Grad rocket directly strikes home in Be'er Sheva; one dead, four seriously wounded

[azurnoir]

A Grad rocket directly struck a home in the southern city of Be'er Sheva on Saturday night, killing one person and seriously wounding four.

A number of others are being treated for shock.


Also on Saturday evening, two children were lightly wounded when four Grad rockets landed in Ofakim.

The Popular Resistance Committees claimed responsibility for the Be'er Sheva rocket attacks while Hamas claimed responsibility for the Ofakim rocket attacks.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/grad-rocket-directly-strikes-home-in-be-er-sheva-one-dead-four-seriously-wounded-1.379695



Under fire: Man killed, baby hurt as rockets pound south (Israel)

Southern Israel faces major rocket offensive: At least one person was killed and four others sustained serious wounds after rockets fired from the Gaza Strip hit the southern town of Beersheba Friday evening.

Meanwhile, a baby and child were among the wounded in the southern town of Ofakim, also hit by Gaza rockets.

<snip>

Around 9 pm, numerous rocket hits were reported across the south, including a direct hit on a Beersheba home. Rescue services rushed to the scene immediately after the report. A vehicle was also hit in the city and caught fire.

Officials said a total of 8 people were hurt in the attack while others suffered anxiety.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4111417,00.html

switch because the Ha'aretz article contained additional information

[shira]

1. The world and UN better condemn Hamas hard before OCL2 breaks out....

I'm sure no one wants that.....

:eyes:

From March 2011:

The Hamas authorities once again forgot that the neighbor/occupier to its east is crazy. Fact: Over Shabbat, Hamas' military wing fired more than 50 mortar shells at Israel. Or perhaps it didn't forget: Perhaps it merely thought the Palestinian people in Gaza were ready for another high-tech Israeli onslaught, for another Israel Defense Forces video game in which children playing on a roof are identified as lookouts and sentenced to death.

.....

In the binary thinking of those who oppose the Israeli occupation (Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners ), public criticism of the tactics used in the struggle of an occupied and dispossessed people is taboo. It is as if criticism would create symmetry between the attacker and the attacked. To a large extent, this taboo has been broken with regard to the Palestinian Authority: Many opponents of the occupation have no qualms about portraying the PA as a collaborator, or at least as the captive of its senior officials' private interests. But when it comes to Hamas' use of arms, silence falls. As if there were sanctity in the Qassam soaring high into the sky, only to fall amid the clamor of Israeli propaganda.

.....

But the neighbor/occupier to the east is crazy. It's wrong to provide it with pretexts that would enable it to once again put Gaza's children and old people through an ordeal like Cast Lead, or even one half as bad.

So for all those who demonstrated in support of the Gazans when they were trapped under Israeli fire, all those planners of past and future flotillas, this is your moment to raise your voices and say clearly: The Qassams merely feed Israel's madness. It is not the Qassams that will ensure the Palestinians, both in and out of Gaza, a life of dignity. It is not the Qassams that will topple the Israeli walls around the world's largest prison camp.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-sanctity-of-the-soaring-qassam-1.351249

[bemildred]

2. PRC seems to want to get a war started. nt

[Igel]

5. Having an enraged Egypt at their back allows them to show they're Real Men (tm).

Real Men only act brave and tough when they figure that there's little chance of being kicked in the nuts. Otherwise their actions might have really serious consequences and, well, if that could happen then they're Real Chickens.

[shira]

3. Has Abbas or Fayyad publicly condemned any of these PRC/Hamas attacks? n/t

[eyl]

4. At least according to Channel 2 news

(As of 5 minutes ago) apparently Hamas has not fired any rockets so far, they've all been fired by the PRC and IJ.

[shaayecanaan]

6. Good to see the KCMH (khaki coloured money hole) is living up to expectations...

Earlier, a Grad rocket directly struck a home in the southern city of Be'er Sheva on Saturday night, killing one person and seriously wounding four. 26 people are being treated for shock.

Another Grad rocket fired at Be'er Sheva was intercepted by the Iron Dome system.

Also on Saturday evening, two children were lightly wounded when four Grad rockets landed in Ofakim.

It seems that the Palestinians have hit upon a devious strategy to foil the Iron Dome system - fire two rockets instead of one. Assuming of course that the Iron Dome is actually capable of intercepting rockets and that the people who run it arent just bullshitting about its capabilities.

Maybe its time for the US and Israel to pile a few more billion dollars into anti-missile defence, Im sure the contractors would agree.

[Kurska]

7. Try to sound less gleeful about defensive systems not always saving civilian lives.

Forget that the Iron dome intercepted 6 other rockets headed toward civilian areas, clearly if it can't get every single one of them it is a waste of time.

It needs more time and more batteries, but so far it has been proven the concept and saved lives.

[bemildred]

8. Sarcasm is not glee.

Those of us that predicted it would be easily circumvented take satisfaction in our perceptiveness, but it is a rather gloomy sort of satisfaction. It is clearly a point defense, and unable to deal with a concerted attack. Fortunately the rockets have poor aim, so concerted attacks require luck to happen at all.

That does not make the system useless, but it does make it expensive and limited in its capabilities, no panacea. Now we will see a sort of arms race, I expect.

[shaayecanaan]

9. Its operators *claim* that they intercepted 6 other rockets...

the same as the operators of the US Patriot anti-missile battery claimed that the Patriot had a 96% success rate at intercepting Scuds during the first Iraq war. It turned out that they never particularly bothered to check whether a Scud missile had been intercepted or not.

In the year to date, the Palestinians have fired 150 rockets and caused one fatality. This is a very similar mortality rate to previous years, before the deployment of the Iron Dome:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel#Casualties

The best assessment at this point in time is that the Iron Dome is absolutely ineffective at protecting civilian populations from rockets. This is consistent with the opinions of many independent experts that doubt its capabilities:-

http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2010/12/iron-dome-to-protect-idf-and-not.html

Even if the Iron Dome were effective in the first instance, it could easily be defeated with very simple countermeasures.