A nine-foot long Grad rocket from Gaza flies toward an Israeli city
I’ve seen films of London during the WWII rocket attacks, in which the V1 ‘buzz bombs’ flew across the sky. When the buzzing of the pulse-jet engine stopped, the people below knew that the bomb was about to fall, perhaps on them. It must have been terrifying.
Israelis today are experiencing exactly this terror. Here is a short account of what it is like, by Hagit Riterman, published in the Israeli newspaper makor rishon on November 4. My thanks to the Daily Alert for the English translation.
Suddenly You See a Rocket Flying Toward You
600,000 Israelis live in the Beersheba metropolitan area. Last Monday evening I was driving into Beersheba, listening to a song on the radio. Through the window I noticed a young girl running fast and looking scared, not sure where she was going. Suddenly I saw that all the cars ahead of me had stopped in the middle of the street. Their occupants were getting out and running. I understood – the air raid sirens.
I ran with the others to take shelter between two buildings. There were women there hugging the concrete walls. Some were crouched down, and one was shaking. Other sat on the ground. Then someone shouted, “Look up!” and I saw them in the sky. Two bright lights, like balls of fire with tails, almost white, flying in an arch in the sky, coming from afar. I thought they were about to land next to us, but the Grad rockets continued to fly and passed over our heads.
We heard explosions and later learned that the Iron Dome missile defense system succeeded in shooting down the two rockets that were aimed at the center of the city. When I saw the two rockets flying in the air, heading towards us, seconds before they passed overhead, I understood so well the fear that people here are now living with. We’re not soldiers in wartime, we’re the civilian population. And in the middle of an ordinary day, during a routine drive down the street, suddenly you see a rocket flying in your direction.
Nazi Germany was a formidable opponent with a massive war machine. It would take the most powerful nations on earth several years to finally put an end to the regime. But Hamas and the other terrorist factions, with their Nazi-like ideologies, are nothing. Israel could crush them like cockroaches.
So why do Israelis have to put up with the daily terror from Gaza?
Technorati Tags: Israel, Grad rockets, Hamas
Any other country wouldn’t stand for these acts of war for a minute. It’s time for Israel to respond and respond decisively to this war of a thousand cuts. All normal nations should applaud Israel’s removal of Hamas from Gaza. It would be like cutting out a cancerous growth.
Joelsk44039:
Trouble is, what’s a “normal” nation, within the context of applauding Israel?
I think most people who have not been brainwashed by Israel-bashing professors, and/or the Israel-bashing media, who pay attention to these issues, would applaud Israel. How many people, in what countries, does that describe? I’d hazard a guess at majorities in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and maybe South Korea, India, and a few others (the Philippines?).
In terms of governments, you can just forget it, except for Canada.
I strongly suspect that, at the leadership level in Israel, on January 21st, 2013, there will be a very distinct change in attitude in the direction of greater resolve, however.
This rocket- on – the South situation ( Admittedly in less grievous form) prevailed for a number of years. The Israeli government seemed overly timid in response. Then came ‘Operation Cast Lead’ in which we responded only to win worldwide condemnation. Now we can be criticized for not having done the job to the end and overthrown Hamas. Perhaps we should have done this, although I cannot say what the consequences internationally might have been for us.
In any case we now are in a slightly different and worse situation than before. Egypt is now the Hamas patron and any action into Gaza risks some kind of confrontation with them. This situation will probably worsen once there are elections in Egypt. So there is an argument for doing this now.
But there is another argument against it. We go in. We take the territory. We break up their military force. Do we then stay? If we do not stay the minute we leave the rocket- fire resumes? Or perhaps we do something different. We bring in ‘Fatah’ forces to rule in Gaza. But do they have sufficient forces? Would they cooperate with us, and seem our stooges to their own people?
Unfortunately it seems to me that we can only really act here if we sustain more than an isolated casualty. But even then any action we take will earn almost universal condemnation, and require U.S. veto support at the U.N.