Chaos in Gaza; Trouble in Israel; War on the Horizon?
May 19, 2007
The situation along Israel's southern border and within Gaza itself keeps deteriorating.
Israel began bombing Hamas headquarters and Kassam rocket sites this week. The Israeli military reaction, according to one military official is "to make Hamas pay." In the past several days, Hamas has fired more than 100 Kassam rockets on the Israeli border town of Sderot. Thursday night, one hit a synagogue and narrowly missed nearly 40 children. Earlier in the week, one hit a school. Thousands of residents have fled, and Sderot is becoming more and more of a ghost town.
The distance from Sderot to the area where these rockets are being fired is not that far, just a few miles. To get an idea of the geography and distance, imagine if the folks in Newark were running away from rocket fire out of New York City, or if the people of Oakland starting shooting missiles into San Francisco, or if Windsor, Ontario fired shells into Detroit.
While a Kassam rocket is not particularly accurate, imagine what it's like to let your children go to school or what it's like to go to work with the possibility that a rocket with several pounds of explosives just might blow you or your children up. A direct hit or a close one is deadly. That's the kind of life residents of this Israeli border town have been living with for years and now the increased attacks have brought daily life to a standstill.
When Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, the hope was that its withdrawal would bring peace. However, many of the 8,000 Jewish residents who were evicted warned Gaza would become a center for global terror. Their most dire warnings are being realized. Not only is Hamas firmly entrenched in Gaza, but there are elements of al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
Hamas's military tactic is clear. It knows it's very difficult to stop these rockets. If there was one clear lesson from last summer's war with Hezbollah, it's that in order to effectively stop these smaller rockets, you need to control the ground. Hezbollah, even up to the end of the 34-day war, was able to send more than 100 rockets a day into northern Israel.
Some observers believe Hamas is luring Israel into Gaza to provoke a confrontation that will divert attention away from the in-fighting between it and the Palestinian group Fatah. During the last week, nearly 70 militants on both sides have died in the internecine fighting. In one harrowing moment for the media, dozens of foreign correspondents were caught in a Hamas-Fatah crossfire.
Some suggest what began this week might be the start of the summer war many have predicted. It might be too early to tell, but it's one more indication of trouble brewing on every one of Israel's borders.
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