Iron Dome launches an interceptor to destroy rockets before they can cause injury, property damage and, most importantly, loss of life. At Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Ltd., the Iron Dome development team was comprised largely of Technion graduates.

A Technion student living in Sderot, which has been the recipient of countless rocket attacks, describes her experiences.

The system protects Israeli citizens and Technion graduates are part of it.

They’re very proud.

Syrian President Bassar al-Assad told interviewer Charlie Rose that the United States, Israel and other American allies can expect to be hit with chemical weapons if President Barack Obama carries out his threat to attack.

Assad, who has denied that his regime used chemical weapons despite widespread evidence to the contrary, implied that Iran and Hezbollah or rebels could use chemical weapons to repel a military strike.

“It could happen…if the rebels or the terrorists in this region or any other group have” chemical weapons, he explained.

The United States “should expect everything, not necessarily from the government,” if the United States attacks, he said. Assad added that Syria is “not the only player in the region” and that “you have different parties, you have different factions, you have different ideology.”

It would only take one or two deranged Al Qaeda terrorists, and not necessarily Assad’s soldiers, to use an American attack as an excuse to try to be the Great Arab hero who tried to destroy Israel with a “dirty bomb” or poison gas.

However, based on Assad’s previous actions and statements during the civil war, he used the interview to prepare the groundwork to use chemical weapons and blame others for it.

Rose is one of the few journalists allowed into the country and to meet Assad, dispelling rumors that he is hiding underground. Rose described Assad as “remarkably calm.”

As for the chemical attack on Syrian civilians last month, Assadcontinued to maintain a “What, me?” attitude in the interview, which will be aired in full on Rose’s PBS show Monday evening after excerpts were viewed Monday morning on CBS.

“Our soldiers, in another area, were attacked chemically,” Assad maintained. “But in the area where they say the government used chemical weapons, we only have video, pictures and allegations. We were not there, our forces, our police, our institutions, don’t exist.

“How can you talk about what happened if you don’t have evidence?”

While Assad was warning of a chemical attack, an Israeli official who has been briefed by Washington told Reuters that the Obama administration would give Israel only “hours” notice before attacking Syria.

That could mean two hours or 10 years. In either case, that is enough to rev up the F-16 engines but not enough to mobile troops.

Former Defense Ministry top honcho Amos Gilad, who has sounded suspiciously dovish and often has been dead wrong since leaving office, said in a speech at a counterterrorism center that Israel is totally out of the picture concerning if and when President Obama orders an attack.

There also is the possibility that the unidentified Israeli official who spoke with Reuters simply is lying and that the United States and Israel are cooperating closely towards a military strike.

If the Obama administration were not to give Israel enough notice to prepare for an attack, then Washington would have to take on the job of answering a lot of questions if Israeli civilians end up being killed.

It also is no secret that the American government relies heavily on Israel for intelligence information in the Middle East in general and in Syria specifically. Israel, and not the United States, has the human resources to plant dark-skinned Arabic-speaking agents in Syria.

Regardless of whether Israel will have no notice or plenty of notice before an American attack, President Obama already has given the world a least a couple of weeks to prepare for it.

The results have been panic. Russia has sent warships to the region and has threatened that Obama is laying with fire that will erupt into a regional war, or not a world war. Israel has deployed a battery of the anti-missile Iron Dome system around Jerusalem, and Turkey has placed anti-aircraft batteries along its southern border with Syria.

The rhetoric is great for headlines, and no one will say that Syria will throw out the welcome mat for an American attack.

But so far, Obama has one powerful diplomatic weapon on his side: Russia and Syria bear the burden to prove that the Assad regime did not deploy chemical weapons. No one believes Assad’s’ denials accept, perhaps, his properly British educated wife.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has given Assad the “exit option” of turning over chemical weapons in a week to the international community in return for President Obama’s pushing the “stop” button.

The Golden Dome now has company after the IDF deployed an Iron Dome system in Jerusalem on Sunday.

This Iron Dome missile defense system in Jerusalem is the latest in a series of Iron Domes platform deployments that include Tel Aviv, Haifa and the Galilee.

Israel isn’t expecting an attacks from Syria, but with tensions high over a possible US strike on Syria, and not knowing what Syria’s reaction might be in response, it’s presumed the government is taking no chances, and thus deployed the Iron Dome system in Jerusalem, for the first time ever,

If rockets are fired into Israel but no one in the U.S. State Department press corps mentions it, did it really happen?

Well, we do know that four katyusha rockets were fired from southern Lebanon into Israel on Thursday afternoon, August 22, and that some of them crossed into Israeli territory.

We also know that one of those rockets was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, that another landed in a kibbutz, and that another landed somewhere in the Western Galilee.  Although some damage was caused, no one was injured from the attacks.

Warning sirens were heard throughout the north of Israel, and the airspace over northern Israel was closed for a time following the rocket attacks.

Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, said in a statement: “This reinforces the threat faced by the civilians of Israel on all fronts. Such act of aggression is a clear attempt to target and terrorize the civilian communities of northern Israel, a situation that would not be tolerated anywhere else in the world. The IDF will continue to operate against those who seek to harm the civilians of this country.”

But during the course of the 45 minute daily press briefing given Thursday by U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki, no one in the press corps thought the firing of four rockets towards Israel from Lebanon, a front in the region that has, so far, been relatively quiet during Syria’s explosion and Egypt’s implosion, was worth even a question.

That is not to say that the issue of Israel was not brought up.  No, several questions about Israel were asked during Thursday’s briefing.  It’s just that the only issue of concern was the “peace talks.”

Said Arikat, the Washington Bureau Chief of Al Quds newspaper, asked Psaki whether there were any updates on the talks.  Psaki merely referenced her comments from the prior day’s briefing.   Arikat’s was the second to last issue brought up during the briefing.

Arikat can be counted on to consistently raise issues of concern to Arab Palestinians during the daily briefings.  There are no reporters who raise issues of concern to Israel, or ask questions from an Israeli perspective. Arikat is probably the second most voluble reporter in the state department’s daily briefings, AP’s Matt Lee being the dominating force.

IAF STRIKES BACK

Shortly before this article was published, it was learned that the Israeli Air Force struck the location in Lebanon from which the rockets had been shot.  The strike was successful and all pilots returned to Israel without incident, according to a statement from the IDF spokesperson. It will be interesting to see if what will surely be labeled “Israeli aggression” is discussed at tomorrow’s briefing.

Arikat tweeted his response to the IAF retaliatory strike: “Israel does what it does best: bomb the hell out of Lebanon yr after yr redundantly & with impunity,” linking to a story about the strike.

THIS ARTICLE WAS UPDATED TO CHANGE THE WORD MISSILE TO ROCKET WHEN MISSILE WAS MISTAKENLY USED IN THE THIRD PARAGRAPH.

The Israel Air Force (IAF) is investigating how two Grad rockets from Lebanon managed to get through the Iron Dome defense system and hit two communities in Israel.

Initial reports said that Iron Dome intercepted one rocket, two of the rockets fell in open areas, and one landed in one the sea. It was reported that it was a fragment of an Iron Dome rocket that landed in a residential area.

It now turns out that two of the rockets that were thought to have landed in open areas both hit communities in the western Galilee.

One rocket hit Kibbutz Gesher HaZiv and the other rocket hit Moshav Shaei Zion.

One of the rockets hit the kitchen of a retirement home for Holocaust survivors in Moshav Shavei Zion.

No one was injured as the residents had gone to the bomb shelter as soon as the siren went off.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu assured Israel, attacked by enemy missiles in the northwestern Galilee, “We are using a variety of measures – of both defense and prevention – and we are operating in a responsible manner. Our policy is clear: to protect and also to prevent.”

He added, “Anyone who hurts us, and anyone who tries to hurt us, must know that we will hit him.” The IDF did not respond to the advanced Grad rocket attacks and denied reports by Lebanese media that artillery units fired into Lebanon.

Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister said that the latest chemical weapons attack in Syria “proves yet again that we cannot permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to acquire the world’s most dangerous weapons.”

The Iron Dome battery was moved to the Sharon region north of Tel Aviv for the first time, and is in position to protect Netanya, Hadera and other central Israel cities, according to the IDF.

Military spokesmen said that the battery is being deployed as part of the regular operational process, and is the sixth operational Iron Dome battery.

Metropolitan Tel Aviv is believed to be within range of missiles fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon, and at least one missile fired from Gaza overshot Tel Aviv last November and landed in the Mediterranean Sea.

An Iron Dome battery deployed near Eilat in southern Israel last week intercepted rockets fired from Sinai at the tourist enclave.

The Iron Dome system last night intercepted a rocket that was shot from the Sinai at the city of Eilat. This was the first interception of a rocket in the southernmost town in Israel. No one was hurt and there was no damage to property, kol Israel reported.

Residents reported hearing the sound of two explosions, but army and police searches did not found any signs of a hit.

Over the past few weeks, there has been an increasing concern in Israel about the operation being conducted by units of the Egyptian army against elements of al-Qaeda and the Jihadists in the peninsula. In addition to setting up the Iron Dome, IDF readiness along the border has been enhanced and observation points were laid down along the border.

Last Thursday, the IDF ordered closing down the Eilat airspace for two hours for security reasons, and the following day 4 terrorists were killed from the air, an attack the Egyptians said was carried out by an Israeli drone.

MDA treated two people for anxiety attacks as a result of the explosion.