the limping messenger

I have a hard time understanding the aerial combat over Israel and Gaza. What is the idea of the Palestinian brigades to fire their low tech rockets to penetrate the Iron Shield protected area of Israel? 90% of such rockets – it is said – are now destroyed in mid air by the the Israeli defence system, whereas the people in Gaza have no defence whatsoever against incoming retaliation bombardments from the endless military arsenal of Israel. The picture with the dog in the foreground and the smoke trail of the Israeli anti-rocket system intercepting a Gaza-strip fired rocket, was taken on Saturday the 9th of April 2011 in the field near Ashkelon in Israel with the following command: “Nicole was out walking her dogs when she heard the distant siren and the booms. In the fields there is nowhere to hide, so she just watched the Iron Dome shooting the rocket out of the sky, leaving a puff and white smoke trail.” (3)

I need two arms and two fingers to point at all those despicable missile launchers. The only ones gaining from this ‘iron brains game’ is the weapon industry that uses the territories of Israel and Gaza as a testing grounds for the most advanced military products as is summarised in these visuals from trade brochures…

More than one hundred rockets fired from Gaza at Israeli territory, 6 Israelis’s wounded, retaliation attacks on Gaza 21 dead (March 12, 2012). There must be an immense hatred for all those ‘iron brains’ launching their explosive devices, from whatever side, for whatever ideological or security claim. But, who can earnestly express such a view, either in Israel or Gaza?

click picture for link to information source as shown below: al-akhbar.com

<quote>Wounded Palestinian children are seen in a hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, after an Israeli airstrike 12 March 2012. (…) Israeli airstrikes killed an additional three people in the Gaza Strip overnight, including a teenage boy, bringing the total death toll to 21 after three days of attacks on the Hamas-controlled territory.</quote>

 <quote>”A drone strike hit a group of students who were walking by empty land on their way to school,” he told AFP, saying six others had been injured, two of whom were in critical condition. The latest killings came after another schoolboy, 12-year-old Ayoub Assaleya, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a predominantly civilian neighborhood on Sunday in the Jabalya refugee camp, according to medics. His seven-year-old cousin was injured in the attack and taken to Kamal Adwan hospital in Jabalya, north Gaza.</quote>

 <quote>Earlier, the Israeli army said that it had targeted a “terrorist squad” preparing to fire rockets from northern Gaza. It also confirmed a direct hit on “two rocket launching sites, in the northern Gaza Strip, used by terror organizations.” Gaza militants have responded to Israeli airstrikes with more than 100 rockets since Friday, injuring six Israelis, one of them seriously. Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees said it had fired rockets and mortars into Israel on Friday and Saturday.</quote>

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Notes, pictures with their original caption, click pictures to see original context of images:

(1) “Masked Palestinian militants from Islamic Jihad run with homemade rockets to put in place before later firing them into Israel on the outskirts of Gaza City, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2008. (AP Photo/Ashraf Amra)”

(2) “A battery of Iron Dome anti-aircraft missile launches from the town of Ashdod, Israel, Palestine to intercept a missile. / EFE”

(3) “Nicole’s dog Heidi and the Iron Dome defense system in action in the background.”