This week, terrorists in Gaza launched 104 missiles and mortars into southern Israel in response to a Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader dying in an Israeli prison after an 86-day hunger strike.
Our Israeli-made Iron Dome anti-missile system is smart enough to let projectiles headed for open areas to fall harmlessly, but missiles headed for population centers are brought down by smart missiles.
This week the Iron Dome had over a 90% success rate, and nobody was killed. Three people were injured in Israel. We wish them a refuah sheleimah – a full and speedy recovery.
The Palestinian Al Qassam rockets are about 2 meters (6 feet) long and 11.5 cm (4.5 inches) in diameter. They travel at over 400 miles (700 km) per hour. The idea that the Iron Dome can destroy a volley of these rockets with 90% success is miraculous.
However, since 2012 when the Iron Dome was officially deployed, over 20,000 rockets and mortars have been fired by terrorists on Israel. The Iron Dome intercepted about 90% of them.
As with all miracles, once we get habituated to seeing them regularly, they seem “natural” to us and they lose their ability to get our attention (which is the purpose of a miracle – see my webinar below about “Miracles: Why they happen and why they don’t“)
[By the way, the engineering feat of a the birth of a human baby is much more complicated than the Iron Dome technology. Most people attribute the birth of a baby as something ‘natural’ rather than ‘miraculous’ because it happens so frequently.]
The First Gulf War
Back in January of 1991 there was no Iron Dome. When President George H.W. Bush threatened to attack Saddam Hussein’s Iraq if he didn’t withdraw from Kuwait… Saddam let Bush know that if the USA attacked, he would respond by “burning half of Israel.”
Even though Hussein’s war was with the USA, he came through with his promise and over the course of 6 weeks, he fired 39 Scud missiles at the heart of Israel’s civilian population centers.
Israel had no operational anti-missile system in place. Hastily, the USA let us use their Patriot Anti-aircraft missile system which was not so effective against the Scud rockets flying at 9 times the speed of sound.
Missiles, Masks and Miracles
Almost 4,000 residential apartments were damaged or destroyed in Israel, yet miraculously only one person died as a direct result of the missile.
One person was severely injured. Nine were moderately wounded and 220 were lightly injured.
I knew that the miraculous stories of survival that were being passed by word of mouth and reported in the press would be quickly forgotten, so I decided to record a contemporary account of all the miracles while they were happening.
The original book called “Missiles Masks and Miracles” was published in 1993. On the 30th anniversary, I’ve decided to reprint it. You can purchase it in paperback or e-book format now at Amazon.
The stories will inspire you and remind you to see the miracles happening before our eyes every day.
May we all be blessed to see the miracles around us and to remember that there is an Invisible Hand above, protecting us and guiding us to our destiny.