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An Israeli 'Iron Dome' fires a missile to intercept Grad missiles fired from the Gaza Strip, as it defends an Israeli population center in the south of the country, 15 November 2012. EPA/JIM HOLLANDER

Jerusalem - The company behind the lifesaving Iron Dome missile interception system in Israel has announced that the system’s capabilities have not yet been fully realized, but that they “will be expanded and the percentage of interceptions will only go up.”

In an interview with Israel’s business news website, Globes (http://bit.ly/RPhWck), mPrest Systems Ltd. CEO Natan Barak, a former colonel in the Israeli Navy, said it took a year to develop the Iron Dome’s command and control system in collaboration with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. He said that while he was confident the system would work successfully to intercept incoming missiles from Gaza, the Americans were initially skeptical. “We knew with certainty that we would succeed with this project, otherwise we wouldn’t have begun it,” Barak said. “All along, I saw our step-by-step progress in the project. It was a miracle at some level. At first, the Americans told us that it wouldn’t work, and yet, it works.”

The Iron Dome system operates by identifying a target missile and calculating the missile’s course and where it will hit. On average, it takes the system about one second to determine hundreds of possible interception options and to select the best solution – which is usually one with a “high altitude interception, ideally over open ground.” If a missile is fired at an area further away from Gaza, for instance, near Tel Aviv, the system has several seconds to decide how to intercept it. “It provides an excellent response in detecting fairly small items that are hard to see, and verifying that they are a rocket and not something else,” Barak explained.

Barak points out that the Iron Dome system has saved many lives particularly in the past several days, both in Israel and Gaza. “Gaza, too, should be pleased with the success of Iron Dome. Without it, the IDF would now be in the midst of a major ground operation and there would be many more Palestinians dead,” he remarked.

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