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When the first Qassam rocket landed in the town of Sderot in October 2001, few observers, if any, perceived it as the harbinger of a protracted and increasingly furious campaign by the radical Palestinian groups in Gaza against Israel’s population centers adjacent to the Gaza Strip (the so called “Gaza envelope” communities) by ballistic weapons. This campaign, in the ensuing eight years, would see the firing of close to 5,000 rockets and 2,500 mortar bombs, killing 27 people,1 causing heavy economic losses and leading to partial evacuation of residents. It would swell to such intolerable proportions as to compel the State of Israel to embark on a high intensity offensive that threatened regional stability, jeopardized its peace agreements with neighboring countries and eroded its international status.
In hindsight, the scant attention paid to the campaign at its onset in 2001 is easy to justify against the backdrop of violence of the Second Intifada and the suicide terror offensive raging at the time through the heart of Israel’s major cities, an offensive which reached its peak in April-May 2002. This absorbed all the attention of the general public as well as Israel’s political and military leadership. The few hits, the negligible damage and the insignificant casualties inflicted by the primitive rockets launched at the time from Gaza were justifiably regarded as a minor nuisance compared to the ongoing terror campaign against Israel’s traffic, public transportation, shopping malls and civic centers. Daily life in the border town of Sderot – the town that would be subsequently hit by more rockets than any other community – was calmer and more secure at the time than metropolitan areas like Netanya, Hadera or Jerusalem.
