While Israel is constantly strengthening its anti-missile defenses to take on a wide variety of enemy projectiles – from long range ballistic missiles to  unguided rockets, missile defense systems are effective only to a certain degree, leaving enough room for a few missiles or rockets from an enemy fusillade to sneak through these otherwise very sophisticated defense systems. 

The Israeli government wants to ensure that its citizens are not sitting ducks in the eventuality of a missile breaching its multi-tier missile shield. To this end, the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) Home Front Command  has decided to deploy a comprehensive missile alert system developed by eVigilo and Ericsson. The alert system has been in the pipeline for a while now.

Now, according to a leading Israeli newspaper, the system will finally go live in June 2011. The warning system will alert people through cell phones, television and radio stations, web sites and billboards. It will ensure that only those people are warned to whom the threat directly applies. Another good thing is that it is said to  have only cost the exchequer $7 million. All said, we still don't know whether there will be “an app for that.”