Rockets from Gaza and the wider effects

[AdamG]

Moderator's Note

A new thread has been created for this developing conflict in the volatile Middle East. To my surprise there is not a thread on the previous Gaza (Hamas) -v- Israel conflict in December 2008 to January 2009. More on Post No.5 (ends)

When the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) this week began taking military action in the Gaza strip against Hamas (as the IDF announced on Twitter), Anonymous declared its own war as part of #OpIsrael. Among the casualties are thousands of email addresses and passwords, hundreds of Israeli Web sites, government-owned as well as privately owned pages, as well as databases belonging to the Bank of Jerusalem and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/1...n=social+media

[jcustis]

I wonder if the Twitter and Youtube war spawned that action.

[AdamG]

[Video] Third attack on central city in three days intercepted by fifth Iron Dome battery, deployed in Gush Dan earlier in the day; Palestinian terrorists fire 740 rockets into Israel since start of operation.

http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=292277

[AdamG]

Twitter does seem to be center stage
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23OpIsrael&src=hash

The hacking spree, dubbed OpIsrael and begun early Thursday, has resulted in so many Israeli Web sites being defaced or shut down through methods including denial of service (DoS) attacks, that it's hard to keep count. However, some enterprising hacktivists have begun compiling lists of affected Web sites. Targets have included governmental, retail, and business sites -- some belonging to the automotive and fashion industries.

The Bank of Jerusalem, one of Israel's largest financial institutions, has received particular attention from the hacktivists -- as the cyberattackers crowed on Twitter about deleting the organization's online database. Access to the bank's Web site has been spotty. Trying to access it yesterday afternoon resulted in nothing more than a database error, and though the site reappeared, it seemed to be offline again this morning.

Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Web site also appeared on Friday to have been attacked and its database either deleted or tampered with. The Web site seemed to be back up and running this morning.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-575...est-over-gaza/

[davidbfpo]

A new thread has been created for this developing conflict in the volatile Middle East. To my surprise there is not a thread on the previous Gaza (Hamas) -v- Israel conflict in December 2008 to January 2009.

There is a long running thread, from 2006, 'Hamas in Gaza (merged thread)', which should give some background:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=6020

Elsewhere on the Web is ample coverage, such as Stratfor's briefings and on KoW a comment by an IDF veteran on being defensive:http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2012/11/sec...fensive-means/

Rightly AdamG has pointed out the cyber aspects, with a reported campaign by Anonymous against Israeli websites plus.

KoW tries to grapple with the role or failure of deterence:http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2012/11/deterrence/

[AdamG]

On TweetWar I.

http://thenational.net/tweets-bullet...rld-coming-to/

[Firn]

The current war has given the Iron Dome a lot of media exposure. With it came rather simplistic calculation likely based this Wiki article and other similar sources:

Cost

In 2010, Iron Dome was criticized by Reuven Pedatzur, a military analyst, former fighter pilot and professor of political science at Tel Aviv University[79] for costing too much compared to the cost of a Qassam rocket (fired by Palestinian forces), so that launching very large numbers of Qassams could essentially attack Israel's financial means.[80] The estimated cost of each Tamir interceptor missile is US$35,000–50,000[16] whereas a crudely manufactured Qassam rocket costs around $800.[81] Rafael responded that the cost issue was exaggerated since Iron Dome intercepts only rockets determined to constitute a threat, and that the lives saved and the strategic impact are worth the cost.[82]

A key flaw is to use a simple 'perfect' market model with only price interacting with supply and demand. The crude Qassams and other Gaza-made rockets need a basic infrastructure and human, technological and raw ressources to manufacture, store, deploy and fire. Rockets smuggled in from abroad, including those who hit Tel Aviv have to come in through narrow supply lines including especially the bottlenecks of the tunnels and are harder to store & deploy due to their bigger size and weight. Obviously Israel targets many element along this supply & command chain.

Israel has also limited ressources but vastly greater ones then those found in the Gaza strip, especially with additional U.S funding and arguably even more importantly, access to the world market.

Of course there are far more to the issue, but I just wanted to state the obvious, which doesn't seem always to be so.

[davidbfpo]

One of the more interesting aspects in this crisis is how Hamas assembled long range, indeed any rockets in Gaza. I am not a technical expert on such weapons, but do wonder what are the components of rocket fuel? IIRC Israel is the supplier of all fuels to Gaza.

The second issue is the view of at least one UK analyst that Egypt has little control over the Sinai, so smuggling weapons is easy, although getting them across the border is difficult. After the change of regime and the clashes with "extremists" did Egyptian priorities change from border security to internal security?