Raining Qassams

The IF fanatics know that the source of all trouble in Gaza is caused by the Palestinian militants who fire Qassams into southern Israel.

If we don’t bomb them they fire. If we do bomb them they stop. Simple equation. –SJK

The problem is that Israel doesn't respond properly to these attacks. Or do you seriously think that if Israel leveled the Hamas parliament building in retaliation, or gave an ultimatum that the IDF will level Beit Lahya after the next rocket attack, and followed up on it, there'd be any more of these? I seriously doubt that. – KettleWhistle

Where is the outrage in the UN that 18 Palestinian civilians, including children, were killed as a direct result of Palestinian leaders firing missiles into Israel every day? –CanDo.

The death of 19 at Bayt Hanun was caused by the Palestinians, of course. Incidents like that wouldn’t happen if there were no Qassams being fired. The Palestinians of Gaza would enjoy peace and serenity if they would just knock off the Qassams. Right?

Let’s take a detailed look at the time of the Gaza ‘Disengagement’ to see what was happening on the Qassam front.

I’ll take August 1 as a starting point;

• August 2 - 3 Qassams
• August 4 – IDF deserter shoots dead 4 Palestinians in Israel
• August 5 – pre-dawn IDF raid in Gaza. Later 1 rocket fired at Gaza settlement
• August 7 – IDF shoots dead 2 in Gaza after an IDF jeep was attacked.
• August 8 – IDF shoot at rock-throwers in Gaza, killing 1 by-stander
• August 17 – Jewish settler kills 4 Palestinians in the WB
• August 22 – Return of Jewish settlers to Israel from Gaza is completed.
• August 24 – IDF raid assassinates 3 Islamic Jihad (IJ) members, kills 2 and wounds 3 by-standers in the West Bank (WB).
• August 25 – Qassams fired into Israel. No injuires.
• August 26 – IDF raid in Gaza
• August 27 – IDF raid in Gaza
• August 28 – IJ suicide bomber in Beersheeba, claiming retaliation for August 24 killings, injures 8 Israelis.
• August 29 – IDF soldier shot dead in Gaza
• Sept 1 – IDF shoots and wounds 2 in Gaza
• Sept 6 – IDF kill one stone-thrower in Gaza. 2 rockets fired, no injuries.
• Sept 7 – IDF shoots and kills 1 Palestinian entering a vacated settlement in Gaza.
• Sept 9 –IDF shoots and wounds 1 Palestinian in Gaza
• Sept 12 – IDF leave Gaza
• Sept 22 – IDF kills 1 Palestinian teenager entering the abandoned Dotan base in the WB
• Sept 23 – IDF kills 4 IJ members in overnight raid on the WB. In the afternoon, IJ fire 13 Qassams at Sederot. No injuries.
• Sept 24 – another 30 Qassams fired from Gaza. 5 Israelis wounded. IDF missile strikes and bombings in Gaza. Sharon approves “Operation Fist Rains” – artillery, air-strikes, bombing and assassinations in the Gaza Strip.
• Sept 25 – IDF bombs homes, a school and a cultural centre in Gaza. No injuries.
  2 hourly sonic booms over Gaza and artillery shelling throughout the day.
  F-16 fires a missile at a car, killing 2 IJ members and injuring 7 by-standers.
  A later assassination attempt injures 17 by-standers.
  A newspaper story on this day reported that in 2001, IDF Chief-of-Staff Shaul Mofaz called for the Palestinians to pay a ‘price’, suggesting that the IDF should try to kill 70 Palestinians a day.
• Sept 26 – 3 IDF missile strikes. 1 Qassam.
• Sept 27 – overnight F-16 missile strike, artillery shelling in Gaza and several arrests in the WB. Several Qassams fired into Israel.
  IJ vow revenge for Sept 25 assassination.
• Sept 28 – overnight missile attacks in Gaza.
• Sept 29 – IDF kill 2 IJ members in overnight raids in WB. 2 mortars fired at IDF post on the Gaza border. Later IDF kill another 2 IJ members.
• Sept 30 – IDF kill 13 yr old boy in WB.
• Oct 5 – IDF bulldozers clear land inside Gaza
• Oct 9 – IDF kills one in WB, 3 in Gaza.
• Oct 24 – IDF kills 2 IJ members in the WB. Hours later 5 Qassams fired into Israel. IDF bomb and Gaza from land, sea and air.
• Oct 25 – IDF bomb IJ buildings in Gaza, injuring 5.
• Oct 26 – 2 Qassams fired into Israel. IDF respond with 12 artillery shells.
  IJ suicide bomber, claiming retaliation for the Oct 24 assassinations kills 5 Israelis. Another Qassam is launched and a mortar is fired at the IDF post on the Gaza border.
  Sharon announces “Operation Starting All Over Again”, targeting Gaza and including further assassinations, like the ones that provoked the Qassams and the suicide bombing.
• Oct 27 –IDF bomb Gaza
• Oct 28 – Rockets fired into Israel. Drone fires a missile at the car that fired them, killing one. 2 more Qassams are fired.
• Oct 29 – 12 air-strikes in Gaza cuts electricity to thousands of homes. Qassams lauched, IDF bombs the launch sites. No injuries reported on either side (unless you use the Israeli method of assessing injuries – people suffering shock from a Qassam strike are reported as ‘injured’, in which case the Palestinian injuries for the day are about 1.5 million, as Israeli jets continuously fly over Gaza producing ‘sonic booms’).
• Oct 30 – IJ announces it will cease all Qassam attacks from Gaza if Israel stops assassinating it’s members. Hours later the IDF kills 3 IJ members in the WB and wounds 7 by-standers. IJ responses with 2 Qassams launched from Gaza.
  

I don’t know about you, but I see a pattern. Long periods of no activity punctuated by Israeli assassinations, quickly followed by Qassams, which over this 12 week period injured a total of 5 Israelis.

Even this doesn’t convey the sheer scale of the Israeli shelling and missile attacks. This article from Electronic Intifiada, looking at this years data, shows the massive imbalance between Palestinian Qassam attacks and Israeli shelling and bombing.

And this highlights why the latest announcement of a Gaza ceasefire won't hold. Treating Gaza as a seperate entity from the West Bank is a mistake, only a total ceasefire has any chance. As this example demonstrated, Palestinians in Gaza respond to events in the West Bank. But this is the position Israel wants to promote. That having left Gaza, the occupation is over, and that events in the West Bank are a seperate matter. Hence the oft repeated line from Israels official spokespeople and its supporters - 'see, we ended the occupation of Gaza and look what they do'.

There is no partial ending of an occupation. Either it's over completely or it's not over at all.