Hamas policy: Escalation to force Israel into truce

[bemildred]

Lots of blather about bizarre justifications for continued violence, then ...

---

Barrages prove Hamas able to stockpile missiles

The barrage of rockets fired at Israel from Gaza this week confirms intelligence assessments that Hamas has upgraded its rocket capabilities over the past few months. The fact it could fire 130 rockets in less than three days proves it has overcome the technical hurdles involved in stockpiling them.

Until a few months ago, Hamas was unable to store Qassam rockets for more than a few weeks, because their launch capability would degrade. Now that this barrier has evidently been overcome, the organization can manufacture and store thousands of rockets, which it can unleash in any future clash with Israel.

Hamas is also thought to have significant numbers of longer-range rockets capable of hitting Ashkelon. It has thus far used such rockets very sparingly, but if its conflict with Israel escalates, that might change.

The organization has also upgraded its launching capabilities: Some of the rockets that hit Israel this week were fired by remote control from buried launchers, which makes it hard for Israeli forces to attack the launch crews. Hezbollah used this tactic extensively during the Second Lebanon War.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/946028.html

[Crunchy Frog]

1. I don't know what it is that they're hoping to gain with this

but somehow, I don't see anything positive or constructive coming out of it.

[bemildred]

2. Hamas wants to force the IDF to negotiate a cease fire.

The IDF would like to crush and/or discredit Hamas.
I expect Fatah would be a bit ambivalent between those two choices.

The first thought that went through my mind was "Gee, who could have predicted this?"
The second thought was "credible deterrent" of maybe "beginnings of a credible deterrent".

But no, you are right, I expect we will have to try everything out a time or two, so it may not be pretty.

[Afje]

3. Terrible is someone with nothing to lose

[azurnoir]

4. It's hard to believe Hamas is that stupid

However much they escalate Israel can and will escalate more, also Hamas does not have quite the international support that Lebanon did in 2006, for all the good it did them. The question here is how far would Israel go?

[Vegasaurus]

5. Why is it so hard to believe Hamas is that stupid?

They take every possible opportunity to make the lives of their citizens as miserable as possible.

And there is no way that MORE rocket fire will equal truce, especially since Hamas has absolutely no ability to contain the rocket fire, even if they claim they are having a truce. This is just crazy thinking.

[LeftishBrit]

6. It is indeed hard to believe. But unfortunately they do seem to be that stupid.