One can only guess how Operation Pillar of Cloud and all the previous bouts of fighting in the past eighteen months in the south would have looked if not for Iron Dome. “I have no idea how many human lives have been saved in all these rounds of fighting,” says Druker. “If in every round there was extensive rocket fire at cities like Ashkelon, Ashdod and Beersheva, you can only assume that much loss of life and destruction property was prevented. But of course it goes beyond that: thanks to a high capacity to intercept rockets, the IDF and the politicians are more able to refrain from harsher responses to the fire from Gaza, in a ground operation, for example.