A bipartisan group of senators on Tuesday evening requested two Iron Dome batteries that are held by the US be sent to Israel. In a letter sent to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, NBC News reports Sens. Mike Rounds, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jacky Rosen, and Rick Scott said "the United States Army is currently in possession of two Iron Dome batteries that have not been deployed and have no operational use inside the United States where they are currently stored." Handing them off to Israel "would provide tangible, life-saving, and sustained support to our ally as it faces rocket and missile salvos that threaten to overwhelm its defenses," they wrote.
NBC reports that Israel currently has at least 10 Iron Dome batteries at various locations in the country. As the Wall Street Journal explains, when a radar system detects an inbound missile, it transits info about its speed and trajectory to the batteries' control center, where computers determine whether the rocket is likely to hit a populated area. If so, an interceptor missile is fired from the launcher, connecting with the inbound missile and causing it to explode in the air. ABC News reports each Iron Dome battery is made up of three or four launchers that can each hold up to 20 Tamir interceptor missiles. The Iron Dome system has been in place since 2011.
The Israel Defense Forces says Hamas has fired more than 4,500 rockets since Saturday. ABC reports the rockets "appeared to have at times overwhelmed" the Iron Dome system and suggests this was likely a strategic move on Hamas' part designed to "take advantage of the Iron Dome's human element. While Iron Dome could likely track every incoming rocket and launch all available interceptors, those rocket batteries would eventually run out of missiles" and have to be reloaded, leading to an idle period that Hamas could exploit. (More Israel-Hamas war stories.)
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