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Terrorism

?Anonymous? rocket attack

Was Tuesday?s Katyusha blitz a test run for a coordinated, north-south strike?


By Stan Goodenough
December 28, 2005

Mystery surrounds the firing late Tuesday night of six Katyusha rockets from southern Lebanon towards the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmonah.

The missiles caused no injuries, but seriously damaged at least three houses in the town.

Earlier in the evening, ?Palestinian? terrorist forces fired a Kassam rocket from the Gaza Strip into the southern Israeli town of Sderot. Again, no injuries were reported.

No party took responsibility for either strike.

Israel responded southwards by blowing up a number of access roads in the Gaza Strip, and northwards by sending its warplanes deep into Lebanon to rocket a training facility of the PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine ? General Command).

But intrigued by the anonymous nature of, especially, the attack from Lebanon, analysts speculated as to its origins and wondered, in the words of a blogger published on the English-language leftist news site, Ha?aretz: ?Why Katyushas? Why Kassams? Why now??

No answer appeared to satisfy the inquirer.

This is not the first time Kassam and Katyusha attacks have come within minutes of each other in the north and south of the country.

At around 11:00 on August 25, two Katyusha rockets were fired at the northern Galilee from southern Lebanon. One landed in a moshav (Israeli cooperative farm); the second fell within Lebanese territory. No injuries were reported in that attack.

Less than 60 minutes later, Palestinian Arabs fired two Kassam rockets into the northern Negev from within the Gaza Strip. One hit the town of Sderot, causing some damage but no injuries.

About a week earlier, while the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza was underway, terrorists fired a Katyusha rocket from Jordan into the Israeli Red Sea port city of Eilat.

Also in this last attack casualties were avoided, but together the warning signs are ominous and growing. Injuries and death appear to be just waiting to happen.

Opponents of the Gaza ?disengagement? ? among them the previous IDF Chief of Staff and the former head of Israel?s Internal Security Services ? have been warning since before Israel?s abandonment of the Strip that the move would be followed by efforts to simultaneously hit northern and southern Israel.

Last week, Israel?s outgoing Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen Aharon Ze?evi warned that 2006 could see Gaza becoming a ?Hamastan? and Judea-Samaria (from which Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is reportedly eager to withdraw) will become  ?Fatahstan? ? both terrorist enclaves whose killers will share the common goal of Israel?s destruction.

Gaza?s Arabs have been smuggling more missiles into the prospective Hamastan, and claim that they have upgraded Kassam rockets and GRAD missiles with a 25km range.

Lebanon?s brother-organization to Fatah and Hamas, the Hizb?allah, is believed to have 15,000 plus missiles currently deployed in the south of Lebanon from which Israel withdrew in May 2000.

All of northern Israel is within their range, and it appears the Hizb?allah is preparing to unleash them.

Last November 21, Hizb?allah, acting on instructions from Tehran, had reportedly planned to carry out a deep and strategic missile strike on northern Israeli targets, but decided against doing so.

Middle East Newsline reports that about a month before that date, a leading US analyst had concluded that Hizb?allah ?has become a significant military threat to Israel.?

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