictatorship in Gaza, in which the human rights of women and homosexuals are violated in the very territory in which it governs. Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization by the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan. The media, citizens of democratic countries and especially our politicians should take these things into account when addressing this war, a war that - let's not forget - started on Monday by that terrorist group, something that should not go out for free.
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Photo: AFP.
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