Israel say that the reason they've attacked the Gaza strip is to eliminate the rockets
which are being fired by Hamas into Israel.
So we decided to take a look at what kind of rockets are these and how exactly are Israel
defending themselves, Sam took a look.
Firstly on the Hamas side we have Qassam rockets, more or less an improvised series of projectiles,
they've got a range of about 5 or 6 miles.
They're made from scavenged parts.
It's essentially a metal tube with fins welding onto the end and holes drilled in the bottom
into which is shoved a solid block of fertilizer - standard nitrate fertilizer - which is ignited
by an electronic signal and is completely unguided.
When it lands, its got a warhead on top which is a simple metal casing, carries around 20
pounds of blast.
It's enough to do significant damage and kill and mame an awful lot of people.
They aren't accurate rockets but they are very easy to make.
They're made by 'activists' basically small arms manufacturers and cost around 500-800
dollars each.
Now they may not be accurate but they are built in massive massive number which makes
them dangerous more probably psychologically than psychically although they do do a lot
of damage when they hit their targets.
In response Israel have a system known as the Iron Dome.
It's still in the developmental phase it's about 18 months old and it is quickly becoming
one of the most advanced ant-missile missile defense systems in the world.
It's said to be able to shoot down around 90% of the rockets that are coming in from
Gaza.
Anything up to the size of a heavy mortar shell which is really pretty small.
You're talking about a one foot object sailing through the sky several hundred miles an hour.
This system can shoot up a missile.
Anything from 4-70 km away it can blow 90% of them out of the sky.
Now it's very accurate but it's much more expensive.
It's $50 million a battery and around $40,000 per missile.
What this means is that a group like Hamas or Hezbollah can simply launch a huge barrage
of rockets, they'll fly over and there's only so many that the Israeli system can take out
because it simply can't afford the rockets and can't afford the batteries.
That's the actual missile launch systems.
Israel however says it saves an awful lot of lives and what price can you put on a life?
In this case it's a $40,000 missile.
We've spoken to someone who's been living under the shadow of these systems and under
Hamas rocket attacks.
Ann Le Oz has been living in the town of Ashkelon for around 20 years and has an Iron Dome battery
in the field behind her house.
She shot this incredible footage which shows the missile going up and you can just see
the flash there and in fact as we spoke to her, the missile defense system was going
off in the background.
This is really news as it's happening.
"Oh oh there go the sirens now.
Not a joke.
Can you hear that, on a daily basis even before this there's always rockets coming to Southern
Israel before.
The people here I can say absolutely really are very proud of it.
Alright so it's scary, but the people are proud of it and hear explosions it gives them
a sense of confidence."
So what we've got on the Hamas side is small, inaccurate mass produced rockets.
They're very easy to shoot down, they're not very accurate but what they are is hugely
psychologically damaging because no-one, not even Hamas knows where they're going to hit.
On the Israeli side what we've got now is this so-called Iron Dome system which is knocking
these things out of the sky as they come in.
Hopefully leaving those on the ground living some sort of sense of normality with their
life.