WAITING FOR ORDERS: Israeli armored personnel carriers take position on the Israeli-Gaza Strip border on Monday. (AFP)

RAMALLAH, West Bank: The Israeli Air Force used a new bunker-buster missile in the Gaza Strip that it received recently from the United States.

The missile, GBU-39, was developed recently by the US as a small-diameter bomb for low-cost, high-precision and low collateral damage strikes.

In a report yesterday, The Jerusalem Post said that Israel received approval from Congress to purchase 1,000 units in September. The report quoted defense officials as saying that the first shipment had arrived earlier this month and was used successfully in penetrating underground Qassam rocket-launchers in the Gaza Strip during the heavy aerial bombardment of Hamas infrastructure on Saturday. It was also used in Sunday’s bombing of tunnels in Rafah.

The GBU-39 is said to be one of the most accurate bombs in the world. The 113-kg bomb has the same penetration capabilities as a normal 900-kg one, although it has only 22.7 kg of explosives.

At just 1.75 meters long, its small size increases the number of bombs an aircraft can carry and the number of targets it can attack in a sortie.