Brig. Gen. Zvika Haimovich, commander of the IDF Aerial Defense, described the circumstances behind the unnecesary activation of the Iron Dome missile defense system last night.

The Red Alert Siren sounded and Iron Dome rockets were fired to intercept rockets from Gaza which were not fired. The IDF determined that the alarm and defense systems were activated by machine gun fire from a Hamas military exercise in the Gaza Strip.

According to Brig, Gen. Haimovich, the warning and defense system activation was not caused by human error or by a system malfunction, but rather by the sensitivity of the systems.

"Protecting the residents of the State of Israel is the most important mission there is and we do not take any risks," Haimovitz said. "The system identified high trajectory fire from Gaza to the Zikim area, and therefore the Iron Dome system was activated."

"The manner in which those in charge acted was professional and judicious," said Haimovitz. "We deal with a variety of scenarios and threats and therefore we have to find the balance point - and that is what we are doing."

According to Brig. Gen. Haimovitch, a number of heavy machine gun rounds (0.5 MM) were fired at Israeli territory, and the system identified the threat and activated the Red Alert Sirens and the Iron Dome