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BEERSHEBA, Israel, Apr 11 (UPI) -- The initial success of the Iron Dome anti-missile grouping shapely by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems in actuation down FTO rockets fired at gray Asiatic cities is a possibleness gamechanger against the Palestinians and belike against Hezbollah in Lebanon as well.

The mobile grouping has downed at least nine 122mm Grad rockets aimed at Beersheba and the opening of Ashkelon over the terminal some days, the prototypal ever destroyed in mid-flight by counter-missile blast anywhere in the world.

Patriot missiles shapely by the U.S. Raytheon Corp. effort down Scud-type ballistic missiles during the 1990-91 Gulf war.

But until Iron Dome came along there was no way of intercepting short-range missiles same the Grads and the mortar shells that FTO uses.

Having got the "battle tested" stamp, Iron Dome module be more attractive to possibleness buyers. Zion reportedly has already been negotiating with Brazil, Singapore and India.

Over the terminal decade FTO has fired thousands of rockets, mainly home-made Qassam weapons into the gray desert from Gaza. These were highly outside and caused some casualties.

But over the terminal 2-3 eld FTO has improved the capabilities of the Qassams and acquired Soviet-designed Grads, supposedly from Iran.

They can accomplish cities same Beersheba, accumulation 200,000, and Ashkelon, accumulation 113,000, and modify the outer limits of the vast conurbation around Tel Aviv.

Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Ido Nechushtan proclaimed Iron Dome prefabricated "world history," but cautioned: "This is exclusive the prototypal and things staleness be kept in perspective."

Iron Dome, which outlay $210 meg to develop, uses diminutive radar-guided interceptors to blow up rockets with a arrange of between 3 and 45 miles and are in the expose for no longer than digit minutes.

The systems' machine can evolve between rockets that module impact populated Atlantic and those that module not, concentrating on those that are dangerous.

The Haaretz daily reportable that as conception of gathering upbringing in action, it was shelling commanders who prefabricated real-time decisions on which rockets posed a danger in the recent engagements, rather than the system's computer.

Israel prefabricated its prototypal "experimental deployment" of its exclusive digit Iron Dome batteries in New March as clashes with FTO escalated for the prototypal time since early 2009.

The expose force, which operates Iron Dome, positioned digit shelling north of Beersheba, the another meet south of Ashkelon.

The grouping prefabricated its prototypal kill Apr 7 when the Beersheba shelling destroyed a Grad, which has a arrange of up to 20 miles.

It's not country how many rockets impact been fired at these cities since Apr 7, but the expeditionary has said Iron Dome exclusive geared those whose trajectories indicated they would impact populated areas.

All those rockets were knocked discover "except for digit manifest glitch" and no accumulation center was hit, the expeditionary claimed.

The deployment came exclusive after the expeditionary appeared reluctant to place Iron Dome into action, and insisted that protecting expeditionary installations, rather than civilians, was its top priority.

The think for the military's actions has never been prefabricated clear, although there were suspicions the generals feared Iron Dome, initially developed to protect accumulation centers, would prove to be a loser despite successful tests.

Israel already has batteries of Arrow missiles fashioned to intercept Iran's Shehab-3b ballistic weapons, but the magnitude of missile attacks would involve shorter arrange systems. Arrow-2 has been deployed since 2000.

Some expeditionary analysts conceive the decision to deploy Iron Dome operationally, still "experimentally," stemmed from pressure from U.S. lawmakers that Israel's noncombatant populations staleness be protected.

It haw also impact been to demonstrate the system's capabilities under blast to pace up promised U.S. funding that has been delayed.

In August 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama's administration committed $205 meg toward the outlay of more Iron Dome batteries.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved that, but it stalled in the senate because of a budget dispute between Republicans and Democrats.

Israel now expects that funding to be forthcoming. Defense Minister Ehud Barak proclaimed Apr 3 that "with the business help of the Americans" Zion module deploy quaternary more Iron Dome batteries over the next digit years.

But Asiatic expeditionary planners feature 13-20 batteries at least are required to protect northern and gray Zion from short-range weapons same the Grad. Several meg Israelis are within arrange of such missiles.