A New Rocket Equation

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

The recent confrontation between the Palestinian resistance in Gaza and Israel imposed a new rocket equation that clearly affects any Palestinian plan aimed at achieving deterrence or mutual terror. Israel managed to shoot down a considerable number of the Palestinian resistance’s rockets, thereby reducing the scale of the losses it might otherwise have suffered.

It was clear that the Palestinian resistance had made progress in rocket technology, and had managed to raise the rocket’s efficiency and somewhat extend its range; the Palestinian rocket appeared on television screens stable and free of the erratic, multi-bend trajectory of before. This indicates that the Palestinian resistance factions are exerting efforts to develop and improve upon the weapons available to them, that they have managed to bring in some weapons from abroad, and that they have raised their scientific and technical level. The resistance also displayed some new weapons with heavy firepower. But we did not see rockets that pose a strategic threat to Israel, and it may well be wise for the resistance not to display any such rockets, if they exist, so as to save them for days of fiercer and more comprehensive confrontation.

…by driving nearly a million people into shelters. But it is important to recognize that the shelters in Israel are part of its strategy for reducing the popular suffering that affects military planning and field commanders. That is to say, Israel calls on its residents to go down into shelters the moment it senses the possibility of shells being fired from the Arab side, and so we cannot take this as an indicator of strategic balance.

What matters now is that Israel’s Iron Dome missile system is achieving success against the Palestinian resistance’s rockets, and could therefore also achieve success against the rockets of Hezbollah and Iran, and any other rockets that might be launched at it. This is a very important development that those concerned with military and strategic planning must take into account. That is, it is necessary to study this Israeli-American technical development and the scientific foundations on which it rests, in order to arrive at ways of countering it. All the Arab and Islamic parties concerned with this development should now be examining means of neutralizing the Iron Dome’s effect — such as gaining electronic control over it, jamming or deceiving it, developing dual-warhead rockets, or rockets that its sensors cannot detect, and so on.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “معادلة صاروخية جديدة” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.