[Phlarp]

You say "rockets" and people conjure up the image of a smart bomb or modern American military missile.

The "rockets" that Hamas fires from gaza are little more than homebrew model rockets. They are scarcely larger or more powerful than the kind ameature models that rocketry enthusiasts fly. For some time now the Hamas rockets rarely even carry explosive payloads, and are only meant as decoys to trigger the Isreali Iron Dome defense system in a battle of attrition-- Iron Dome tracks and intercepts the rockets with more modern projectiles of it's own-- I've seen estimates that each Iron Dome response costs upwards of $20,000. I doubt Hamas has to spend more than $300 for each decoy.

This is not acceptable provocation for the kind of warfare that IDF routinely makes against Gazans.

[golergka]

> The "rockets" that Hamas fires from gaza are little more than homebrew model rockets.

Quite the contrary. A lot of them are not home-made, they are imported from countries like Syria and Iran. Sometimes, they end up even with Russian made rockets. And they're getting bigger, and have a wider range, each year. Here's the infographic: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00731/inlin...

I think you made an honest mistake because a lot of rockets are called "Qassam" by the media, while the name itself denotes the most basic, home-made rocket variety.

> This is not acceptable provocation for the kind of warfare that IDF routinely makes against Gazans.

No, IDF response is an adequate minimum. You're talking about the "battle of attrition", and you're right; however, you're thinking about money, while the deal is about overall capacity. Iron Dome does it job well, but it has a limited output. When it's out, it means that those rockets will start killing people, and that's exactly the point when IDF starts destroying rocket stockpiles and infrastructure. It's tragic, because despite all IDF's efforts, it means that innocent people will die — but at that point, lack of action would lead to a larger amount of civilian deaths.

> against Gazans

And, finally, this depiction of sides of the conflict is a great demonstration of your bias. The war is started by Hamas, who wasn't elected democratically and is holding power by extreme totalitarian violence. IDF, on the other hand, is a military force of a democratic country. Unlike US or other first-world country, all israelis go to the army, so IDF is even more representative of society as a whole. So, "warfare that israelis make against al-Qassam Brigades" would be a much more fair description.

[countrybama24]

Sure. But to be fair, wikipedia shows there have been 33 Israeli deaths from rocket attacks since 2001 [1] and the last two major flareups between the two have had extremely lopsided death tolls [2]. During the last 2014 conflict, that article states there were ~100 Palestinian deaths and zero Israeli deaths (at the time). During the 2012 conflict, there were 167 Palestinian deaths, >50% being civilians, compared to 6 Israeli deaths (four being civilian). I would be happy to look at alternative sources if you have any on death tolls, since objective figures are certainly hard to come across.

That same article describes the rockets you reference, but with the added context of relative quantities:

"According to the IDF, around six rockets are being fired at Israelis every hour. However, many of these rockets are not sophisticated, and they either fail to land in populated areas or lack the firepower to cause casualties when they do: Sometimes, the payloads are removed from missiles in a bid to increase their range."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/11...

[golergka]

These figures aren't entirely accurate, but they actually prove my point: palestinian deaths are tragic, but the only alternative is to let even more of these rockets through, which will lead to more deaths, although on israeli side of the border. Iron Dome has a limited capability, and where the rocket attacks start to get dense enough, the only option left is to destroy the launch sites and stockpiles.