Israel's military and civilian home front agencies have actively begun preparation for long-range rockets from Gaza and other countries on the center of the country, including Tel Aviv.

In recent days, the Israel Air Force has moved one of the Iron Dome anti-rocket systems to a number of areas in the greater Tel Aviv area in order to test out the fire control systems.

The anti-missile system has already been deployed in various locations across Israel this year, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesman's Office told Xinhua Monday.

Israel is hurrying a fourth battery into production, and it is expected to be deployed in coming weeks, army officials said.

The IDF says it needs about 10 such batteries to adequately cover Israel's perimeter, and officials have said they hope to fill in the holes in the defense within five years.

"We assume that in the next round, some rockets will fall in central Israel," Israel Police Central District commander Bentsi Sao told The Jerusalem Post after several Grad rockets hit the southern edge of his turf several weeks ago.

Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired nearly 300 rockets and mortars at Israeli cities and towns in a week-long fusillade, in revenge for Israeli killing of a senior militant it said was en route to a terror attack along the Egyptian border.

Sao and the army's Home Front Command are now preparing civilian areas to absorb strikes that succeed in evading the three Iron Dome batteries deployed in the south.

The anti-missile system, worth 50-million-U.S.-dollar per battery, had a success rate of 80-plus percent in downing projectiles fired at populated areas, while allowing others to hit open areas so as not to needlessly waste interceptor rockets.

Since the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Israeli government has held a series of intensive coordinated local and national-level drills to prepare first-responder and rescue forces, including police, fire fighting, ambulance, and municipal services, and the public, for a steel rain from its foes.

During the conflict, Hezbollah launched some 4,000 mid-range Katyusha and shorter-range Kassam rockets into Israel, killing over 40 civilians and effectively forcing over 1 million people in the north either into bomb shelters or to flee south.