US President Barack Obama has asked Congress to provide money to help Israel produce its "Iron Dome" missile defence system, the White House confirmed Thursday, dpa reported.
The system can shoot down multiple rockets with a range of 3 to 70 kilometres at the same time, including Qassam rockets produced by Hamas, the radical Islamist movement ruling the Gaza Strip.
The system was two years in development and one year in testing, with plans to implement it this summer. Israel defence officials say the system could also counter rockets fired by the radical Shiite Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.
"The President recognizes the threat missiles and rockets fired by Hamas and Hezbollah pose to Israelis, and has therefore decided to seek funding from Congress to support the production of Israel's short range rocket defence system called Iron Dome," Ben Chang, deputy spokesman at the National Security Council, said in an e-mail.
The pledge comes just days after the Palestinians and Israel held their first round of indirect talks over the weekend, the first such negotiations in more than a year.
Obama has approved a request for 205 million dollars to help cover Iron Dome production, according to Ha'aretz newspaper in Israel, which reported that Israel's Defence Ministry had been informed by the Pentagon of the amount.
The White House declined to confirm the figures to The German Press Agency, dpa.
Israel's most powerful lobbying group in the US, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, noted that the funds would be in addition to 3 billion dollars in US security assistance given to Israel under a ten-year agreement.
Since 2001, shortly after the second Palestinian uprising against Israel, Palestinian militants have fired about 12,000 rockets and mortar shells at southern Israel from Gaza. Residents have 15 seconds to seek cover.
Hamas and other militant factions say the rockets are part of its armed resistance against the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.
Pinhas Bukhris, the director-general of Israel's Defence Ministry, has said that completion of the system would "change the political and security reality in Israel."