PROFESSIONALS Ana Jerozolimskie
Today we would like to analyze why the numbers in the latest escalation in the Israeli Palestinian sides of the border between Israel and southern Gaza Strip. But first, a few key clarifications.
1) Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip on 12 September 2005. In August had been evacuated to all settlers, destroyed settlements. Then he closed the door and all the soldiers left.
2) The only Israeli military is in Gaza since then, is the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.
3) attacks from Gaza into Israel are targeted, all toward civilian targets, communities inhabited different parts of the south, Sderot, Be'er Sheva, Ashkelon and other cities as well as collective and community populations, or farmers working in the fields on the Israeli side of the border. They are "resisting occupation", because the occupation does not exist. They are direct attacks to the people of Israel.
4) When they attack from Gaza at army patrols, not soldiers who crossed into Gaza, but caring patrol on the Israeli side of the border. Placed terrorists trying to detonate explosives in their wake.
WHY NUMBERS
the Israeli side, a 16 year old seriously wounded in the head. Of Palestinian, 19 dead in the Gaza Strip. Who analyzes only the numbers without knowing the details of the situation or its details, believes that Israel should be condemned automatically by disproportion and perhaps also by bad intentions. Without minimizing in any way the fact that among the dead on the Palestinian side there were also civilians, we have no doubt that a situation analysis based on all factors, should lead to another conclusion. And it is key
mention that in the past three days, were fired into Israel over 200 missiles, rockets and mortars. To understand the meaning, just that everyone, after reading these lines, try to imagine do you feel if your city was attacked with a missile-only one-neighbor across the border. Multiply it by 200 in a few days.
responsibility for what happened is the radical groups in the Gaza Strip, which not only intentionally fired toward civilians concentrations on the Israeli side but they do from sites populated by their own side. Thus exposed to the Palestinian civilian population at great risk, because when Israel captured the coordinates of the site from which a cell fired a missile at its territory and respond to eliminate this cell, anyone who is close to danger. If Hamas and other radicals open fire in the midst of houses, about people who swore protect exposed to these Palestinians to fire, knowingly.
On Friday 8 April, an armed cell was spotted by an aircraft not flown by the Israeli Air Force, who managed to film them .... In the cemetery of Sayaíe. From there they fired four rockets into the village of Nahal Oz. When the point was identified and sent the plane to the scene, it became clear: The terrorists ran between the stones, trying to hide the rocket launchers with which they had just shot, knowing that surely come from above. Imagine the title .. "Israel left alone or the dead" ...
UNOS strives to kill " THE OTHERS TO PROTECT.
There are two specific reasons why the Israeli side in recent days was "only" and not seriously injured dozens of deaths.
1) The anti-tank missile "Kornet" Hamas fired on Thursday into a school bus on a highway in southern Israel, located about two kilometers from the border with Gaza, hit the car just minutes after they come down in their populated almost 50 students who had completed their day's studies. Moments before, that would have been a slaughter. If when the bus was only a boy, besides the driver, both were injured, you do not enforce much imagination to understand what would have happened if it had been full as it was very shortly before impact.
2) About a dozen Qassam rockets and Grad missiles fired by Hamas and other militant groups to major cities in southern Ashkelon, Beer Sheva and most of all, were intercepted and destroyed in the air by the two brand new batteries protective "dome iron ", installed at strategic locations along the two locations. To understand what could have happened were it not for the success of these anti-missile batteries, remember a clear element of its operation, we learned recently, while visiting the place where was located the battery for the protection of Beer Sheva.
3) The radar captures every rocket, albeit small, that shoots out from Gaza, can identify in seconds, depending on the course of the flight, address, coordinates, when the impact will be in an open area and when in an inhabited place, which can also be the center of a city or any neighborhood of it. The "Iron Dome" is activated and triggers an anti-missile missile, the radar only when caught that if not stopped, the missile that left Gaza through points fall on populated areas. If they see that fall in an uninhabited area, the battery does not react. This means that each one of dozens of missiles destroyed in the air in recent days, could have fallen, but for these new batteries, on buildings, homes, schools, shopping centers. That's why on Saturday, the terrorists also shot at other places, like the city of Ofakim, aware of the relatively limited scope of the Israeli battery, which can not cover the entire south once.
is no coincidence that last Saturday, hundreds of residents of Beer Sheva were presented at the place where is located the "Iron Dome" to thank the soldiers who run it. They had reason: they saved my life.
4) The alarm system that works across the south of Israel, are pushing people to seek shelter in shelters and reinforced plastic parts. In there, although they may not be saved if the impact is direct, they are less protective of deadly shrapnel. In the town of Sderot, for example, and several points south, you can see every few meters away from structures that may seem just bus stops. But there have told us that there are people who are called "street retreat" ... are concrete cubes, designed to stop shrapnel that shoot out when a rocket hits. They have saved lives.
A STRANGE EQUATION
Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas in the Gaza Gaza, spoke angrily over the weekend, explaining what the problem is, in his view, the current escalation. "I do not agree to refrain from reacting when Israel kills our men for launching attacks." That is, in free translation: "Hamas can fire missiles, fire rockets, place explosive charges, but if Israel dares to reply, it is our duty to take revenge."
Palestinian militant groups are trying in recent weeks to establish new rules of the game: attacking Israel and not to allow Israel to react. If Israel kills intercepted radicals who just fired rockets, Palestinian factions react as if Israel had started climbing a provocation. The Palestinian groups are trying to create an equation in which they can open fire as they wish, but Israel has a right of reply.
An important element in this equation, remember that in general, the Israeli response that usually receives more death, is when shooting into the cell that minutes earlier fired missiles into Israel. Very often their members are made by the Israeli response. Hamas or the group to which they belonged, they imply that there "with Israel," he began firing dynamics. The "small detail" in the sequence, that is the fact that Israel had not responded to anything if that cell had not launched missiles minutes before, do not give any importance.
But beyond the "order" Chronological this situation, there is a key element that distinguishes between two situations: when the terrorists deliberately firing into civilian targets, Israel responds to radical groups, cells of rockets and other infrastructure targets armed.
One element that further complicates the situation is that Hamas does not control the other radical groups in the field, which is influenced largely by the fact that they, in Hamas, play at two points: their leaders " politicians are in favor of a ceasefire and return to calm (which had never been absolute), while in the field, his armed men, make it clear that no interest-escalation.
Apparently, part of the explanation lies in the fall of the Mubarak regime in Egypt, which served as a stop sign in front of Hamas from the south. The current Egyptian leadership, but stresses that keep the peace with Israel, has a different attitude to Hamas, more open and less control. The results are already being felt on the ground. Apparently, the escalation on both sides of the border between Gaza and Israel, is the first direct consequence, in terms of Israeli Palestinians, Egyptian spring. DEFENSE AND INFORMATION
