I spent most of the day watching television. It was a very practical decision, Israeli missiles killed a leader of the Islamic Jihad terror group in Gaza. In response, or so they said, that group launched over 150 rockets into Israel. Many were intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system. As of right now, only a few got through, and they failed to cause any fatalities.
The television coverage in Israel was superb. One rocket exploded at a road intersection. It was outside of an urban concentration, so the Iron Dome ignored it. The explosion was caught by traffic camera. I’m sure it was terrifying to those who were nearby. For me, the ability of the TV news to get the film and broadcast it in such a short time was amazing. Schools were cancelled and even non-essential work was banned for an area reaching from Gaza all the way to, and including, Tel Aviv.
The really outstanding thing about this spasm of violence was, in my opinion, the fantastic work of the Israeli Civil Defense Command. Every missile launched was quickly detected, it’s ballistic flight path plotted, a predicted impact point determined, classified as either dangerous or not, and, if dangerous, assigned for immediate interception by an Iron Dome battery. This all happened in about the time it took you to read this paragraph. In addition, once the flight path was determined, the local warning systems and sirens were automatically activated. This included an automatic override that displayed a warning message on the side of every Israeli television channel that included a sub-heading listing the ares that were threatened. A representative of the Civil Defense Command was sent to each TV news center where he provided some comments about what was happening. More importantly, he reviewed the actions that each citizen should take if located within a dangerous area.
It gave me a good feeling to see how seriously Israeli civil defense protection is taken, and how effective that protection was.
Wetherhorn 