ROCKETS AND RETALIATION

Farthest Palestinian Rocket Launch Ever Hits Northern Ashkelon - Shmulik Hadad (Ynet News/Ha'aretz)
A Grad-type Katyusha rocket fired by Palestinians in Gaza landed near a hotel in northern Ashkelon Thursday morning, the farthest distance a Palestinian rocket has struck yet. Another Palestinian rocket struck near Kibbutz Zikim south of Ashkelon Wednesday night.

See also Fatah Group Claims Rocket Launch in West Bank - Ali Waked (Ynet News)
The al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, the military wing of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement, announced Wednesday it had launched a rocket at the Israeli village of Shaked in the northern West Bank. Spokespersons for various Palestinians groups have said in the past that they are seeking to fire rockets from the West Bank into Israel.

Israel retaliates for Ashkelon rocket (JTA)
Israel retaliated for a rocket fired deep into the country, killing at least nine Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Ground and air attacks Thursday targeted buildings used by Palestinian terrorists. More than 30 Palestinians were wounded. Three of the dead were civilians.

The Israeli army's operations were responding to an attack from Gaza by a rocket believed to be a Soviet-style "Grad" that hit northern Ashkelon on Thursday, causing no damage or casualties. Israeli officials said it was the longest-range rocket ever fired from Gaza.

The operations began early Thursday when troops backed by helicopter gunships struck east of Khan Younis in what military sources described as a search for terrorists responsible for cross-border rocket salvos. Two local gunmen were killed in the ensuing clashes. An Israeli tank hit the home of a terrorist in Khan Younis, killing him and three of his relatives. The Palestinian terrorists were shooting at Israeli soldiers from civilian areas, the Israeli army said.

The Peace Process Unravels by Noah Pollak (Contentions)
We are seeing today the likely beginning of the dissolution of the Annapolis-based peace process. This breakdown has been rapid, and as so many of us predicted—we deserve no special credit, as this was about as obvious a call as it gets—its origins are in Gaza, a place the discussion of which was rigorously avoided for the duration of the Annapolis conference (not that talking about it would have mattered).

Today, nine people in Gaza were killed in Israeli reprisals for a Palestinian rocket attack that employed a Katyusha instead of the regular Kassam. The Katyusha rocket landed some eleven miles away, in Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 people and one of Israel’s most important ports. This represented a serious escalation in the Gaza rocket campaign, and was met with a corresponding Israeli escalation.

Such Israeli escalations, of course, quickly do two things: kill Palestinian civilians—Israel’s recent record of being able to pick off terrorists without harming civilians will not last forever—and galvanize West Bank Palestinians against the Israeli counteroffensive, thus breaking up the superficial political conviviality that Annapolis has helped nurture between Fatah and Israel. Both of these things have now happened. Regarding civilian deaths, the second paragraph of the AP story that is currently posted on the New York Times website reads: “Three civilians were among those killed, Palestinian medical officials said. More than 30 people were wounded, including five children. A 14-year-old boy was in critical condition.”

Regarding the irresistibility of condemning Israel, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an Abbas spokesman, quickly found the old rhythm: “We consider what’s going on in Gaza . . . as a bloody Israeli message in which Israel shirks itself of any commitment before the arrival of President Bush to the region.” He of course had nothing to say about the Palestinian escalation of the rocket war against Israel.

This confrontation will worsen. As I wrote last week, the IDF and Shin Bet in recent weeks have been stunningly successful at taking out Gaza terrorists in targeted killings. In response, the terror groups must show that they are not deterred and that their “resistance” can continue. If possible, they must escalate their offensive in order to create the appearance, however implausible, that Israel’s targeted killings are not harming their ability to wage jihad. Hence, today, the long-range Katyusha, about which the IHT reports:

Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees claimed responsibility for the Katyusha attack. “We are going to launch more strikes in the depth of the entity (Israel),” they said in a joint statement. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a tiny group backed by Hamas, also claimed responsibility.

The predictability of this grim state of affairs is of course one of the many reasons why Annapolis was an implausible and foolish expenditure of American diplomatic energy. President Bush is due to arrive in Israel in five days. What perfect timing.