Congress has approved $150 million in the defense appropriations bill that will boost joint ballistic missile defense (BMD) development with Israel. Prime beneficiaries include the IAI Arrow interceptor, which is Israel's primary strategic protection against the threat of intermediate-range, and various development projects for a promising system to defend against very short-range rocket artillery barrages. Early work on a short-range BMD system that could provide protection from Katyusha rockets was urged by Israel but shelved by Pentagon officials.
However, the issue resurfaced this summer when Hezbollah fired thousands of Katyusha rockets into northern Israel. The rockets caused relatively few civilian casualties owing to their poor accuracy and the diffusion of the bombardment, but it brought home to defense establishment analysts the need to develop some kind of defense against a technology that has existed for more than 60 years.
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