Saturday, April 9, 2011

Israel, Hamas Escalate Hostilities; Israel Deploys 'Iron Dome', Hamas asks for Cease-fire

As foretold by the prophecy Debka in our April 2 post "Israel and Hamas near a Spring war".
I know Debka has to sometimes be taken with a grain of salt, in the past they have been caught stretching the truth from time to time but for hard core intelligence they have sources that no one else does.

This is amazing stuff:
From Debka:
Hamas fires 22 Grads, 50 missiles Saturday. A million Israelis still in shelters

From Wired's Danger Room:
Rocket War: 36,000 DIY Missiles vs. Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’
Israel is once again under rocket attack. But the few weapons being flung at it from their enemies in the south — Hamas — could be just a  preview of a much larger rocket war in the north, courtesy of Hezbollah. Israel’s response to the missile threat: a next-gen rocket-blaster and a covert program of sabotage and assassination.

WikiLeaks shared some of its classified State Department cables with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. In the cables published today, Israeli intelligence officials tell their American diplomats they expect Hezbollah will launch between 24,000 to 36,000 rockets against it for over two months. That would be a big step up from the 2006 war which lasted 34 days and saw 4,000 rockets hit Israel. Israeli officials quoted in the cables also said that they expect the rocket fire to reach farther into Israel, saying that the terrorist group will target Tel Aviv, which wasn’t hit during the last round of fighting.

To mitigate some of Hezbollah’s missile threat, Israel is expected to deploy its Iron Dome anti-rocket missiles on its northern border with Lebanon alongside its Arrow long range ballistic missile defense system. In the meantime, Israel has rushed Iron Dome to the southern border with Gaza last month to meet Hamas’ rocket fire. Since then, it has scored its first successes, taking out two rockets yesterday and three today headed towards the southern city of Ashkelon. But Iron Dome’s protection comes at a price. The advanced radar-guided system uses missiles to knock out cheap, sometimes DIY rockets at short range — and costs at least $25,000 per missile fired and $50 million per battery. Facing an arsenal of thousands of Hezbollah rockets up north, Iron Dome could quickly rack up a hefty bill  in the event of another war....MORE
From Ynet:
From Ynet:
Iron Dome does it again; Gaza rocket intercepted
The Iron Dome anti-rocket system intercepted yet another incoming missile Saturday afternoon, this one targeting Ashkelon, as Palestinian terrorist in Gaza continued to target southern Israel.
Iron Dome's latest successful interception, at around 5:40 pm Saturday, marks the eighth time the highly advanced system shoots down an incoming rocket over the weekend. ...

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