-
Iranian-Made Rockets Put 500,000 Israelis in Range of Hamas
-
By Calev Ben-David, Jan. 14, Bloomberg.
-
The Grad rocket, designed for attacking troops on the battlefield, has become the most effective means for Hamas to attack Israeli towns and cities far from the Gaza Strip. With a top range of about 40 kilometers (25 miles) the unguided, Iranian-supplied Grad enables Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups to strike at more than a half-million Israelis, far more than the mortar shells and locally made Qassam rockets also fired from Gaza. That was a key trigger for Israel’s offensive in Gaza, Israeli military experts say. “Israel would likely have had to go into Gaza eventually to stop the rocket fire from there,” said Uzi Rubin, former head of the nation’s missile defense program. “When Hamas got its hands on the Grad, it meant having to go in sooner.” The first Grad was shot from Gaza on March 28, 2006, according to Israeli police. About 50 were launched between then and Dec. 27, 2008, when Israel began its operation against Gaza, and there have been at least 100 among some 700 rockets and mortars fired since then. Of the four Israelis who died in rocket attacks since the war’s start, three were killed by Grads. More than 10,000 projectiles have been fired from Gaza since 2001, according to Israeli army figures. Rocket attacks, which had been sporadic, jumped to about 75 a day after a six-month cease-fire between Hamas and Israel expired Dec. 19. Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union, demanded that all of Gaza’s border crossings be fully opened, because Israel’s blockade was economically strangling its population. The name Grad means “hail” in Russian, reflecting its roots as a Soviet-designed weapon developed in the early 1960s. It is sometimes referred to as a Katyusha, a more generic term Russian soldiers in World War II bestowed on smaller rockets, using the diminutive of the name Katherine. “The Grad is a specific type of Katyusha,” with a diameter of 122 millimeters (4.8 inches) and a weight of 55 kilograms (121 pounds), Rubin said. The warhead weighs about 15 kilograms, half which is explosive material, Rubin said. The warhead is usually packed with shrapnel that, together with its explosive blast, will kill anyone within 10 meters (33 feet) of its impact, he said. Israeli casualties and the damage caused by the Grad and Gaza’s other rockets are small in comparison with the almost 900 Palestinians killed and at least 3,500 wounded in the military campaign being waged to stop the rocket attacks. The Grad’s impact can’t be measured in numbers, Rubin said. “The Grad has been converted from a tactical battlefield weapon to a strategic tool of terror,” Rubin said. “Just one a day could paralyze a city like Ashdod and demoralize its population.” Ashdod, a port city about 30 kilometers north of Gaza, was previously out of range of Hamas rockets. A Grad struck the town on Dec. 30, killing one of its 200,000 inhabitants. Because the Grad is relatively cheap to make, easy to transport and can be fired either in groups from mobile launchers or individually off tripods, countries such as China, North Korea, Romania, Bulgaria and Iran produce their own variants. Most Grads fired by Hamas are produced in Iran, said Israeli army spokeswoman Major Avital Leibovich. They are shipped across Syria into Lebanon and into the hands of Iran’s ally, the radical Shiite Hezbollah movement. Hezbollah unleashed its own Grad arsenal, along with bigger and longer-range Iranian and Chinese rockets, against Israel’s north during the Second Lebanon War in July-August 2006. Hezbollah sends Grads to Hamas via Egypt, said Yiftah Shapir, a researcher at Tel Aviv’s National Institute of Strategic Studies, who specializes in weapons proliferation. “Hamas has strong supporters in Egypt, especially among the Muslim Brotherhood, who pick up the Grads and have them brought into Gaza with the help of Bedouin smugglers, some of whom do it for ideological reasons, and others for pay,” Shapir said. The Muslim Brotherhood is an outlawed group that aims to create an Islamic state. The Grads pass under the Egypt-Gaza border through tunnels that are conduits for everything from weapons to food, fuel, livestock, electronic goods and pharmaceuticals. Egypt closed its border with Gaza when Hamas took full control of the territory in June 2007, after a clash with Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ended a power-sharing arrangement. The Grads have two main advantages over the Qassams, which Hamas and its allies have been making in Gaza for the past eight years, Leibovich said. While many Qassams use explosives based on materials such as fertilizer that degrade fairly quickly, the Grads’ warheads can be stored for years. More important is range, Rubin said. The early Qassams could reach only three kilometers beyond Gaza’s borders, an area that is sparsely populated, except for Sderot, a town of about 20,000 that borders Gaza’s northeast corner. Improvements in the Qassam extended the range to 15 kilometers, enabling it to hit the southern half of Ashkelon, a coastal city of 109,000. All of Ashkelon is within range of the normal Grad, which can strike up to 20 kilometers. So are some strategic targets in the area, including a power station and several army bases. Upgraded Grad models have a range of 40 kilometers, Leibovich said. On Dec. 29, a Grad struck Ashkelon, causing the city’s first fatality from a Gaza rocket attack. The next day, Ashdod was hit. On Dec. 31, another Grad reached even deeper into Israel, hitting Beersheba about 37 kilometers west of Gaza, putting its population of 186,000 at risk. Rubin, who oversaw the development of Israel’s Arrow anti- missile system for defense against Iran and Syria, said no such counter-measures are available for the shorter-range Grads. The Ministry of Defense has said it is working on such a system, called Iron Dome. It is unlikely to be deployed for at least two years, according to Rubin. Israel’s only immediate answers to the Grads are civil defense measures for those who live within its range, and the military offensive that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says is being carried out to stop the Gaza rockets. The air force has bombed the tunnels through which the Grads arrive in Gaza, and Leibovich estimates that it has destroyed about half of the estimated 300 such passages. The Israeli government has stressed that closing the tunnels permanently and halting weapons transfers across the Gaza- Egyptian border are essential conditions for a cease-fire. As the conflict entered its third week, Israel had reduced the number of rockets fired from Gaza to less than a third of the 76 launched on the first day. The Grads, though, continue to fall, and the army says it doesn’t know how many remain in the hands of Hamas. “I suspect,” Rubin said, “they have at least enough Grads in Gaza to keep firing them until the end of this battle.”
-
Iranian-Made Rockets Put 500,000 Israelis in Range of Hamas
-
By Calev Ben-David, Jan. 14, Bloomberg.
-
The Grad rocket, designed for attacking troops on the battlefield, has become the most effective means for Hamas to attack Israeli towns and cities far from the Gaza Strip. With a top range of about 40 kilometers (25 miles) the unguided, Iranian-supplied Grad enables Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups to strike at more than a half-million Israelis, far more than the mortar shells and locally made Qassam rockets also fired from Gaza. That was a key trigger for Israel’s offensive in Gaza, Israeli military experts say. “Israel would likely have had to go into Gaza eventually to stop the rocket fire from there,” said Uzi Rubin, former head of the nation’s missile defense program. “When Hamas got its hands on the Grad, it meant having to go in sooner.” The first Grad was shot from Gaza on March 28, 2006, according to Israeli police. About 50 were launched between then and Dec. 27, 2008, when Israel began its operation against Gaza, and there have been at least 100 among some 700 rockets and mortars fired since then. Of the four Israelis who died in rocket attacks since the war’s start, three were killed by Grads. More than 10,000 projectiles have been fired from Gaza since 2001, according to Israeli army figures. Rocket attacks, which had been sporadic, jumped to about 75 a day after a six-month cease-fire between Hamas and Israel expired Dec. 19. Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union, demanded that all of Gaza’s border crossings be fully opened, because Israel’s blockade was economically strangling its population. The name Grad means “hail” in Russian, reflecting its roots as a Soviet-designed weapon developed in the early 1960s. It is sometimes referred to as a Katyusha, a more generic term Russian soldiers in World War II bestowed on smaller rockets, using the diminutive of the name Katherine. “The Grad is a specific type of Katyusha,” with a diameter of 122 millimeters (4.8 inches) and a weight of 55 kilograms (121 pounds), Rubin said. The warhead weighs about 15 kilograms, half which is explosive material, Rubin said. The warhead is usually packed with shrapnel that, together with its explosive blast, will kill anyone within 10 meters (33 feet) of its impact, he said. Israeli casualties and the damage caused by the Grad and Gaza’s other rockets are small in comparison with the almost 900 Palestinians killed and at least 3,500 wounded in the military campaign being waged to stop the rocket attacks. The Grad’s impact can’t be measured in numbers, Rubin said. “The Grad has been converted from a tactical battlefield weapon to a strategic tool of terror,” Rubin said. “Just one a day could paralyze a city like Ashdod and demoralize its population.” Ashdod, a port city about 30 kilometers north of Gaza, was previously out of range of Hamas rockets. A Grad struck the town on Dec. 30, killing one of its 200,000 inhabitants. Because the Grad is relatively cheap to make, easy to transport and can be fired either in groups from mobile launchers or individually off tripods, countries such as China, North Korea, Romania, Bulgaria and Iran produce their own variants. Most Grads fired by Hamas are produced in Iran, said Israeli army spokeswoman Major Avital Leibovich. They are shipped across Syria into Lebanon and into the hands of Iran’s ally, the radical Shiite Hezbollah movement. Hezbollah unleashed its own Grad arsenal, along with bigger and longer-range Iranian and Chinese rockets, against Israel’s north during the Second Lebanon War in July-August 2006. Hezbollah sends Grads to Hamas via Egypt, said Yiftah Shapir, a researcher at Tel Aviv’s National Institute of Strategic Studies, who specializes in weapons proliferation. “Hamas has strong supporters in Egypt, especially among the Muslim Brotherhood, who pick up the Grads and have them brought into Gaza with the help of Bedouin smugglers, some of whom do it for ideological reasons, and others for pay,” Shapir said. The Muslim Brotherhood is an outlawed group that aims to create an Islamic state. The Grads pass under the Egypt-Gaza border through tunnels that are conduits for everything from weapons to food, fuel, livestock, electronic goods and pharmaceuticals. Egypt closed its border with Gaza when Hamas took full control of the territory in June 2007, after a clash with Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ended a power-sharing arrangement. The Grads have two main advantages over the Qassams, which Hamas and its allies have been making in Gaza for the past eight years, Leibovich said. While many Qassams use explosives based on materials such as fertilizer that degrade fairly quickly, the Grads’ warheads can be stored for years. More important is range, Rubin said. The early Qassams could reach only three kilometers beyond Gaza’s borders, an area that is sparsely populated, except for Sderot, a town of about 20,000 that borders Gaza’s northeast corner. Improvements in the Qassam extended the range to 15 kilometers, enabling it to hit the southern half of Ashkelon, a coastal city of 109,000. All of Ashkelon is within range of the normal Grad, which can strike up to 20 kilometers. So are some strategic targets in the area, including a power station and several army bases. Upgraded Grad models have a range of 40 kilometers, Leibovich said. On Dec. 29, a Grad struck Ashkelon, causing the city’s first fatality from a Gaza rocket attack. The next day, Ashdod was hit. On Dec. 31, another Grad reached even deeper into Israel, hitting Beersheba about 37 kilometers west of Gaza, putting its population of 186,000 at risk. Rubin, who oversaw the development of Israel’s Arrow anti- missile system for defense against Iran and Syria, said no such counter-measures are available for the shorter-range Grads. The Ministry of Defense has said it is working on such a system, called Iron Dome. It is unlikely to be deployed for at least two years, according to Rubin. Israel’s only immediate answers to the Grads are civil defense measures for those who live within its range, and the military offensive that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says is being carried out to stop the Gaza rockets. The air force has bombed the tunnels through which the Grads arrive in Gaza, and Leibovich estimates that it has destroyed about half of the estimated 300 such passages. The Israeli government has stressed that closing the tunnels permanently and halting weapons transfers across the Gaza- Egyptian border are essential conditions for a cease-fire. As the conflict entered its third week, Israel had reduced the number of rockets fired from Gaza to less than a third of the 76 launched on the first day. The Grads, though, continue to fall, and the army says it doesn’t know how many remain in the hands of Hamas. “I suspect,” Rubin said, “they have at least enough Grads in Gaza to keep firing them until the end of this battle.”
-
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire
laissez un commentaire
Remarque : Seul un membre de ce blog est autorisé à enregistrer un commentaire.