Israel: Rockets Smuggled Into Gaza

A Palestinian militant from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, holds a rocket launcher as he attends a rally in Gaza City Wednesday April 26, 2006. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Wednesday that he was ready to lead peace negotiations with Israel, and that the election of a Hamas government was no obstacle. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)  

By STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press Writer

Yahoo News

April 28, 2006

TEL AVIV, Israel - Palestinian militants have smuggled several Katyusha rockets into the Gaza Strip, potentially threatening towns well inside Israel, a senior Israeli military official said Friday.

The official, speaking in halting English, initially said several dozen Katyushas have reached Gaza, but later said that he had meant to say "a few."

The official said Israel is prepared to re-enter Gaza in response to the threat of the rockets, which have a longer range and are more powerful than the homemade rockets usually fired by Palestinian militants, but it has no plans to do so in the immediate future. He spoke on condition of anonymity under military guidelines.

Israel withdrew from Gaza last summer, ending a 38-year military occupation.

Since then, militants have managed to smuggle the Katyushas through tunnels along the southern border with Egypt, the official said, adding that some parts have entered Gaza through the Rafah border crossing. The crossing is controlled by Palestinian security forces along with European monitors.

The official said some of the rockets were made by Iran, but gave few other details on their origins.

Islamic Jihad militants, who have close ties with Iran, recently fired a Katyusha into southern Israel for the first time. The rocket caused no damage.

The official said Israel wants to avoid a ground operation in Gaza but will conduct one if the Palestinians increase their capabilities in a "significant way." He cited the Katyushas as a possible reason for military action.

European Union nations this month cut off direct aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government, reflecting their position that Hamas is a terrorist group.

French President Jacques Chirac called Friday for the creation of a World Bank fund to pay salaries of Palestinian officials whose wages have been stopped by the international aid freeze.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said he favored the idea but noted that Chirac has to discuss it with other governments. The World Bank office in Jerusalem said it had not received any request to create such a fund.

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Associated Press writer Christine Ollivier in Paris contributed to this report.


The Katyusha Rocket Threat


Israelis in Katyusha Range 

Katyusha rockets are from time to time launched into towns in northern Israel by the Hizbullah Islamic fundamentalist group stationed in southern Lebanon. Residents are forced to sleep in bomb shelters, sometimes for days on end, in fear of the attacks.

It is rarely realized, however, the potential danger such rockets could pose to Israel's main population centers should they fall into the wrong hands.


Katyupic Lauched 

The Katyusha Rocket "Multiple Rocket Launcher" BM-21 pictured here could be easily taken apart and smuggled into a "demilitarized" Palestinian state. Individual Katyushas can be launched from a pipe using just a car battery.

The rockets on this truck have a range of 12.7 miles / 20.4 km. Katyushas can easily carry chemical warheads. One full salvo of rockets from this truck would fire the explosive equivalent to four Iraqi-type Scud missiles, which were launched into Israel during the 1991 Gulf War. No apartment in Tel Aviv would be safe, as the map below demonstrates.

The speckled region to the left is the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, which houses some 70% of Israel's Jewish population and 80% of the country's industrial base. The West Bank is a mountainous region overlooking the Mediterranean coastal plain and Gaza is a seaside district with its own port. If Israel relinquishes military control over these regions, it will be impossible to prevent the smuggling of weapons such as the Katyusha. The potential implications are clear.

(Information and map courtesy of Mark Langfan)