Why Israel is going after the rocketmen of Gaza

Independent:

The tiny house at Sderot was all but destroyed by the rocket which struck at 8.06am, punching a gaping hole through the roof. Diane Mosadi, a widow of 74 living alone, escaped with only minor injuries. The other homes packed around a narrow alleyway had windows shattered and walls scorched.

The Qassam missile landing on Mrs Mosadi's home was one of 40 fired from Gaza after Israeli armour pushed into the Palestinian territory, starting the ground offensive. Other rockets, including longer-range Grads, hit Netivot, Eshkol, Ashdod and Ashkelon with one salvo hitting Kiryat Malachi, in northern Negev, for the first time.

Just outside Sderot, mortar rounds smashed to the ground about 50 yards from journalists perched on a vantage point at Nir Am. But the real destruction was taking place on the horizon just over the border as Israeli troops and armour carried out a pincer movement either side of Gaza City.

Plumes of smoke rose from Gaza City as it was pounded by artillery and attacked from the air. With machine gun and mortar fire echoing around the hills, helicopter-gunships were scouting the fields.

Around 150 tanks and thousands of troops have fanned out into the Gaza Strip and were engaged in action around the northern town of Beit Lahiya and the Jabaliya refugee camp after securing the former Jewish settlement of Netzarim.

Israeli soldiers moving through the fields and orchards, with their face blackened by camouflage as the offensive began on Saturday evening, had used sniffer dogs in an attempt to detect booby traps. The first few injuries came from mines, but then they reported coming under mortar fire with one of the rounds killing a soldier.

Soon the soldiers were meeting more sustained resistance with sounds of prolonged firefights echoing across the dark fields. Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli chief of staff, told a cabinet meeting that most of the combat was at close range with the Hamas fighters trying to draw the troops into urban areas.

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Yohan Abergil, a 25-year-old student, who lives with his parents in the house opposite the one hit yesterday, pointed to his front door six yards away. "It is a miracle that the old lady who lives here has not been badly hurt. I am very glad we are doing something about Gaza at last, this is a war we must fight."

What is surprising is how many Europeans think they should not. It is not a rationale argument to suggest that if they give into people that want to destroy them, they will somehow achieve peace. But it would only be the peace of the dead.

Hamas is a very unsympathetic enemy in my opinion, but you do find their defenders around the net, especially in the Muslim world. I find Hamas to be the most morally perverse enemy in recent memory. Hamas is unique in wanting noncombatant casualties on both sides and does everything it can to maximize them rater than limit them.