Jameel of the Muqata alerted the JBlogosphere in an email that Palestinians have fired a katyusha rocket from Gaza even farther north than before:
For the first time, an member of Knesset has publicly announced that a Ketyusha has fallen the port city of Ashdod. There were unconfirmed reports of a Ketyusha hit on Ashdod last Shabbat, but there seems to have been a news black-out.
Ashdod is roughly 25 kilometers north of the Gaza Strip. From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website:
Statistics of Kassam rocket and mortar fire from the Gaza Strip
Total attacks:
Since the first rocket fell on Israel on 16 April 2001: 2,994
Since the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in August 2005: 2,411
Since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in mid-June 2007: 979
This year:
– From 1 Jan through 29 Feb 2008: 498
– 1-4 March 2008 (tentative): 95Mortar bomb hits during the same period: more than 3000.
Grad missiles: during the recent escalation (27 February – 3 March 2008), 23 hits of Grad missiles were identified, most in Ashkelon. Some of them were in the northern part of the city, which was hit for the first time (including Kfar Silver, a youth village north of the city). A Grad missile also hit Netivot. The scope and frequency of launchings of these long-range missiles is unprecedented.
And now they’re hitting the port of Ashdod, Israel’s main cargo port, a major industrial zone, and home to a power station and military research facilities.
The removal of the wall on the Egyptian side was an operation long planned by Hamas and their Iranian masters. The influx of longer-range rockets and Iranian Revolutionary Guards to shoot them, and train Palestinians in their use, was part of the plan. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that Iran/Hamas/Hezbullah are about to take the war to the next level.
The Hizbullah organization has completed its military and logistic preparations for a confrontation with Israel, a senior defense official told Ynet on Monday evening, based on recent intelligence assessments.
Hizbullah’s preparations reinforce the intelligence estimate that a conflict in northern Israel is closer than a wide-scale conflict in the Gaza Strip. This may be one of the reasons why the IDF is not rushing into a comprehensive operation in Gaza.
[…] The annual intelligence review, presented to cabinet ministers Sunday by officials from the Shin Bet internal security service, Miltary Intelligence and the Mossad, said that the likelihood for a wide-scale Hamas attack in 2008 was slim.
However, the likelihood that Hizbullah will resume its violent acts against Israel is higher than the likelihood for an escalation on other fronts. An escalation on one front may lead to a similar situation on additional fronts.
Iran’s proxy armies are working overtime to surround Israel with rockets that can reach every square inch of the country. And if they do attack, Israel will also have to keep significant forces on the West Bank to prevent attacks from there as well. I am not hopeful for a peaceful summer this year. In fact, I’m starting to expect that if any forceful action is taken against Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Iran will launch a war against Israel. You may remember that during the first Iraq war, Saddam Hussein threatened to bomb Israel if he was attacked. He kept his promise, and Israel did not retaliate. It set the stage for Iran to threaten to attack Israel if anyone attacks Iran.
Deterrence works. Lack of deterrence, well that works, too—in a way you really don’t want to see.
You wrote:
The removal of the wall on the Egyptian side was an operation long planned by Hamas and their Iranian masters. The influx of longer-range rockets and Iranian Revolutionary Guards to shoot them, and train Palestinians in their use, was part of the plan.
That’s correct to a point. However it started sooner, with the hajj maneuverings where Egypt allowed a Hamas affiliated group through Egypt and prevented a Fatah related group from going through Israel. (The first grad was launched shortly after the pilgrims returned from hajj.)
Keep in mind that Egypt also was almost certainly complicit in the wall breach too.
Go back to the reporting and you’ll see how the hajj maneuvering was cast as a “political defeat” for Abbas. And how there were “Israeli claims” that personnel and weapons were taking advantage of the hajj (and wall breach.)
There was a big story that the media missed. There was coordination between Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Hamas to upgrade Hamas’s offensive capabilities. All the media was interested in were the political consequences, while the threats were dismissed as “Israeli claims.”
I really have to go back and trace the media coverage.
Jameels’ report must be in error, Meryl. There’s a truce. I only hope rash and ill-considered Israeli reactions don’t lead to another outbreak of the cycle of violence that besets this war-torn land.
I’ve been saying for some time that Gaza ought to be taken out before Hizbullah was ready for war in the North. Waiting has just let the initiative go to Iran and its sock puppets. Israel will now face a war on at least two fronts, and maybe more. If Egypt really is complicit in this Egypt may also join the war. Ditto The Wahhabist Entity and Syria, which certainly is complicit with Hizbullah.
Israel now faces war. Either she takes the initiative and routs Hamas in a quick campaign, or waits to be attacked, with no strategic depth and enemies on all sides. That situation sounds depressingly familiar, similar to that forty years ago before the Six-Day War.
There will be a bloodbath. If that is the way things have to be, and that is the case due to the implacable Muslim determination to kill the Jews, then Israel should make sure to minimize the effusion of Jewish blood, and maximize that of her enemies. “War means fighting and fighting means killing.” The Palestinians wanted war, it is now time to give them what they wanted. Israel must make them so sick of being killed that the Palestinian Arabs give up their aspirations to kill the Jews and destroy Israel, so that they choose to make peace. By the choice of the Muslims, there is now no other way.