Israel gets 'warning system'
2004-09-19 13:25
Jerusalem - The Israeli army is using a new early warning system for the southern town of Sderot which has been on the receiving end of rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip, the Haaretz daily said on Sunday.
The system, hooked up to Sderot's public address system, gives residents around a 20-second warning of an incoming Qassam rocket, which take its name from the armed wing of the Palestinian radical Islamist movement Hamas.
Qassams are fired at Sderot on a near daily basis from the nearby Gaza Strip and caused their first two fatalities in June, including a three-year-old boy.
The paper said that the Maamin system, which uses electro-optic sensors and advanced computers, can identify the position from which a rocket is fired and where it will land in less than a second.
The average flight time of a Qassam is about 30 seconds.
A prototype of the system was developed by the Rafael Armament Development Authority in just six weeks after an emergency request from the government.
Rafael's chief executive, Giora Shalgi, told Haaretz a $10m investment would enable the system to be expanded to cover not just the Gaza border but also areas near the northern borders with Lebanon and Syria.