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Maalot Under Attack
[RKNews July 2006] Maalot, a small town in northern Israel has been targeted repeatedly by Ketyusahs raining randomly on home and street, forest and park, cafe and medical facility. The Ketyusha brings random death and destruction. In Lebonan and Gaza, Ramallah and Jenin, Arabs dance in the streets when Jews, old or young, die gruesome deaths.
Homes, cars, businesses, schools, hospitals in northern Israel have sustained direct hits from rockets and missiles -- over 3,000 by the end of July. Below is a photo of damage from a rocket strike in Ma'alot a few days ago. A friend sent me photos. This is but one of them. Thank God no one was killed in this building.
Ma'alot, in northern Israel  A beauty shop (left) and a dentist's office (right) after a Ketyusha struck. [Photo: M. Bayer] |
The cross-border attack in which 2 Israeli soldiers were abducted and others were killed was the breaking point for Israel. Immediately following and connected to the Hamas kidnapping in the south of Israel, it was clearly an intended provocation. But they miscalculated, thinking Israel would spank their hands, the UN would scream at Israel, and the Hizbollah could prepare for the next "incident". When Israel unexpectedly made a strong response, the Ketyushas and other missiles began to fall like rain. Once it was that only Nahariya and Kiryat Shmona along with Safed, Ma'alot, and Carmiel were on the front line. Now, Haifa, the 3rd largest city in Israel, and Tiberias, the city on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, are also front line targets.
Now, not only are Israeli civilians targeted in restaurants and buses, they have become targets in their living rooms and kitchens, in their cars and walking on the streets. The Ketyusha, being notoriously a shot-gun type of missile, can land anywhere within a broad range, so there is no predicting where it will hit, a house or an open field, in the sea or a in a parking lot.
In Lebanon, the civilians were warned to flee. They were warned to put a distance between themselves and the terrorists and their weapons. They were even given a deadline. However, unpleasant and frightening it is to abandon home and hearth to be a refugee in Beirut, it is no less frightening to hear sirens without warning and with no idea when or where the next bomb will fall and where to go. Just as the Lebanese who were warned, so also the Israelis who are targets, have fled the war front. Given however the Hamas Ketyushas in the South of Israel, only the center of the country is safe territory. Thus Israelis too are unwilling refugees. The difference is that Israel didn't start it, didn't want it. Hizbollah, the ruler of south Lebanon started it, Syria and Iran wanted it.
The same night, fires raged near Kiryat Shmona, flares lighted the sky in south Lebanon for Israeli soldiers seeking the bunkers and tunnels from which the missiles are launched in the hills across the border, more than 130 missiles hit northern Israel, and no one knows for sure what tomorrow will bring. Syria and Iran are working behind the Hizbollah. Russia and China are working in support of Syria and Iran. Now the potential costs of this war -- in lives and in money -- are going up unpredictably.
Israel Responds to Hamas Missiles