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.