Palestinians fire 12 Qassam missiles Thursday to launch new “Gaza Offensive” and further escalate violence against thei

DEBKAfile - DEBKAfile reports: Palestinians fire 12 Qassam missiles Thursday to launch new “Gaza Offensive” and further escalate violence against their Israeli neighbors: "Palestinians fire 12 Qassam missiles Thursday to launch new “Gaza Offensive” and further escalate violence against their Israeli neighbors

November 1, 2007, 6:08 PM (GMT+02:00)

The Israeli air force went into action against the missile sites forthwith.

The Palestinian missiles were directed at Sderot, Shear Hanegev, Nir Am and Gavim, causing heavy damage but no casualties. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that all the Palestinian terrorist groups, including Fatah al Aqsa under Hamas command, are behind Thursday’s barrage and have vowed to follow up with “hundreds of missiles a day.” Their assaults were already redoubled this week against Netiv Ha’asara, the first Israeli border village to be subjected to concentrated mortar shelling.

Officers in the IDF Southern Command maintain that, whereas Israel should be liquidating Palestinian terrorist bases inside the Gaza Strip, it has let the Palestinians grab the initiative and carry their the war across the border to strike at what they call “Israeli settlements.”

Yet the Olmert government is still holding Israeli forces back from taking substantial action to root out Palestinian violence at source and break up their mushrooming war machine. (Later Thursday, Israeli forces discovered and blew up seven arms-smuggling tunnels running into southern Gaza from Sinai.)

Nothing but pinpoint operations are allowed and only brief IDF incursions no more than 1-1.5 km deep. Palestinian missile and mortar squads use this advantage to pull back as the Israel troops move in and go back to firing stations when they exit.

The word from Jerusalem is that Israel’s large-scale remedial operation in the Gaza Strip, promised by defense minister Ehud Barak, has to wait for the umpteenth time for yet another visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Saturday, Nov. 3, and the ending of the international peace conference at an unknown date. In the meantime, Israeli civilians in some 40 Western Negev towns and villages must endure the punishment."