Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon met with Azeri President Ilham Aliyev at ADEX 2014 Baku-hosted defense industry exhibit.
As haqqin.az reported citing Israeli media, at the event, Israeli side demonstrated the Iron Dome air defense system. Besides negotiations with the president, consultations with several ministers were held.
Iron Dome is a mobile all-weather air defense system developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. The system is designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells fired from distances of 4 kilometres to 70 kilometres away and whose trajectory would take them to a populated area. Israel hopes to increase the range of Iron Dome’s interceptions, from the current maximum of 70 kilometres to 250 kilometres and make it more versatile so that it could intercept rockets coming from two directions simultaneously.
Iron Dome was declared operational and initially deployed on 27 March 2011 near Beersheba. On 7 April 2011, the system successfully intercepted a Grad rocket launched from Gaza for the first time. On 10 March 2012, The Jerusalem Post reported that the system shot down 90% of rockets launched from Gaza that would have landed in populated areas. By November 2012, official statements indicated that it had intercepted 400+ rockets. 5 Israeli companies participated in the exhibit, with no interest in other Israeli made ammunition expressed. Earlier, Baku purchased over $ 1,6 billion worth of weaponry from Israel.