Rockets from Gaza

October 18, 2016
Richard Kuper
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gaza-burning
Gaza burning, 2009

Surely Israel has a right to self-defence? If the rockets stopped, so would Israel’s attacks.

Ben White, Chapter 17 of The 2014 Gaza War: 21 Questions & Answers

Israel’s attacks against the Gaza Strip are routinely justified as an act of self-defence against Palestinian rocket fire. What would the U.S. or British governments do, Israeli officials ask, if their countries were being bombarded by missiles?1 But there’s one, major flaw in this argument: occupation. As senior UN human rights official Makarim Wibisono put it a month after the conclusion of ‘Operation Protective Edge’, “Israel’s claim of self-defence against an occupied population living under a blockade considered to be illegal under international law is untenable.”2

Elaborating on this point in The Nation, legal scholar Noura Erakat explained how: “as the occupying power of the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Territories more broadly, Israel has an obligation and a duty to protect the civilians under its occupation. It governs by military and law enforcement authority to maintain order, protect itself and protect the civilian population under its occupation. It cannot simultaneously occupy the territory, thus usurping the self-governing powers that would otherwise belong to Palestinians, and declare war upon them.”3 Israel does have the right to defend itself against rocket attacks, “but it must do so in accordance with occupation law.”

In 2004, the International Court of Justice issued its advisory opinion on the ‘Legal Consequences of the Construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories’. In doing so, the judges addressed Israel’s claim that the Wall’s construction was “consistent with Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations” and the country’s “inherent right to self-defence.” But Article 51, the Court noted, “recognizes the existence of an inherent right of self-defence in the case of armed attack by one State against another State.” Israel, however, “exercises control in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and…as Israel itself states, the threat…originates within, and not outside, that territory.”4

The first rocket was fired out of the Gaza Strip into Israel in 2001 in the context of the Second Intifada, 34 years into a – still ongoing – military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (and 53 years after the Nakba).5 Since then, Palestinians have fired approximately 22,000 rockets or mortar shells into Israel, leading to 44 fatalities, including 30 civilians, from 32 strikes.6 Of the 44 fatalities, 23 were killed by rockets, and the rest by mortar fire. By comparison, in 2006 alone the Israeli military fired around 14,000 artillery shells into the Gaza Strip, and just in July of that year killed 163 Palestinians, including 36 children. In 2014, Israel fired 34,000 shells into Gaza.

The majority of projectile fire from Gaza is inaccurate and has a short range, falling in open land outside of residential communities. According to the Israeli military’s figures, Palestinian factions fired 4,562 rockets and mortar shells into Israel during ‘Operation Protective Edge’.7 Of these, just 224 (5 percent) landed in built-up areas. A further 735 rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defence system, according to Israeli figures. On July 9, 2014, Israeli army spokesperson Peter Lerner said the rockets were “incapable” of penetrating the military’s “defence systems.”8

The most proven method of preventing rocket fire is a ceasefire agreement; and Israel has a history of ending them. Hamas did not fire a single rocket from November 2012 to June 2014, a period of some 20 months. Al-Qassam Brigades fired its first salvo in the escalation that led up to ‘Operation Protective Edge’ only after a massive Israeli offensive in the West Bank had targeted, among others, Hamas members (including those released under the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal), and after Israel had killed Al-Qassam Brigades members as part of a wave of airstrikes on Gaza (see Q.6).

Back in 2008, a months-long ‘calm’, or truce, between Israel and Hamas had kept rockets to a bare minimum; the total number of projectile fire attacks “shrank from 245 in June to 26 total for July through October, a reduction of 97 percent.”9 Though the brutal blockade continued, “Hamas refrained from launching rockets until Israel definitively cancelled the truce on the night of 4-5 November by sending an Israeli commando squad into Gaza, where it killed six Hamas members.” A few weeks later, Israel began ‘Operation Cast Lead’ with a devastating ‘shock and awe’ assault.

The most intense periods of rocket fire out of Gaza have been during the three large-scale Israeli offensives, in 2008/’09, 2012, and 2014. By contrast, the Israeli authorities know from experience what can reduce rocket fire: “by agreeing to a cease-fire, by avoiding extrajudicial executions of Hamas members in Gaza and massive attacks on Gaza, and by at least partially observing the cease-fire.”10 Thus by choosing escalation in Gaza, the Israeli government knew it would be exposing its own citizens to an intensification of projectile fire.

How do we know that it’s not about the rockets? By looking at Israeli conduct when there aren’t any. In the first three months of the ceasefire that ended ‘Operation Pillar of Defence’ – from November 22, 2012, to February 22, 2013 – there were some 100 attacks by Israeli forces on the Gaza Strip, a period that saw just two mortar shells fired out of Gaza, and not a single rocket.11 In the first six months of 2015, a period when there were just five rockets fired out of Gaza (none of them by Hamas), Israeli forces conducted eight incursions and 93 shooting attacks on land and at sea.12 In other words, even when there are no rockets being launched, Israeli violence against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including farmers, fishermen, and protesters, continues regardless.

This is also illustrated by looking at events in the West Bank, where Israeli occupation forces routinely use lethal violence against unarmed Palestinian civilians – including as the bombs dropped on Gaza over summer 2014. Those killed included Khalil ‘Anati, a 10-year-old boy shot dead by Israeli forces in al-Fawwar refugee camp near Hebron, and 45-year-old father of three Hashem Abu Maria, shot dead as he walked in a protest in Beit Ummar.13

During 2014 as a whole, the Israeli army killed 56 Palestinians in the West Bank, including 12 children, and injured another 5,868.14 The use of live ammunition against Palestinian civilians accounted for almost all fatalities and some 1 in 5 injuries. As Amnesty International put it in their annual report for the year, “in the West Bank, Israeli forces carried out unlawful killings of Palestinian protesters, including children” – violence unleashed by an occupation army on an occupied population without a rocket, mortar shell, or ‘terror tunnel’ in sight.15

Notes:

 

  1. ‘Israel asks London: What would you do if you were under attack?’, Metro, July 21, 2014, http://metro.co.uk/2014/07/21/israel-asks-london-what-would-you-do-if-you-were-under-attack-4805904/ (last accessed 10/7/16).
  2. ‘UN Special Rapporteur alarmed by devastating impact of Gaza conflict on Palestinian civilians’, September 29, 2014, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15118&LangID=E (last accessed 9/7/16).
  3. ‘Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza—Debunked’, The Nation, July 25, 2014, https://www.thenation.com/article/five-israeli-talking-points-gaza-debunked/ (last accessed 9/7/16); also see ‘No, Israel Does Not Have the Right to Self-Defense In International Law Against Occupied Palestinian Territory’, Jadaliyya, July 11, 2014, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/8799/no-israel-does-not-have-the-right-to-self-defense- (last accessed 9/7/16).
  4. Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Request for advisory opinion), Summary of the Advisory Opinion of 9 July 2004, http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/131/1677.pdf (last accessed 11/7/16).
  5. ‘This Week in History: The first Kassam hits Sderot’, April 15, 2011, http://www.jpost.com/Features/In-d/This-Week-in-History-The-first-Kassam-hits-Sderot (last accessed 11/7/16).
  6. ‘How many people have died from Gaza rockets into Israel?’, Mondoweiss, July 14, 2014, http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/rocket-deaths-israel/ (last accessed 9/7/16).
  7. ‘LIVE UPDATES: Operation Protective Edge, Day 50’, Haaretz, August 27, 2014, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.612468 (last accessed 11/7/16).
  8. July 9, 2014, https://twitter.com/LTCPeterLerner/status/487101290342674434 (last accessed 11/7/16).
  9. ‘Israel’s fabricated rocket crisis’, The Electronic Intifada, January 6, 2009, https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-fabricated-rocket-crisis/7927 (last accessed 11/7/16).
  10. ‘Attack First, Kill Thousands, Claim Self-Defense, then Campaign to Discredit the ICC’, National Lawyers Guild, February 8, 2015, http://www.nlg.org/file/attack-first-kill-thousands-claim-self-defense-then-campaign-discredit-icc-2-8-15-finalpdf-0 (last accessed 11/7/16).
  11. ‘What a ‘period of calm’ looks like in the Occupied Territories’, Al Jazeera, February 22, 2013, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/02/2013220152044327694.html (last accessed 9/7/16).
  12. ‘Attacks on Gaza: January-June 2015’, Middle East Monitor, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/specials/gaza_incidents/ (last accessed 9/7/16).
  13. ‘Behind the IDF Shooting of a 10-year-old Boy’, Haaretz, August 21, 2014, http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/twilight-zone/.premium-1.611856 (last accessed 11/7/16); ‘The IDF’s Real Face’, Haaretz, August 30, 2014, http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.613212 (last accessed 11/7/16).
  14. Humanitarian Bulletin, Monthly Report, December 2014, UN OCHA, https://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_the_humanitarian_monitor_2014_01_27_english.pdf (last accessed 11/7/16).
  15. Amnesty International Annual Report 2014/15, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2015/02/annual-report-201415/ (last accessed 11/7/16).gaza-burning

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