MIDEAST: Rockets Launched Into Uneasy Peace

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Fawzia Sheikh

JERUSALEM, Mar 2 2006 (IPS) - A surge in attacks since January’s Palestinian elections by radical groups using Qassam rockets against Jewish settlements bordering the Gaza Strip has resulted in a stepped-up counter-attack by the Israeli defence forces.

The rocket fire is being carried out primarily by Islamic Jihad operatives, Israeli military spokesperson Captain Ishai David told IPS.

The militant group Hamas is also described in media reports as helping to orchestrate nearly 20 percent of last year’s attacks despite agreeing to a ceasefire more than a year ago. Hamas, which won the Palestinian elections, is said by some to be indirectly responsible for the barrage of Qassams.

The number of rocket attacks last year rose to 377 from 309 in 2004, according to Israeli army statistics. At least 130 rockets were reported to have landed in Israeli territory in January this year, more than double the number in December.

“In my experience it’s not motivation, it’s capability,” Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin- Sadat Centre at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat-Gan told IPS.

Israeli army statistics seem to confirm Inbar’s belief. Israel withdrew from Gaza last September, resettled Jews from there elsewhere in Israel, and gave full territorial control to the Palestinian Authority. Former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement from the region seemed to signal a leap towards building peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

The Israeli army says that retreating led to a marked increase in arms and ammunition smuggled into the Gaza Strip compared to the first eight months of 2005.

Since last September, it estimates that more than five tonnes of explosives, 200 anti-tank rocket launchers, 350 anti-tank rockets, 5,000 automatic rifles, more than one million rounds of ammunition, and anti-aircraft rockets were smuggled from Egypt into Gaza.

The height of smuggling occurred soon after Israel’s pullout, the Israeli army reported. The security forces believe this smuggling is part of efforts by terrorist organisations to consolidate power in case fighting continues after possible failure of a truce signed more than a year ago between Israel and other militant groups including Hamas.

“This is a lax government. It is far too weak in its reaction in part because of election coverage,” Manfred Gerstenfeld, chair of the board of fellows at the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs told IPS. General elections are due in Israel March 28.

Gerstenfeld said Israel is simply absorbing rocket fire because the ruling Kadima Party, currently leading in polls, does not want to draw attention to the escalating issue and potentially hurt its performance.

“Which country lets 150-plus rockets fall on them in one month? If the former chief of staff doesn’t understand it, how do you expect me to understand it?”

Former Israel defence forces chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Moshe Ya’alon, issued a stern warning about Gaza this year at a conference on national security. “Israel’s unilateral withdrawals were perceived as escape from the rocket threat,” he said. “Israel failed to create reliable deterrence for the future.”

Ya’alon, who in the past has said retreating from the region will haunt Israel, advocates re- occupying part of the Gaza Strip in an attempt to quell the Qassam threat.

At the moment, Israel has a variety of options at its disposal to deal with the problem. David said the military conducts aerial strikes that disrupt the ability of terrorist groups to mobilise Qassam rockets from place to place. It performs targeted assassinations of senior leaders who are responsible for the planning, infrastructure and logistics of operations.

Israel may also destroy Qassam laboratories, and carry out daily artillery shellings to deter attacks by pushing militants back from buffer zones to which Palestinians are not allowed entry.

Still, there are challenges.

“The greatest problem is from time to time, they launch Qassams from largely populated areas,” David explained. “We try to hit the terrorists and their laboratories while minimising damage done to civilians and civilian infrastructure.”

Although most of these home-made rockets fail to kill Israelis – five civilians have died since mid-2004 – “it doesn’t take much to kill a person,” he said. “It doesn’t take much to blow up a gas station.”.

David said Islamic Jihad and its peers, moreover, are constantly improving their abilities, and the chances are high they will eventually acquire rockets with better aim and range.

Although stronger military measures have been suggested to combat Qassams, such as heavier artillery fire or cutting Gaza’s power supply, David said he cannot confirm or deny that Israel will adopt such options.

Earlier this month Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Kadima’s interim leader, mapped out plans to depart the West Bank, noting the government will leave intact major Jewish settlements.

Now, the impact of this concession in the quest for peace and a two-state resolution is uncertain. Based on the Gaza experience, political observers like Inbar doubt Qassam assaults will stop following a partial West Bank pull-out.

Inbar is matter-of-fact about why extremist groups are still attacking settlers despite an Israeli exit from Gaza: “Because they want to kill Jews.”