Violence has been escalating along the Gaza border in recent weeks, and Israel's military chief disclosed Tuesday that fighters from the Palestinian coastal strip had for the first time fired a Kornet missile earlier this month and that it penetrated an Israeli tank.
Gaza's Hamas rulers have not confirmed or denied possessing the missiles.
Israeli officials say the Gaza fighters who once relied on crude, locally made projectiles, have steadily acquired more powerful and accurate missiles produced overseas.
The Israeli defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss such matters publicly, alleged the laser-guided Kornet had come from Iran. They provided no proof and it was not clear how the missiles were delivered. Hamas, which has close ties with Iran, controls a network of smuggling tunnels along Gaza's southern border with Egypt.
"We are talking about a powerful missile, one of the most dangerous in the battlefield," Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi told a parliamentary committee Tuesday. He added the missile did not explode inside the tank, and no one was hurt.
But after this attack, the military decided to move to the Gaza border dozens of tanks equipped with the Israel-developed "Trophy" system, which detects incoming projectiles and shoots them down before they reach armored vehicles.
Production of the Trophy was stepped up after Kornet missiles fired by Hezbollah destroyed or damaged several dozens Israeli tanks during a 2006 war.
The Trophy has not yet been tried on the battlefield, though the Defense Ministry says it has been tested successfully against a variety of weapons, including Kornets.
The Kornet — made in Russia and sold widely overseas — is the most advanced weapon believed to be in the hands of Gaza fighters. In use since the mid-1990s, it is capable of penetrating armor up to four feet (1,200 mm) thick and has a range of about almost 5.5 km. It carries a warhead of 22 pounds (10 kg).
Because it was designed to puncture multiple layers of armor, "this missile knows how to penetrate modern tanks," said Yaakov Amidror, a retired Israeli general.
"It is a very accurate missile. That means our tanks that enter Gaza or move along the Gaza border are in much greater danger."
Amidror added. "The military will have to move more quickly than it expected to bring in tanks with anti-tank cover that intercepts incoming missiles. That's the Trophy."
Israeli media have said the cost of deploying the Trophy is about $200,000 per tank. The Defense Ministry company that produces the system would say only that the price is a "small fraction" of a tank's overall cost.
The US and Russia are developing similar systems, but the Israeli one is believed to be the first to be deployed on the battlefield.
