BEERSHEBA, Israel – Israel deployed a cutting-edge rocket defense system Sunday, rolling out the latest tool in its arsenal to stop a recent spike in attacks from the neighboring Gaza Strip.

Israel hopes the homegrown Iron Dome system will provide increased security to its citizens, but officials warned that it can’t do the job alone. The system went into operation shortly after an Israeli aircraft struck a group of militants in Gaza, killing two. Israeli said they were about to fire a rocket.

Additional Photos

Israeli soldiers walk next to the Iron Dome, a new anti-rocket system, near the Israeli city of Beersheba on Sunday. Weeks of stepped-up rocket and mortar attacks have drawn fears of renewed war and led to new calls in Israel for the military to deploy the $200 million anti-rocket system. The Associated Press

The Iron Dome system has raised hopes that Israel has finally found a solution to the years of rocket fire from Gaza. The primitive rockets have evaded Israel’s high-tech weaponry, in part because their short flight path, just a few seconds, makes them hard to track.

The government approved Iron Dome in 2007. Its developers have worked around the clock in small teams to perfect its weapons, radar and software systems. The developer, local defense contractor Rafael, declared the system ready for use last year.

Iron Dome uses sophisticated cameras and radar to track incoming rockets, determine where they’ll land, and intercept and destroy them far from their targets. If the system determines the rocket is headed to an open area where casualties are unlikely, it can allow the weapon to explode on the ground.

Brig. Gen. Doron Gavish, commander of Israel’s air defense corps, said Iron Dome has passed a series of tests and has now reached its “evaluation phase” in the field. It is expected to be fully operational in a matter of months.

He added that it was only supposed to be deployed later in the year, but it was put into operation earlier because of the recent rocket attacks from Gaza.

“Obviously, after what we saw in the last few weeks, we accelerated the phases,” he said, standing before the brown, box-like battery on the outskirts of Beersheba, southern Israel’s largest city, with a population of nearly 200,000.

After two years of relative calm, tensions along the Israel-Gaza border have heated up in recent weeks with Gaza militants firing deeper and more frequently into Israel, and the military striking back hard. Beersheba, more than 25 miles from Gaza, has been struck several times.

Although Israel and Gaza’s ruling Hamas militant group have both said they have no interest in escalating the situation, the renewed hostilities have fed concerns of another large-scale Israeli military operation.

In December 2008, Israel invaded Gaza in response to years of rocket and mortar barrages on its southern communities, killing 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, and causing widespread destruction. Thirteen Israelis also died.

Israel believes that Hamas, which suffered heavy losses in the fighting, has recovered from the fighting and restocked its arsenal with more powerful weapons.

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