You've gotten some answers on what a ballistic missile is, but just in case anyone needs more clarification:
The missiles that Hamas has been sending into Israel for decades now are unguided and "homemade", essentially just model rockets on steroids. They weld together a rocket body with fins and then use a fuel made from fertilizer such as potassium/urea nitrate. For the warhead (explosive tip) they use high explosives that they scavenge from military targets or (rarely) make themselves.
Since they are unguided and fairly amateur, they cause a high degree of collateral damage since it's impossible to accurately aim them at military targets. Generally it seems that Hamas doesn't really care where they hit, they just want them to hit anywhere in Israel (including civilian housing).
These amateur missiles are the rockets that the Iron Dome is designed to defend against, and the system generally does a great job at stopping them.
The missiles in the OP are military-grade ballistic missiles, hence why the Iron Dome is effectively useless less effective against them.
Iron Dome being less effective isn't anything to do with them being guided. They're launched from further away, meaning they come in steeper and faster with less time to intercept. You need bigger, longer range interceptors to stop these compared the aircraft and short-range missiles Iron Dome is designed for.
The iron dome was doing it's job and intercepting a lot of them, but it wasn't able to get them all. I guess they defended against the ones that were most critical and left the others to hit parts of the city that weren't as important or devastating.
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u/llcooljacob_ Oct 01 '24
The difference here is that these are ballistic missiles, not the Frankenstein rockets that Hamas sends over. These are much harder to intercept.