Israel’s War to Halt Palestinian Rocket Attacks

Vol. 7, No. 34     March 3, 2008

• The Kassam rocket threat started in 2001 and grew when the Palestinian Authority was under Fatah control. Even after the death of Yasser Arafat in November 2004, Kassam rocket fire from Gaza continued under the regime of Mahmoud Abbas. True, Abbas called on Palestinians to stop firing rockets into Israel in 2006, but on the ground, he and the Fatah leadership were either unwilling or unable to halt the Hamas attacks as they increased

• After Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, the number of confirmed rocket strikes against Israel increased by more than 500 percent. The 2005 Gaza disengagement provided Hamas with a sense of empowerment and self-confidence that led to a clear-cut escalation in the employment of the rocket capabilities that they had previously acquired.

• The disengagement from Gaza led to the loss of Israeli control over the Philadelphi route between the Gaza Strip and Egyptian Sinai, allowing for a significant increase in the range and quantity of rockets in the Palestinian arsenal. Prior to 2006, the number of Palestinian rocket attacks rarely reached 50 per month. By early 2008, Palestinian organizations displayed a capability of launching 50 rockets per day.

• Israeli security forces recently discovered in the western Negev the remains of a new 175 mm. rocket of Iranian origin that has a range of 26 kilometers. Israeli security sources are also concerned that Iran will try to smuggle its Fajr rockets to Gaza in the future. A 45-kilometer-range Fajr 3, for example, could be smuggled in sections and assembled in Gaza.

• As long as the Philadelphi route is open for Hamas smuggling, the risk to Israel will grow as Iran exports rockets of increasing range to the Gaza Strip. The port of Ashdod is the next likely target, but should Fajr rockets reach Gaza, there is no reason why Hamas cannot pose a threat to Tel Aviv. Control of the launch areas in northern Gaza could significantly reduce the ability of Hamas to harass Sderot and the communities of the western Negev with rocket and mortar fire. The repeated lesson of the last seven years is that only Israel can ultimately be responsible for its own security.

An Israeli Response to Hamas’ Escalation

Israel’s just-completed ground incursion in the Gaza Strip that began on March 1, 2008, should not have triggered much international debate. After all, for more than seven years Palestinian terrorist organizations have been intentionally firing rockets indiscriminately against Israeli civilian targets, especially at the Israeli town of Sderot which has absorbed roughly 45 percent of the nearly 3,000 attacks that have been launched.¹ As Israeli Minister of Public Security Avi Dichter noted on March 2, with the inclusion of the city of Ashkelon in the Palestinian target list, the number of Israeli civilians under rocket threat from Gaza has increased from 25,000 to 250,000.

In complete contrast, Israeli military operations in Gaza in response to Palestinian rocket attacks have been directed at military targets, including rocket factories, rocket squads, and terrorist commanders. When Palestinian civilian casualties have occurred, they have been an unintended by-product of Israel’s self-defense efforts. The fact that the Palestinian terrorist organizations often position their launch sites in urban areas and stockpile their weaponry in densely populated territory like the Jabaliya refugee camp in many cases makes them a party to the loss of Palestinian civilians ­- who serve, in effect, as human shields.² While it is often forgotten, Israel completely withdrew from the Gaza Strip in August 2005; it was clear from Israel’s disengagement that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had absolutely no interest to operate in Gaza over the last number of years, unless Israel was attacked from Gaza territory. If Gaza rocket attacks on Israel did not occur, there would be no reason for the IDF to operate there.

Nonetheless, Israel very quickly became the subject of harsh international criticism. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Israel’s “disproportionate and excessive use of force.”³ The EU presidency followed this language, referring to “the recent disproportionate use of force by the Israel Defense Forces against the Palestinian population in Gaza.”⁴ Western armies are engaged in asymmetric warfare against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda in Iraq, yet no such statements are made with regard to these legitimate battles in the war on terrorism. To their credit, the U.S. and Britain rejected efforts to have the UN Security Council adopt a draft resolution further condemning Israel, but the discussions in New York demonstrated how UN member states had little idea of the magnitude of the rocket threat that Israel was facing and could also face in the future.

In order to best understand the main factors affecting the Palestinian rocket threat to Israel from Gaza, it is useful to examine the data in the accompanying maps and chart (see maps and chart below), based on data from the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, which uses the IDF General Staff Operations Division as its source. What emerges from this data are the following conclusions.

Rocket Fire Began and Grew When Fatah Controlled Gaza

The Kassam rocket threat started in 2001 and grew when the Palestinian Authority was under Fatah control. Hamas introduced the Kassam rocket for the first time in 2001, and there was a steady increase in Kassam rocket fire against Israel from 2002 through 2005. Even after the death of Yasser Arafat in November 2004, Kassam rocket fire from Gaza continued under the regime of Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). True, Abbas called on Palestinians to stop firing rockets into Israel in 2006, but on the ground, he and the Fatah leadership were either unwilling or unable to halt the Hamas attacks as they increased – with only one exception. In August 2005, Kassam rocket attacks were dramatically reduced so that they would not get in the way of Israel’s Gaza pullout.

Additionally, Fatah-affiliated groups in Gaza developed their own rocket systems: both the al-Aqsa rocket and the al-Yasser rocket. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Fatah in Gaza also fires rockets into Israel, and a Fatah squad in Tulkarm in the West Bank made two attempts to launch rockets at Israel.⁵

Palestinian Rocket Fire Jumps After Israel’s Gaza Disengagement

Kassam rocket fire did not start with Israel’s Gaza disengagement. Nonetheless, after disengagement the number of confirmed rocket strikes against Israel increased by more than 500 percent. During the year 2005, Israel absorbed 179 rocket strikes. Gaza disengagement was implemented in August 2005. The number of rocket strikes in the year 2006 shot up to 946 – a five-fold increase. What initially allowed the Palestinian organizations to develop their rocket capability with impunity was Israel’s original withdrawal from most of the Gaza Strip in 1994 in accordance with the Gaza-Jericho Agreement under the Oslo Accord.

The 2005 Gaza disengagement provided Hamas with a sense of empowerment and self-confidence that led to a clear-cut escalation in the employment of the rocket capabilities that they had previously acquired. Politically, this led to the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian Authority parliamentary elections in January 2006. But militarily, Gaza disengagement also led to a dramatic increase in rocket attacks, as previously described.

Loss of Control Over Egypt-Gaza Border Led to Iranian Rockets on Ashkelon

The disengagement from Gaza led to the loss of Israeli control over the Philadelphi route between the Gaza Strip and Egyptian Sinai, allowing for a significant increase in the range and quantity of rockets in the Palestinian arsenal. What is dramatically new in the rocket attacks in 2008 are the range and quantity of rockets being fired. Ashkelon, a city of 120,000, was repeatedly struck by Katyusha (Grad) rockets in late February 2008. In 2007 and 2008, the Israeli city of Netivot was also a Palestinian target.

Prior to 2006, the number of Palestinian rocket attacks rarely reached 50 per month. By early 2008, Palestinian organizations displayed a capability of launching 50 rockets per day. Two events further contributed to the ease with which Hamas and other organizations could import materials and know-how for expanding their rocket forces: first, the Hamas military takeover in Gaza during June 2007, and second, the breaching of the Egyptian-Gaza border fence in January 2008.

As a result, the quantities of explosives and foreign-produced, longer-range rockets that could enter Gazan territory increased dramatically. Yuval Diskin, the head of the Israel Security Agency, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in early 2006 that the amount of explosives smuggled into the Gaza Strip from Egypt had grown drastically – by more than 300 percent.⁶ True, the Palestinian organizations had used tunnels in past years to smuggle weaponry from Egyptian Sinai into Gaza. But clearly, once Hamas was fully in control in Gaza and the Egyptian border was regularly breached, the scale of this smuggling mushroomed.

According to Diskin, by November 2006, 33 tons of military grade explosives had been smuggled into the Gaza Strip since the 2005 disengagement. That number increased to 112 tons of explosives by October 2007.⁷ Increasingly longer-range rockets came into Gaza freely as well.⁸ Israeli security forces recently discovered in the western Negev the remains of a new 175 mm. rocket of Iranian origin that has a range of 26 kilometers.^9<%2