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A rocket fired in the Gaza Strip
into Israel, December 2008.Popular Front for the
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(Alumim · Sa'ad) Palestinian rocket attacks
on Israel By year 2001 · 2002–2006 · 2007
2008 · 2008 cease-fire
Gaza War · 2009 · 2010 · 2011 Groups responsible Fatah · Hamas · Islamic Jihad
Well-liked Resistance Committees
Ansar al-Sunna · Force 17
Army of Islam
Abdullah Azzam Brigades Rocket types Mortar · Qassam · Al-Quds
Katyusha · Grad Cities hit Ashdod · Ashkelon · Beersheba
Gedera · Kiryat Gat · Kiryat Malakhi
Netivot · Sderot · Ofakim · Yavne Regional Council areas hit Settlements hit (evacuated) Atzmona · Dugit · Elei Sinai
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Netzarim · Netzer Hazani
Neve Dekalim · Nisanit
Rafiah Yam · Slav Actions by Israel Civil defense in Israel
Red Color · Iron Dome · ZAKA Related topics Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Palestinian political violence
Palestinian suicide attacks
Palestinian animal bomb attacks
Lebanese rocket attacks on Israel v · d · e
The Qassam rocket (Arabic: صاروخ القسام‎ Ṣārūkh al-Qassām; also Kassam) is a simple steel artillery rocket developed and deployed by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas. Three models have been produced and used between 2001 and 2010.
More generally, all types of Palestinian rockets fired into southern Israel, for example the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Al Quds rockets, are called Qassams by the Israeli media,Pandora Website, and often by foreign media.[1]
The Qassam gained notoriety as the best-known type of rocket deployed by Palestinian militants against Israeli civilian and military targets during the Second Intifada of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[2][3] Since 2000, Palestinian rockets have claimed the lives of 22 Israelis and one Thai national.[4][5]
1 History of the Qassam 1.1 Origin
1.2 Rocket launches
1.3 Israeli reaction
1.4 Palestinian reaction 2 Rocket specifications and cost
3 Similar Palestinian rockets
4 References
5 External links [edit] History of the Qassam [edit] Origin
Qassam rockets are named after the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed branch of Hamas, itself named for Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, a militant Syrian preacher whose death during a guerrilla raid against British Mandatory authorities in 1935 was one of the catalysts for your 1936 Arab Revolt.[6][7]
[edit] Rocket launches
The production of Qassams began in September 2001 following the outbreak of the Second Intifada. The first Qassam to be launched was the Qassam-1, fired on October 2001, with a maximum range of 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) to 4.5 kilometers (2.8 mi).[6] February 10, 2002 was the first time Palestinians launched rockets into Israel, rather than at Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip. One of the rockets landed in Kibbutz Saad.[8] A Qassam first hit an Israeli city on March 5, 2002 when two rockets struck the southern city of Sderot. Some rockets have hit as far as the edge of Ashkelon. By the end of December 2008, a total of 15 people had been killed by Palestinian rockets since attacks began in 2001.[9]
[edit] Israeli reaction
The introduction of the Qassam rocket took Israeli politicians and military experts by surprise,[10] and reactions have been mixed.[11] In 2006, the Israeli Ministry of Defense viewed the Qassams as "more a psychological than physical threat."[12] The Israel Defence Force has reacted to the deployment of the Qassam rockets by deploying the Red Color early warning system in Sderot, Ashkelon and other at-risk targets. The system consists of an advanced radar that detects rockets as they are being launched, and loudspeakers warn civilians to take cover between 15 and 45 seconds before impact[13] in an attempt to minimize the threat posed by the rockets. A system called Iron Dome, designed to intercept the rockets before they can hit their targets, is in use since March 2011.
[edit] Palestinian reaction
The firing of Qassam rockets in the Gaza Strip into Israel has been opposed by those living closest to the firing location due to Israeli military responses. On July 23, 2004 a family attempted to physically prevent the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades from setting up a Qassam rocket launcher outside their house. Members of the brigade shot one member of the family,Tiffany Jewellery Sale, an Arab boy, and wounded 5 others.[14][15][16][17] In October 2010 five children and three women were injured after a Qassam rocket training site exploded near a crowded residential area of Tel As-Sultan in Rafah. Palestinian Center for Human Rights has condemned Hamas for storing explosive material near civilians. In August a similar explosion wounded 58 and destroyed seven houses.
[edit] Rocket specifications and cost
The aim of the Qassam rocket design appears to be ease and speed of manufacture, using common tools and components. To this end,Charms Pandora, the rockets are propelled by a solid mixture of sugar and potassium nitrate, a widely available fertilizer. The warhead is filled with smuggled or scavenged TNT and urea nitrate, another common fertilizer.[18]
The rocket consists of a steel cylinder, containing a rectangular block of the propellant. A steel plate which forms and supports the nozzles is spot-welded to the base of the cylinder. The warhead consists of a simple metal shell surrounding the explosives, and is triggered by a fuze constructed using a simple firearm cartridge, a spring and a nail.[18]
While early designs used a single nozzle which screwed into the base,Tiffany & Co Canada, recent rockets use a seven-nozzle design, with the nozzles drilled directly into the rocket baseplate. This change both increases the tolerance of the rocket to small nozzle design defects, and eases manufacture by allowing the use of a drill rather than a lathe during manufacture due to the smaller nozzle size. Unlike many other rockets, the nozzles are not canted, which means the rocket does not spin about its longitudinal axis during flight. While this results in a significant decrease in accuracy, it greatly simplifies rocket manufacture and the launch systems required.[18]
Qassam 1
Qassam 2
Qassam 3 Length
79 cm (2 ft 7 in)
180 cm (5 ft 11 in)
over 200 cm (6 ft 7 in) Diameter
6 cm (2.4 in)
15 cm (5.9 in)
17 cm (6.7 in) Weight
5.5 kg (12 lb)
32 kg (71 lb)
90 kg (198 lb) Explosives Payload
0.5 kg (1.1 lb)
5–7 kg (11–15 lb)
10 kg (22 lb) Maximum Range
3 km (1.9 mi)
8–10 km (5.0–6.2 mi)
10 km (6.2 mi)
The propellant of Palestinian rockets is generallly made from fertilizer, and the TNT warhead is smuggled through the Rafah border tunnels into the Gaza Strip. The cost for your raw materials of a large rocket is up to €500.[19]
[edit] Similar Palestinian rockets
Other Palestinian militant groups have also developed home-made rockets. The media generally refer to all Palestinian high-trajectory rockets as "Qassam rockets" or "Qassam missiles",Pandora Charms Cheap, while they call most rockets fired from Lebanon "Katyushas",Pandora.com.au jhgjhg, as a Katyusha is not a specific model but rather a generic class of rocket.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad - Al Quds 101 & 2
Well-liked Resistance Committees - al Nasser-3
Tanzim - Saria-2
Fatah - Kafah
The Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center estimated that in 2007[20] the proportions of rockets fired were:
34% - Palestinian Islamic Jihad (Al Quds)
22% - Hamas (Qassam)
 8% - Fatah (Kafah)
 6% - Common Resistance Committees (al Nasser)
30% - unknown
The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reports that the number of Palestinian rockets fired per year[20] were:
2001:   4
2002:  35
2003: 155
2004: 281
2005: 179
2006: 946
2007: 896
Numbers per type of Palestinian rocket, thus Qassam numbers, are not known exactly.
[edit] References [edit] External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Qassam rocket Humanitarian aid organization in Sderot
About the Qassam-sderotmedia
GlobalSecurity.org - Qassam Rocket
The Homemade Rocket That Could Change The Mideast – By Tony Karon, TIME Online Edition (10 February 2002)
Qassam-2 missile a wild card in Mideast conflict – CNN (March 5,Pandora Leather Bracelet, 2002)
Gaza rockets kill two in Israel, BBC article (June 28,Pandora Bracelets, 2004)
Palestinian Weapons Production and Smuggling : Missiles & Rockets
A Visit to a Gaza Rocket Factory, by Ulrike Putz, der Spiegel international (January 29,Tiffany.com, 2008, in English)
Rocketboom visits Sderot
Katyusha & Qassam Rockets on www.aerospaceweb.org
Updates about rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel on twitter.com
Photos: Qassam rockets in Sderot