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JERUSALEM (Reuters): Two Israeli arms firms are developing systems that would use miniature rockets to shoot down the rockets favoured by Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas and Palestinian militants, security sources said on Sunday.
Rafael's “David's Shield” and Israel Military Industries' (IMI) “Magic Shield” would use radars to detect incoming Katyusha-sized rockets as well as their launchers. The latter data would be used to direct retaliatory fire at rocket crews.
Israel has stepped up its efforts to bolster air defences since the recent war with Hizbollah, during which the Lebanese guerrilla group fired 4,000 rockets into the Jewish state.
Israeli officials said the air force managed to hit many of Hizbollah's larger missiles on the ground, but proved largely impotent in the face of portable Katyusha rockets that were easily concealed and fired by guerrillas in the hilly frontier.
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have also been firing homemade rockets into southern Israel. While similar in appearance to Katyushas, these rockets rarely cause serious damage. But Israeli officials say the threat they pose will increase as the militants obtain better explosives and know-how.
Security sources said the designs employed by David's Shield and Magic Shield are modelled on Arrow II, an Israeli system that uses guided missiles to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles at atmospheric altitudes. Arrow is considered Israel's main bulwark against any future war with arch-foe Iran.
Israel's Defence Ministry has formally commissioned David's Shield, seeing it and Arrow as eventual “bookends” of a defence network covering all major missile and rocket threats. Filling the middle would be U.S.-supplied Patriot batteries, which are designed to tackle mid-altitude ballistic threats.
In parallel, the Defence Ministry may revive a Nautilus, a laser-beam missile-killer that its Mafat unit developed with U.S. arms firm Northrop Grumman in the 1990s but shelved for budget reasons.
Israeli media have also reported Defence Ministry interest in Skyshield, a rapid-fire cannon made by U.S. arms firm Lockheed Martin that could shred incoming rockets mid-air.
