Eight rockets were fired at Ashkelon from Gaza on Monday afternoon, police said. Two of the rockets hit the city, one hitting a house directly and the other hitting a yard. No injuries were reported, but three people were treated for shock, Magen David Adom paramedics said.

The Iron Dome system intercepted over at least 19 rockets fired into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip Monday. Over 60 rockets struck Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheba, Sderot and other areas of the South, but caused no injuries.

A rocket fired by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip hit a school parking lot in Ashkelon on Monday morning, causing damage to a building but no injuries.

The Iron Dome rocket-defense system intercepted seven rockets fired at Ashkelon and Ashdod and another launched toward Beersheba. One rocket exploded in an open field outside of Beersheba.

Earlier Monday, rockets landed in open fields outside Eshkol and Sha'ar Hanegev, causing no injuries or damage, Army Radio reported.

In essence he believes that the only way Iron Dome can be sure of destroying the warhead of an incoming rocket is to hit it head on.

"If the interceptor is flying a crossing or diving trajectory compared to that of the incoming rocket," he told me, "then you are not going to destroy the warhead. Even hitting the incoming warhead side-on will probably not have sufficient energy to detonate it, he argues.

'Deception'

Mr Postol says that while he cannot say what the performance of Iron Dome was in Operation Pillar of Defence, "all the available evidence unambiguously indicates a drastically lower level of performance than the 84% claimed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)."

His view is that the successful hit rate on incoming warheads could be as low as 5-10%.

Mr Postol says that if the IDF wants to make such claims, then it should provide the data to back them up.