A ceasefire has reportedly been agreed between Israel and the forces of the Iranian-backed, Gaza-based terror group Islamic Jihad, shortly after Israel successfully used its David’s Sling system to intercept a rocket.
David’s Sling is Israel’s new intermediate-range missile defense system, between the Iron Dome (which is used to intercept short-range rockets), and the Arrow system (which is used to stop long-range ballistic missiles).
The system is produced through a joint venture by Israel’s Rafael and defense contractor Raytheon in the U.S.
Reports — as yet unconfirmed by the Israeli government — suggest that the Egyptian government, acting as an intermediary, has been able to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Islamic Jihad.
The current wave of attacks began after an Islamic Jihad leader died in a hunger strike in Israeli custody, and the group targeted Israelis in response.
After right-wing national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir boycotted Cabinet meetings to protest a relatively weak response by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, Israel responded by attacking several terrorist sites in Gaza and the West Bank, killing several senior Islamic Jihad leaders.
The organization fired nearly 300 rockets at Israel in response, many of which landed inside the Palestinian -run Gaza Strip. The David’s Sling system was deployed, along with the Iron Dome, to intercept rockets that entered Israeli airspace.
As the Times of Israel notes, this marks the first successful operational use of the system, vastly improving Israel’s deterrent capacity. (The system was also activated in 2018 to intercept two rockets fired in Syria that ultimately landed there.)
Israel may have been reluctant to respond to Islamic Jihad attacks at first due to concerns about incoming rockets from Iranian proxies on a variety of fronts, including Lebanon. (Domestic political tensions over ongoing judicial reform negotiations may also have made Israel more risk-averse.)
Reports suggest a ceasefire will go into effect at 9 p.m. local time on Wednesday evening. If so, Israel would emerge as the clear victor, degrading enemy capacity while demonstrating a new missile defense capability.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.