Unexploded bombs go missing in Gaza Strip

[bemildred]

Why smuggle when you can just go pick things up laying around?

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Unexploded bombs dropped on the Gaza Strip during the Israeli offensive have disappeared from a storage site in the Palestinian territory, a U.N. spokesman said Tuesday.

Israel said it suspected Hamas, the Islamist group which controls Gaza, took them.

Three 2,000 pound bombs (about 1 tonne) and eight 500 pound bombs (about 250 kg) that had been collected by international bomb disposal experts were taken from a Hamas police post in Gaza City.

It was not known where they were and the United Nations was trying to find them, U.N. spokesman Richard Miron said.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE51G62S20090217?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=401

[ProgressiveProfessor]

1. Coming soon to a IED near you

Also if there was any thought of using them as evidence in a tribunal of any sort, the chain of custody just disappeared.

[Idealism]

6. Interesting how you think this subject pertains only to Palestinian militants

Very telling of your views.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. Nothing viewpoint laden at all. The IDF does not need IEDs, they use manufactured ordnance

Hamas has no ready source of energetic material (including explosives). While Hamas was guarding UXBs, they disappeared. Occams razor says they took them. As far back as Vietnam, UXBs were reworked into what we now call IEDs. Its classic asymmetric warfare.

[bemildred]

8. Well, it's really a fake distinction.

Anybody that makes explosive weapons in volume is going to be methodical about it. Improvising will just get you blown up. The fact that one side has better technological resources to bring to bear is what is being discussed, but to say that would be to admit that they are the underdogs, much weaker, and so on.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

9. Only to those without ordnance experience

[bemildred]

10. The only thing that matters is whether they work. nt

[ohio2007]

12. SO you suspect work related accidents in the future ?

[bemildred]

13. Suspect them of what? nt

[ProgressiveProfessor]

14. Again, not if you have ordnance experience

[bemildred]

16. So if you have ordnance experience, it doesn't matter if they work or not?

I'm really not making a complicated point. "Improvised" is only correctly used for one-offs. When they are being produced in large numbers by established methods, it is the wrong word. "IEDs" are produced in large numbers, according to established methodologies, therefore they are not "improvised". But don't let me bother you with my pedantic concerns.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

18. More to it than that

IEDs including the "standard" ones that are based on captured/recovered artillery shells etc. The detonators are still homebrew at some level. There is no std IED conversion kit out there. QA is marginal and safety is considerably less than with std munitions. For example there may be no safe way to disarm them.

Another issue is that the *recycled* material may not be all that safe either. The reliability of modern ordinance is pretty good. Failures are rare and the resultant dud may be a hairsbreadth away from detonation. Until the fuse(s) are completely removed, the possibility for detonation is quite real.

SO while there are very levels of improvised, none of them would be considered standard.

[bemildred]

19. "Improvised", "unreliable", "hand made" and "non-standard" all have different meanings.

And "improvised" is still the wrong word for these things, IMHO, it sends the wrong message about them. There is in fact an arms race going on over these things, and they kill a lot of people, they are very effective weapons. But I don't think this argument about nomenclature is going to go anywhere beyond what we've done, we are interested in different aspects, so I'll just leave it here with thanks for a civil discussion.

[Idealism]

20. So it wouldn't be in the IDF's best interests to 'clean up after themselves?'

That is the part that is missing from your analysis, even as other posters have showed news articles linking to the IDF doing just that.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

21. They can not clean up if they are not there

[Idealism]

22. You don't believe Fatah members could do Israel's work?

Considering Israel would pay them to do something like this?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

24. Surely you can troll better than that

[Idealism]

25. How would it not be in the IDFs best interest to do that?

Do you purposely turn your head to reality when it doesn't suit your needs?

If you were in charge of the Israeli military and DIDN'T try your best not to leave behind potential IED's for known militant groups to use against you later on, then you deserve to be fired (and probably would be) for negligence.

[azurnoir]

2. Why leave such things around

from Ha'aretz

IDF: Hamas seized unexploded ordnance fired during Gaza op

The cache had disappeared while under guard by Hamas officials. United Nations experts had planned to dispose safely of the stockpile, which includes aircraft bombs and white phosphorous shells.

A UN team trained to remove and destroy unexploded ordnance has been operating in the Gaza Strip for three weeks, but its work is being held up because Israel has not approved the entry of its equipment nor an area for storing and neutralizing ordnance.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1064943.html

Why have them under Hamas guard and then hold up the disposal teams? Also will we be hearing about more WP shells being fired at Israel? With no injuries or damage of course

[bemildred]

3. Stop making sense, it's very confusing.

But seriously, there is usually quite a bit of this sort of thing lying around after a bombing campaign, that's why the UN guys are there. It's highly unlikely this is all there is, or all that will get "stolen", or accidentally blow somebody up. But what manages to get "salvaged" will be high quality explosives, and will make all the obsessing about fertilizer and the like beside the point for a while.

[bemildred]

4. 5 Tons Of Bombs Stolen From Gaza

---

For now some of the latter, located by the Palestinian police, is being stored in locations that are dangerously close to population centers in Rafah, Khan Yunis and Gaza City. The team is waiting for permission from the IDF to use two safe areas to dispose of the ordnance.

Despite the delays, the team has made some progress that does not depend on equipment, especially in searching out unexploded ordnance, many of which have already been collected by Hamas officials.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/17/5-tons-of-bombs-stolen-fr_n_167706.html

So, who were the bombs stolen from? Who owns them now that they got dropped on Gaza? Do they still belong to the IDF after it drops them on Gaza?

[Alamuti Lotus]

5. follow the Vietnamese & Chechen examples?

In both situations there were (are) literally tonnes and tonnes of these bombs carelessly left lying around by the aggressor state; with a fairly simple radio or cell trigger, these can be used against the enemy forces, particularly effective against armored units when buried beneath roads or in urban areas inside abandoned (or moving) cars.

[ohio2007]

11. How does the UN know the # of unexploded ordnance?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

15. They hire sufficient experience to know how to safely collect and disarm/destroy as needed

[bemildred]

17. They don't. nt

[iconicgnom]

23. Of course the controlling gov't of Gaza took these explosives.

How would someone expect them to give this debris back to Israel?
Or to the US, or to any party of the world that betrayed them?

Naturally, they are denied a right to self-defense. The notion that they be armed is anathema.

75% of Gazans are refugees.
Can you figure that?
It's easy to explain: a "right to return" doesn't belong to them. They don't pass a race test.

Israeli jails are overflowing with Palestinians.
How much more obnoxious must it get?