Khaleej Times Online >> News >> REGION Palestinian missile attacks on Israel(DPA)

31 December 2008   

TEL AVIV - Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip first fired a missile at Israel on October 27, 2001. Since then, around 10,300 rockets and mortar shells have been launched at southern Israel, the non-profit Sderot Media Centre, which keeps a toll, said.

The projectiles have killed 32 Israelis, including four since Hamas and other militant groups responded to the current Israeli air offensive in the Gaza Strip by showering Israel with missiles.

Prior to the Israeli attacks, which began on Saturday, at least 600 people have been wounded by the rockets, and hundreds more treated for shock and hysteria.

The first rockets were relatively improvised, locally-manufactured affairs, with ranges not exceeding 10 kilometres. But the militant groups have since been increasing the range of the weapons in their arsenal, acquiring for example long-range Grad missiles.

They are now able to hit targets 40 kilometres from the Gaza Strip, placing around 1,000,000 Israelis in danger, police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said.

The Grad missiles apart, the rockets are usually between 1.6 and 2 metres in length, and can carry up to six kilogrammes of explosives.

In addition, the militants often pack them with nuts, bolts, ball- bearings and even bullets, so as to cause maximum harm.

The relatively small number of casualties, compared to the number of missiles fired, has to do with lack of precision, which causes many to land in open areas. Israeli Foreign Ministry Official Andy David says the small number of Israeli casualties is due to the fact that most people take shelter once alerted to incoming missiles. All the Israeli fatalities, he notes, were caught out in the open when the rockets struck.

The issue, he says, is not the number of Israeli fatalities, but the number of rockets fired with the intention of causing harm and panic.

Israeli law makes the country the only one in the world where every building is required to have a bomb shelter and in Sderot and other Israeli communities close to the Gaza border, many people have constructed shelters, usually of metal, inside their homes.

Residents have been told to huddle in the stairwell of their building in apartment blocks where there may not be enough time to take shelter from the missiles. Sderot residents, for example, have only 15 seconds from the time a missile alert is broadcast.

In addition, many concrete 'umbrellas' have been erected over schools in locations on the firing line.

Since the current Israeli air offensive and Palestinian rocket offensive began, Israelis living close to the Gaza Strip have been told to remain at home, not to congregate in public places and, when driving, to leave the window open, to reduce the risk of flying glass should a missile land, and not to wear seatbelts so as to be able to take shelter quickly if necessary.