Rockets fired by Hamas at Israel sometimes land in Gaza, killing Palestinian civilians

A rocket fired by Hamas on July 12, 2014, falls short and crashes into United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) warehouses in Gaza

Hamas’ indiscriminate firing of rockets at population centers in Israel not only endangers Israeli lives, sometimes the rockets land, not on Israeli soil, but in Gaza itself, killing Palestinian civilians.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reports, via GlobalSecurity.org, July 31, 2014, that whereas the IDF strikes terrorist targets in Gaza with precision, Hamas’ aim is less than precise. Of the thousands of rockets launched by terrorists at Israel since July 8, more than 280 have landed inside the Gaza Strip. 

Some examples:

• On the afternoon of July 28, Hamas fired a barrage of four rockets from a densely populated area in Gaza, aiming to kill Israelis. Instead, one hit al-Shifa hospital and another the Shati refugee camp, both inside Gaza. A third was intercepted above Ashdod, the 5th largest city in Israel, by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
• On July 13, Hamas fired a rocket that hit electricity infrastructure inside Israel, knocking out power for 70,000 Gaza residents. Israel Electric Corporation staff fixed the damage, restoring power to the residents of Gaza.

Palestinian civilians in Gaza are also killed and injured by Hamas regularly and insistently calling on Gaza’s civilians to ignore the IDF’s warnings about impending strikes on military targets and to position themselves directly in the line of fire. This is part of Hamas’ human shield apparatus of using and imperiling Gaza’s civilians to further the terrorist organization’s own agenda.

~StMA