Signaling an escalation of Israel's Gaza operation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israelis Monday to be ready for a "prolonged" war. After three weeks of bloodshed, both Israel and Hamas are holding out for bigger gains and a cease-fire remains elusive.
US News has an analysis of the rocket situation and the Gaza tunnels.
Theodore Postol, a professor at MIT and an expert on rocket and missile technology as a part of global security, points to the sharp disparity in death tolls on either side of this fight.
“There is no doubt at all that the rockets have caused tremendous amounts of disruption to Israeli society. No doubt at all,” he says. “They rarely do much damage, but they occasionally hit something.”
Tallies of the death count as a result of Hamas’ constant barrage of rockets since 2001 do not exceed 30. Postol attributes the low casualty rate to the millions of dollars Israel has poured into developing an early warning system. Israelis – depending on their location – have between 15 seconds and a minute to get to the omnipresent bomb shelters throughout the country. Rocket attacks in 2012 demonstrated the first publicly announced use of Israel’s new Iron Dome missile shield, though Postol says that likely has little to do with protecting Israelis.
However, Palestinians have become adept at sneaking in and developing rockets. The Qassam class of rockets carry a small warhead weighing 10 to 20 pounds and can be built in a basement employing a fuel made from sugar and potassium nitrate, Postol says. Others, such as the larger Grad class of weapons, are made of components that resemble household and plumbing products, making them more easy to smuggle into the country. Hamas has also recently begun deploying the much more lethal and long-range Fajr-5 rockets, an Iranian-made weapon that is capable to reaching targets as far away as 50 miles. Its 200-pound warhead can inflict widespread damage that far outweighs its smaller and more improvised predecessors.
“Hamas hasn’t killed a smaller number of Israelis than Gazans for lack of trying,” says Schneider, who has previously lived in Israel. “Hamas is firing at school buses, at schools, factories, community centers. They are launching their rockets at literally every community within Israel.”
Israel’s ability to warn its own citizens about an impending attack does not release the culpability of Hamas for trying to kill Israelis, he says.
No nation, anywhere, would accept an unrelenting indiscriminate barrage of rockets,” Schneider adds. “Can you imagine this country, or any other country, accepting nine, or 90, or 900 rockets without responding, and responding in force?”
For years, Hamas has constructed an "underground Gaza," while investing nothing in the welfare of "upper Gaza." The Israeli military has discovered 36 Hamas-dug tunnels, but estimates there are many more.
On the eve of its incursion into the Gaza Strip, Israel agreed to an Egyptian outline for a cease-fire to restore calm. It was only after 13 militants from the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades penetrated Israel in an attempt to launch a terrorist attack in Kerem Shalom that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) got the green light to begin a ground assault. And it was only then that soldiers discovered there was an underground Gaza just like there was an aboveground Gaza, and that the Hamas movement had invested an enormous amount of resources into constructing that underground Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was very wary of defining his precise objectives to end Operation Protective Edge. Instead, both he and his government are making do with more general goals, such as “removing the rocket threat” and ''restoring quiet to the citizens of Israel.” It was only following the failed infiltration operation and during the UN-sponsored five-hour humanitarian cease-fire that it became clear how pressing and urgent the tunnel threat really was, and that it could pose an even greater threat to Israel than Hamas’ rockets.
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US News has an analysis of the rocket situation and the Gaza tunnels.
Theodore Postol, a professor at MIT and an expert on rocket and missile technology as a part of global security, points to the sharp disparity in death tolls on either side of this fight.
“There is no doubt at all that the rockets have caused tremendous amounts of disruption to Israeli society. No doubt at all,” he says. “They rarely do much damage, but they occasionally hit something.”
Tallies of the death count as a result of Hamas’ constant barrage of rockets since 2001 do not exceed 30. Postol attributes the low casualty rate to the millions of dollars Israel has poured into developing an early warning system. Israelis – depending on their location – have between 15 seconds and a minute to get to the omnipresent bomb shelters throughout the country. Rocket attacks in 2012 demonstrated the first publicly announced use of Israel’s new Iron Dome missile shield, though Postol says that likely has little to do with protecting Israelis.
However, Palestinians have become adept at sneaking in and developing rockets. The Qassam class of rockets carry a small warhead weighing 10 to 20 pounds and can be built in a basement employing a fuel made from sugar and potassium nitrate, Postol says. Others, such as the larger Grad class of weapons, are made of components that resemble household and plumbing products, making them more easy to smuggle into the country. Hamas has also recently begun deploying the much more lethal and long-range Fajr-5 rockets, an Iranian-made weapon that is capable to reaching targets as far away as 50 miles. Its 200-pound warhead can inflict widespread damage that far outweighs its smaller and more improvised predecessors.
“Hamas hasn’t killed a smaller number of Israelis than Gazans for lack of trying,” says Schneider, who has previously lived in Israel. “Hamas is firing at school buses, at schools, factories, community centers. They are launching their rockets at literally every community within Israel.”
Israel’s ability to warn its own citizens about an impending attack does not release the culpability of Hamas for trying to kill Israelis, he says.
No nation, anywhere, would accept an unrelenting indiscriminate barrage of rockets,” Schneider adds. “Can you imagine this country, or any other country, accepting nine, or 90, or 900 rockets without responding, and responding in force?”
For years, Hamas has constructed an "underground Gaza," while investing nothing in the welfare of "upper Gaza." The Israeli military has discovered 36 Hamas-dug tunnels, but estimates there are many more.
On the eve of its incursion into the Gaza Strip, Israel agreed to an Egyptian outline for a cease-fire to restore calm. It was only after 13 militants from the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades penetrated Israel in an attempt to launch a terrorist attack in Kerem Shalom that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) got the green light to begin a ground assault. And it was only then that soldiers discovered there was an underground Gaza just like there was an aboveground Gaza, and that the Hamas movement had invested an enormous amount of resources into constructing that underground Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was very wary of defining his precise objectives to end Operation Protective Edge. Instead, both he and his government are making do with more general goals, such as “removing the rocket threat” and ''restoring quiet to the citizens of Israel.” It was only following the failed infiltration operation and during the UN-sponsored five-hour humanitarian cease-fire that it became clear how pressing and urgent the tunnel threat really was, and that it could pose an even greater threat to Israel than Hamas’ rockets.
Read more »
