Gaza's Steel Rain

Ever since Israel "disengaged" from the Gaza Strip in August 2005 - removing all Jews from their homes and businesses in the area and turning it over to the Palestinians - terror gangs like Hamas have steadily escalated the violence, particularly in the form of thousands and thousands of rockets aimed at Israeli civilians.

No one - not the UN, the Palestinian Authority, the United States, or even the state of Israel - has taken any steps to halt the violence.

This week, that changed, and the world is livid.

A video released Wednesday showed footage of Kassams fired from residential areas in Gaza, a scenario that makes it difficult to strike back against rocket-launching cells without harming civilians. An estimated 50 Kassam rockets and at least four Grad-style Katyusha missiles slammed into Israel over the course of the same afternoon, killing Roni Yihye, 47, a father of four and a student at Sderot's Sapir Academic College, and sending dozens into shock.

"The Palestinians are testing our patience to the limit and are pulling us to the limits of our tolerance," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the start of his meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Tokyo late Wednesday night. Israel's prime minister added that everything taking place in Gaza today, also occurred a week ago and is likely to happen again next week.

After the hour-long meeting, Rice said that Hamas rocket attacks against Israel "need to stop" and demanded an end to the escalating violence that has set back US efforts to broker the Mideast peace-by-pieces process.

On Monday, Yossi Haimov, a 10-year-old Sderot boy, suffered serious wounds to his shoulder and arm from a Kassam rocket. Although his life is not in danger, but his shoulder will require numerous operations before it can function. The announcement came after 3 hours of surgery to save the limb.

This brutal attack which has permanently altered a ten-year-old's life was not considered sufficient provocation, but, then, neither was Wednesday's onslaught.

"We were all sorry about the death of the Israeli university student and affirmed to him (Olmert) that we will continue to state clearly that the rocket attacks against Israel need to stop," Rice said, Wednesday, but she exposed her own weasel words when she told reporters: "I am concerned about the humanitarian conditions there and innocent people in Gaza who are being hurt."

Rice made her priorities clear: "The issue is that the rocket attacks need to stop, there needs to be due concern for the humanitarian situation in Gaza, there needs to be a durable way to deal with crossing (of Gazans at the borders)."

The humanitarian crisis in Israel is not at issue, apparently.

Israel's government has apparently decided that, since even her allies will not protect her, it is time to retaliate against the Gazans. Israeli spokesman David Baker said Wednesday that the government would "take whatever steps are necessary to bring these attacks to an end."

"Israel is compelled to undertake defensive measures to prevent these repeated Qassam rocket barrages," Baker said. "We cannot allow a situation where our citizens are continuously hounded by terrorist rockets."

As the rockets streamed out of Gaza, Israeli forces attacked the rocket launchers. Israel's response has continued through the weekend, with an estimated 100 Palestinians killed since Wednesday. Almost half are reported to be civilians.

Admittedly, it is hard to know how much of the Palestinian death toll to take seriously. When the IDF claims one dead, the Palestinians claim five. When shown video of "dead" bodies in Jenin falling off and then climbing back onto their biers in Jenin, the world still accepted the Palestinian's count, which was nearly 20 times more than the facts would support.

The UN Security Council is condemning the escalation of violence in southern Israel and Gaza and underscoring the need for the Israelis and Palestinians to immediately cease all acts of violence. If the UNSC had condemned the rocket attacks, or had acted to halt the ceaseless terrorism against Israel, it might have some moral grounds to make a condemnation.

The IDF has confirmed that Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's office had been hit as well as about seven weapons labs and arms depots in northern Gaza.

"Weapons labs and arms depots". When you hear the condemnation, you will not hear those words, I promise.

Despite Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas - who prefers to go by his terrorist name, Abu Mazen - claiming that Israel's self defense is "more than a holocaust," Israel's top brass is saying that this major incursion into Gaza, while very big, is not yet "the big one".

This is not the full-scale invasion and re-occupation of the territory that Israel left in 2005 which many have demanded, because Israel does not want to occupy the Gaza. The cost of fighting its way through the overcrowded cities of the Mediterranean strip, both in terms of lost soldiers and international support, would be high.

Furthermore, when the army took over the West Bank in 2002, it operated against Palestinian gangs while leaving the day-today administration of the territory's cities to the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, which it cannot do in the Hamas-controlled Gaza. Israel would find itself having to establish some form of civil administration for 1.5 million Palestinians.

For a long time, Israel has hoped that the Gazans would rise up against their Islamist oppressors. This was a part of the Gaza experiment.

However, while many Gazans acknowledge the rocket fire ultimately causes them far more harm than Israel, most are too afraid to stand up to Hamas and its thousands of devoted gang members. Those who criticize the rocket-launchers are quickly branded traitors, a dangerous epithet in a lawless area racked by nationalist violence. Lynching of "traitors" and "collaborators" is far too common.

So Israel has finally reacted.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday that the IDF operation against Gaza rocket squads would escalate, and that a broad ground operation was "real and tangible."

"We are not happy about it, we won't shy from it," Barak told Israel Radio. "There are many considerations about the timing," he said, without elaborating.

Barak asked Justice Minister Daniel Freidmann to examine the legality of attacking residential neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip, if those areas are being used to launch rockets.

You can view video of IDF ground and air actions.

Olmert added:

The State of Israel defends its citizens in the South and, with all due respect, nothing will deter us from continuing to defend our residents. Nobody has the right to preach morals to Israel for taking basic measures to defend itself and prevent hundreds of thousands of residents of the South from continuing to be exposed to incessant attacks that disrupt their lives.

Referring to the Palestinian and international criticism against Israel over the killing of civilians in Gaza, Olmert said, "I don't recall hearing these people this claim that the situation in Israel's south is unbearable when Israeli civilians were hurt.

Two IDF soldiers were killed in Saturday's fighting as their Givati Brigade units operated against terrorists in Jabalya. They were identified as St.-Sgt. Doron Asulin, 20, of Beersheba, and St.- Sgt. Eran Dan-Gur, 20, of Jerusalem.

The terror gangs will keep attacking as long as they can delude themselves that they are winning. The world will do nothing so long as Jews march quietly to the death chambers, but will shriek like harridans if Israel tries to defend itself.

And many more lives will be washed away in Gaza's steel rain.