For Israel, costs and benefits of striking Gaza

Israel assassinated a senior Hamas militant Ahmed Jabari today. How much further will the Gaza strikes go?
By Dan Murphy | Christian Science Monitor – Wed, Nov 14, 2012

Chuck Comments:

This story, from Christian Science Monitor, helps us get a few facts straight in a climate of distortions: Gaza has little or nothing to fight with, Its rockets are only a noisy protest, and it is a fluke when any Israeli is killed; Israel as usual attack first; the major media such a Bloomberg News, twist facts to make Hamas the aggressor; for instance no “missile” hit anywhere near TelAviv, the story is a hoax; But President Obama has already agreed Hamas is to blame; The results of the last Israeli incursion into Gaza was 100 or more Gazans killed for every Israeli; wounded was even more lopsided. One update to the following 2 day old story is needed, Israel now claims, after this story was published, that a rocket from Gaza hit a house and at long last, killed three Israelis. This may or may not be the truth, and we may never know because only Israel will see the evidence.
Think of Gaza as a open air prison the size of one major city in the USA, this is how MIT Professor Norman Chomsky (quite Jewish) put it in his recent story, after getting into Gaza through Egypt for a brief visit. Then think of the Israeli Jailers withholding food from the inmates and keeping many of them half starved; then imagine the Jailer spying out the dissidents who are organizing inside the prison and killing them one by one, (usually with air attacks); Imagine that these attacks usually kill a few innocent bystanders each time. Then ask yourself, how would our government respond if Pakistan managed to assassinate General David Petraeus because of his Drone history? Please read this well written story.
By Dan Murphy | Christian Science Monitor (in part)
Think you know the Middle East? Take our geography quiz.
Israeli spokesmen say more than 750 rockets fired from Gaza have hit southern Israel this year. The rockets sow real and deep terror in Israeli communities. But that’s about all they can do. The vast majority of the rockets from Gaza are like C-minus high school science fair projects, carry limited amounts of explosive, and are impossible to aim. For all that rocket fire, not a single Israeli has been killed by one this year.

Israel’s overwhelming military superiority to all the armed groups in Gaza (Hamas may be the biggest, but it’s not the one that usually fires the rockets) means that when it retaliates, lives are lost on the Palestinian side of the fence and substantial damage is done to the enclave’s infrastructure. That’s what happened in the last major assault on Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, which ran for three weeks starting in late December 2008. The toll was more than 1,100 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead, along with devastation of Gaza’s electricity system and other basic infrastructure.
Then, as now, the precipitating issue was the firing of rockets from Gaza. And then, as now, there are potential costs for Israel in an aggressive response to the Gaza militants. Hamas has an arsenal of Fajr rockets from Iran, that have much farther ranges than the rockets typically fired from Gaza. Israel says it has been targeting launch sites for the rockets in the attacks today, but has it got them all? Unlikely. Will Hamas decide to unleash the weapons on Israel in retaliation? Possibly.

Full Story in Christian Science Monitor

Three Israelis killed by rocket from Gaza, U.N. Security Council meets

JERUSALEM (JTA) (Global News Servcie of the Jewish People)
By Marcy Oster · November 15, 2012
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Three Israelis were killed when a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit their apartment in southern Israel.

The rocket that struck the Kiryat Malachi apartment on Thursday morning — one of at least 140 rockets fired from Gaza since the assassination late Wednesday afternoon of the Hamas military chief in Gaza, Ahmed Jabari — also injured a baby girl and a 4-year-old boy. A second building in Kiryat Malachi also was hit.
On Thursday afternoon, two rockets hit Rishon Lezion, located about 10 miles south of Tel Aviv.
The deaths were the first fatalities suffered by Israel in its escalating confrontation with Hamas. Rockets continued to rain down on communities in southern Israel overnight into Thursday. Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces bombed about 100 medium- and long-range rocket launch and infrastructure sites throughout Gaza, according to the IDF spokesman.