Several hours after Israel and the Palestinians resumed peace talks in Washington,
Gaza's
terror groups sent a message of their own. A Qassam
rocket exploded in an open area at the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council
on Tuesday morning. No injuries or damage were reported.
Benny, who resides in the surrounding area, told Ynet, "We know where
we live. For weeks now we've been waiting for something to come from
Gaza's direction. Every time there is talk of negotiations, we get a
present from Gaza."
But just give them a 'state' and they'll police their terrorists and get them to stop shooting rockets at us.
Four border police injured by one of 46 Kassams shot from Gaza
Four border police were injured - one moderately and three lightly - by a Kassam rocket explosion in Ashkelon on Tuesday night. The rocket was one of more than 40 that were fired into Israel from Gaza on Tuesday, and in a change from the recent past, Hamas is taking 'credit' for some of the rockets.
The moderately injured officer suffered shrapnel wounds to his legs.
A total of 46 rockets and mortar shells pounded southern Israel on Tuesday, in one of the worst days of violence in months. Israel was expected to escalate its response and Defense Minister Ehud Barak held security consultations late Tuesday night to review various options
36 fell in the Negev region and 10 exploded in the Lachish area. Police bomb squads spent the day searching for rocket impact areas to recover the projectiles’ remains. No one was hurt in the attacks but residents in the Ashkelon and Sdot Negev regions were ordered to stay close to bomb shelters throughout the day.
Israel was particularly concerned with the increase in rocket fire but particularly with Hamas’s declared involvement in the attacks, a clear break from its earlier policy not to attack Israel as was demonstrated during the last round of violence with Islamic Jihad in March.
The Home Front Command instructed the residents of the Gaza vicinity communities to stay in very close proximity to shelters and other fortified structures.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak convened the defense establishment's top officials for a situation assessment.
A Defense Ministry source said that "a wide range of retaliatory actions are under review."
Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino noted Tuesday night that the current round of violence between Gaza and Israel may continue for several days: "I hope (the violence) won't expand, but we are preparing for the possibility that it may reach the larger and more distant cities," he said.
Danino ordered the Southern District Police on high alert following Monday's terror attack on the Israel-Egypt border.
And Iron Dome? Deployed but not activated - probably because it didn't calculate that any of the rockets was going to hit anything. I guess they messed up in Ashkelon.
But the bigger drawback of Iron Dome is that it does not allow life to go on normally as if there was no rocket fire. That means that, despite Iron Dome, the IDF will have to go into action if normalcy is going to be restored. And don't hold your breath thinking that probably means they'll wipe out the whole terrorist infrastructure. They probably won't.
A barrage of seven Kassam rockets hit southern Israel on Wednesday night. Fortunately, all of them landed in open areas, but that's not the whole story if you have to keep running for cover.
Rina Mor-Yosef from Sderot said, "We had guests from Yavne and Ashkelon. Suddenly we heard a Color Red alarm and the ever familiar shrieking sound. We went down to the fortified room and heard some blasts. When we cam out we immediately had to go back down. Our guests said they didn’t understand how we could live like this, but this has been our way of life some years now."
Would you want to live like that?
It also seems that Iron Dome - the less-than-perfect, short-range anti-rocket system has another flaw they forgot to tell us about: It doesn't operate well in bad weather. It's been raining here most of the week (not right now), including last night.
A rocket fired by 'Palestinian' terrorists from Gaza just missed a Kindergarten on Tuesday. Fortunately, since it happened in the evening, the kids weren't there.
Two Qassam rockets fired from Gaza exploded in the Sha'ar Hanegev farming region in the south on Tuesday evening. One rocket slammed into a storage house adjacent to a kindergarten in a kibbutz. A structure sustained damage in the attack, though fortunately there were no injuries. A second projectile fell in open territory.
Earlier on Tuesday, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the IDF will be forced to launch an offensive if rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip continue to be launched into southern Israel. He added that Israel must take the initiative.
In the next round of fighting, Gantz added, "we will need to shorten the length of fighting as much as possible," noting that speed is dependent on quality intelligence and quick action.
And this time, we have to finish the job and not abandon it in the middle.
Islamic Jihad vows to send rockets deeper into Israel
The rockets have been flying from Gaza on Thursday night, and the Islamic Jihad terror group is vowing to make them fly deeper into Israel.
A ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza seemed distant Thursday evening as the violence in the south of the country continued with at least 15 rockets and mortar shells exploding in Israeli territory.
The Code Red siren was heard throughout the Eshkol and Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Councils and in Ashkelon as 15 rockets and mortar shells fell throughout those areas, the IDF Spokesman's Office said in a statement.
No injuries were reported in Thursday's attacks, but their was damage caused to a building in the Erez border crossing at the Gaza border.
In response to the building damage at Erez, the IAF struck a rocket-launching pad in the northern Gaza Strip, the spokesman's statement said.
Palestinians sources said the IAF killed two Palestinians when a missile struck their motorcycle while they were riding in the northern Gaza Strip. It was unclear whether this was the same missile strike as the IDF Spokesperson's Office announced.
While the IDF issued no comment on the strike, a medical source in Gaza said that one of the victims was identified as Salim Khaled al-Arabid, Ma'an reported. Another Palestinian source said the riders were members of Islamic Jihad's militant wing.
At least 20 rockets have exploded in Israel since Tuesday night.
It's time to turn Gaza into rubble. Unfortunately, the Netanyahu government is unlikely to have the guts to do that. But from what we know, the 'Palestinian' terror groups have the capability of firing rockets deeper into Israel.
Again, I have to apologize for erratic posting. I crashed this evening, and when I awoke, I had to run out to a wedding for a short while. The good news is that I should be awake for a while now.
Hamas agrees to cease fire, Israel denies entering into agreement
Hamas has agreed to enforce a cease fire on the other 'Palestinian' terror groups in Gaza. Israel is denying that it is party to any such agreement, but says that it will watch carefully whether Hamas keeps the cease fire.
Hamas has agreed to enforce a ceasefire on smaller Palestinian factions in Gaza, which have been responsible for most of the rockets fired at Israel in the escalation of recent days, a Palestinian officials said on Monday.
One official who was involved in mediating talks between Israel and Palestinian factions in Gaza said the groups had "reached an understanding on a truce and that the truce has started."
Officials said that Israel and the Hamas Islamist group which controls the Gaza Strip have agreed to a ceasefire after five days of cross-border violence.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister's Office denied that it was partner to any signed cease fire agreement in Gaza.
A source in the PMO told Army Radio, "We do not sign agreements with Hamas, not directly and not indirectly."
He added, "Israel is monitoring the implementation of the cease fire. If they continue the shooting, we'll respond accordingly."
Let's see how long this holds. I doubt it will hold until the end of the month.
The IDF finally retaliated against a Gaza rocket squad on Sunday afternoon - no word yet how many terrorists were incinerated.
The IDF targeted a rocket squad in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday afternoon, Army Radio reported. There were no immediate details of the strike, which was the first Israeli retaliatory strike of the day.
The strikes came as rocket fire from the Gaza Strip that killed one man over the weekend continued Sunday morning. At least six Grad rockets were fired at Beersheba, one of which hit an empty school building, and at least one of the other Grads was intercepted by the Iron Dome rocket defense system and two landed in the Egyptian city of Rafah. There were no casualties reported in Sunday morning's attacks.
Earlier Sunday morning, four mortar shells landed in the Eshkol Regional Council area and nine rockets were fired at the Ashkelon Regional Council, one of which damaged a building. No injuries were reported in the attacks.
The Iron Dome rocket defense system also successfully intercepted three rockets fired from Gaza in the direction of Ashkelon.
At least two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed in the Egyptian border town of Rafah on Sunday morning, but there was no damage and no one was hurt, an Egyptian security source said.
The source said it appeared the rockets were fired in error.
Police have instructed residents of the South to remain in safe zones and to remain tuned in to instructions from the IDF Home Front Command.
How long would they put up with living that way in Tel Aviv? How long would they put up with it in El Paso? Why doesn't the government give the 'Palestinians' what they are asking for?
Why the IDF won't deploy Iron Dome in the Gaza envelope
Since I mentioned the Supreme Court ruling on Iron Dome in the previous post (below), I want to talk a bit about why the IDF does not want to deploy Iron Dome in the Gaza envelope.
In its High Court petition, the Eshkol Regional Council argued that the government should be ordered to deploy the Iron Dome to protect communities in the so-called “Gaza envelope,” specifically those located between 4.5 and seven kilometers from the Strip, from terrorist rocket fire.
Homes in communities located within 4.5 kilometers of Gaza have been equipped with government-funded rocket-roof protection.
However, structures located between 4.5 and seven kilometers from the Gaza security fence lack rocket protection.
Iron Dome, a mobile air defense system, was developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to intercept rockets and artillery shells with a range from 4.5 to 70 kilometers. It was deployed this week outside Ashkelon in response to rocket fire from Gaza.
Communities in the Eshkol Regional Council say the system should protect them too.
You will note that the government has now admitted what I said all along: Iron Dome cannot protect places like Sderot, which are less than 4.5 kilometers from Gaza and where there is only 15 seconds from when a rocket is fired. Although Iron Dome was deployed around Sderot two months ago, the government has clearly realized that it's useless (no human being could react quickly enough to get it into action) and therefore it has paid for the roofs of houses that are close to Gaza to be protected, and pulled back Iron Dome. I would not be too crazy about that if I lived there.
But you may recall that eight months ago, the IDF announced that it would only deploy Iron Dome to protect the IDF and not civilians. At the time, I wrote:
Remember how I argued that no one is telling you that Iron Dome is not capable of protecting Sderot or other communities that are too close to the border line, because there's not enough time to shoot down missiles there. And we were warned this would happen. Well, now it's happened.
Iron Dome is being deployed, but not to protect communities that are near Lebanon or Gaza like you thought. No, Iron Dome is being deployed to protect the operational capabilities of IDF bases. Tuesday night, IDF Northern command chief Gadi Eizenkot announced that the communities on the Lebanese border would 'have it a bit rough' for the first few days of any war. And the residents of the border communities - north and south - are furious.
...
My dear Mr. Shuster: You've been told a lie. Iron Dome cannot protect your area - its reaction time is too slow. So the IDF will use it to protect IDF bases instead. After all, we spent so much taxpayer money developing it.
In fact, there may not be any system on the market that can protect an area like yours. You see, at some point, territory does matter, even though we live in an age of missiles and air forces. That's why we cannot give up territory that will put hostile entities on our borders. That's why the unilateral withdrawals from Gaza and southern Lebanon were such horrible mistakes. Now, there is - God forbid - a price to be paid.
The fact that Iron Dome is not effective against short-range rockets and therefore cannot protect Sderot was long known to the system's developers and to the Defense Ministry officials who chose to focus on it. For some reason, they decided not to go public with their information. When the Defense Ministry officials, led by the defense minister, promised that the residents of Sderot would be protected after the installation of the Iron Dome system, they knew they would not be able to deliver on this promise.
One need not be privy to classified information in order to understand that Iron Dome is not the solution to the Qassam rockets. The data are public knowledge: The Qassam's speed in the air is 200 meters per second. The distance from the edge of Beit Hanun to the outskirts of Sderot is 1,800 meters. Therefore, a rocket launched from Beit Hanun takes about nine seconds to hit Sderot. The developers of Iron Dome at Rafael Advance Defense Systems know that the preparations to simply launch the intercept missiles at their target take up to about 15 seconds (during which time the system locates the target, determines the flight path and calculates the intercept route). Obviously, then, the Qassam will slam into Sderot quite a number of seconds before the missile meant to intercept it is even launched.
At this point, there are two factors at work. First, the IDF does not want to minimize whatever deterrent effect Iron Dome has on the Gaza terror organizations. And second, the Supreme Court wants to protect the Leftist Olmert-Barak-Livni government that made the bad decisions, because if more Israelis were aware of what you now know, they would be furious, and Livni would have no chance in a future election (not to mention that they might insist on retaking Gaza and Southern Lebanon).
So it's all a lie. Iron Dome looks great around Ashkelon and further out but is likely useless within 15 kilometers of Gaza. And the government isn't protecting anyone more than 4.5 kilometers from Gaza because they simply cannot afford it.
If Iron Dome was deployed on Monday night, id didn't help an Ashkelon woman who was hit by shrapnel (according to Israel Radio) from a Kassam rocket.
A woman in her 50s was moderately wounded Monday night after a Kassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip exploded in the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council.
The woman was hit by shrapnel in the lower part of her body and was transferred by an MDA crew to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon.
An alarm sounded off in the area before the rocket exploded.
Hamas fired dozens of rockets at southern Israel over the weekend in what some thought was a bid to learn how Iron Dome works so that they can work around it.
IDF sources told Arutz Sheva's Haggai Huberman that by massive firing of rockets Hamas is trying to determine which areas are protected by Iron Dome and how effective the system is. It will also be gauging the angle at which Iron Dome fires its anti-missile missiles, and more.
Both Ashkelon and Be'er Sheva are protected by Iron Dome batteries, which have intercepted at least eight terrorist rockets in the past few days. An additional rocket may have been intercepted Sunday morning.
On Friday night (Sabbath eve), the Iron Dome battery at Be'er Sheva blocked two rockets that had been fired at the city. The second Iron Dome battery currently deployed has thus far intercepted six missiles that were on their way to hit Ashkelon.
The Iron Dome system currently protects the municipal centers near which it is stationed. It does not fire at missiles that its computer identifies as being en route to more sparsely populated regions.
Do these batteries move around or are they fixed?
To me, trying to figure out the precise areas that Iron Dome protects sounds like as much of a search for a needle in a haystack as trying to figure out which rockets to shoot down in the first place.
Evelyn Gordon finds an unusual proponent of stopping Kassam fire by the 'Palestinians' on Israel.
After all, the rockets are usually fired from the heart of Palestinian population centers (something Hass neglected to mention, preferring to imply that Israel targets civilians deliberately). That makes civilian casualties from Israeli counterstrikes almost inevitable. Just this week for instance, an errant Israeli shell killed four Palestinian civilians; the target was a group of terrorists launching mortars at Israel “from a grove just beyond our house,” as the brother of one of those killed told the New York Times.
Since the cost of the rocket fire far outweighs its benefits, Hass argued, anyone who cares about real live Palestinians should be denouncing it in an effort to pressure Hamas and other terrorist organizations to stop it. Instead, she charged, pro-Palestinian activists have given it tacit consent:
In the binary thinking of those who oppose the Israeli occupation (Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners), public criticism of the tactics used in the struggle of an occupied and dispossessed people is taboo. It is as if criticism would create symmetry between the attacker and the attacked. To a large extent, this taboo has been broken with regard to the Palestinian Authority: Many opponents of the occupation have no qualms about portraying the PA as a collaborator, or at least as the captive of its senior officials’ private interests. But when it comes to Hamas’ use of arms, silence falls.
Don't hold your breath waiting for the shooting to stop. Most 'Palestinian' terrorists regard their own people as just so much cannon fodder.
Awesome video: IDF Captain tells the truth about Gaza on al-Jazeera Arabic
As a lot of you may recall, there was a lot of mortar and rocket fire against Israel from Gaza last week. Israel responded at the end of the week by hitting Hamas installations throughout Gaza, which, as usual, were located in civilian areas with the predictable result of a limited number of civilian casualties. The 'Palestinians' are furious that what they gave they were given back.
Here's IDF Captain Avichai Adraee of the IDF spokesman's office speaking about Israel's retaliation in Gaza on al-Jazeera Arabic. It's in Arabic with both Hebrew and English (push the cc button if necessary) subtitles. Adraee is like a younger version of Mordechai Kedar whom I'm sure many of you recall from this video on al-Jazeera Arabic. Adraee is superb.
Let's go to the videotape.
UPDATE 11:48 AM
Sorry - Shy Guy (in the comments) is right. The video is from October 2009.
With yet another Kassam rocket landing in southern Israel on Saturday morning, the IDF has decided to deploy the Iron Dome system against short range missiles in the area.
“Iron Dome” will provide part of the answer to the threat of rocket fire at Israel’s southern communities, not discounting shelters and offensive measures.
The decision to accelerate the deployment of the system was made in light of recent events in southern Israel and according to security assessments.
The deployment will not be permanent, allowing the systems to be moved between areas according to evolving security assessments.
Note that they're not claiming it's a complete answer to the missile problem - at least we've made that much progress. In fact, I would bet it won't be much of an answer at all.
Egypt has warned Hamas that if it continues to fire rockets at Israel as it has been doing for the last couple of weeks, Israel will retaliate like it did with Operation Cast Lead two years ago (Hat Tip: Daily Alert).
"Egypt has told Hamas the Gaza situation was similar to that before December 2008," said one source, referring to the start of the three-week war Israel waged in the Hamas-run enclave with the declared aim of halting cross-border rocket strikes.
"Hamas does not want a new escalation unless it is forced into it," the source said.
A Palestinian official said Egypt and another Arab country, which he declined to identify, had discussed the issue with Hamas. Hamas officials declined to comment.
...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing foreign journalists in Jerusalem on Tuesday, said militants in the Gaza Strip would be making "a terrible, terrible mistake" if they continued to "test our will to defend our people".
An Israeli air strike earlier that day killed an Islamic Jihad militant. The Israeli military said he had been planning to carry out an attack against Israel.
Until Operation Cast Lead came along and changed the subject, I frequently wrote posts that argued that the government was ignoring the constant rocket attacks on Sderot and other towns within the 'Gaza envelope' because those areas were NotInMyBackYard. For those of you who are relatively new, here's how the argument went:
Can anyone imagine Olmert reacting this way if it were Tel Aviv under fire? But Sderot is mostly poor, mostly Sephardi and mostly Likud voters, while Tel Aviv is mostly wealthy, mostly Ashkenazi and mostly votes for parties on the left. In other words, Sderot is NotInMyBackYard. And so Sderot suffered from one rocket after another last week - minus the 3000 residents who have left to become refugees like those expelled from Gaza, while Olmert sipped champagne with George and Condi.
Operation Cast Lead changed all that, and the reason it happened was that the 'Palestinians' started to hit cities like Ashkelon, which has an ethnic and class makeup that is much more similar to Tel Aviv than to Sderot, not to mention some very key pieces of infrastructure.
Unfortunately, the Olmert-Barak-Livni government didn't have the intestinal fortitude to do what needed to be done to finish the job in Gaza. That allowed Hamas to regroup, and now Hamas - and for that matter Hezbullah - are both able to hit Tel Aviv. Our home front command is now warning that when and if there is another war, Tel Aviv and its environs will be hit.
"Dozens of missiles of all kinds will land on Tel Aviv, and therefore the estimation is that hundreds will die and structures and infrastructure will be destroyed," Colonel Adam Zussman was quoted by Army Radio as saying.
Zussman's comments came on the twentieth anniversary of the first Scud missiles falling on central Israel at the start of the first Gulf War in January 1991.
Zussman addressed the dangers of having Israel's major economic institutions such as the Stock Market in Ramat Gan under attack and the chance that such a situation could paralyze the nation during a war.
"I'm interested in our banks and economy continuing to function. We need to prepare alternatives as soon as as possible," said Zussman.
Zussman stated that he did not wish to alarm the residents of Tel Aviv and the Dan region, but rather to make them understand that the threat is a real possibility. This will compel the public to prepare their gas masks and bomb shelters, he added.
"There is no doubt that the first missile that lands in Tel Aviv will frighten those sitting in coffee shops today, but with our instructions and our citizens' good discipline, the estimation is that the initial shock will pass," Zussman stated.
The Home Front Command expressed that they do not support evacuating residents from central Israel in the event of a future war.
In the event of a war that hits Tel Aviv, the last one out will be asked to turn off the lights. There is little doubt in my mind that people will evacuate on their own, and Jerusalem and (ironically) Judea and Samaria will be mobbed because they will be the safest places to be.
Of one thing, however, you can rest assured: If Tel Aviv is hit, you will see a response that will make you all forget that Richard Goldstone was ever here.
While Sderot sustained rocket attacks for eight years until the military and political conditions “were ripe” for a retaliatory strike in Gaza, Tel Aviv will not sustain such attacks for eight days; not even for eight hours.
In order to put an immediate end to missile attacks on central Israel – regardless of where they originated: Syria, Lebanon, or Gaza – we will see massive retribution that will make Operation Cast Lead appear like a tiny scratch in the Middle East’s violent history.
...
Israel’s enemies are counting on Goldstone: They will fire missiles at Tel Aviv, and the world will stop Israel from punishing them for deterrence purposes. Yet they’re wrong.
Israel would not be able to afford to wait for its ground forces to successfully operate in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, or any other site in order to curb the fire. Time is a critical element, and a successful ground operation is a matter of days or weeks, which means more casualties and more critical hits sustained by the home front. The hundreds of rockets that will penetrate through the Israeli-American defense systems will require Israel to respond immediately.
And here the formula is cruel and simple: The more effective the rocket terror war will be, the less “proportional” the response would be.
Under such circumstances, we will see a massive retaliatory blow, from the air and from the ground, targeting various infrastructures and sites and being painful enough to prompt the enemy to hold its fire. If the world expects Israel to only hit military targets and chase every rocket or launching site, it expects Israel to commit suicide.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
