Uptick In Gaza Rocket Fire Towards Israel In 2017

The most rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel this past calendar year since 2014, with terrorist groups having launched 35 projectiles at the Jewish state. While most of the fire in 2017 was attributed to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and other smaller Salafist groups in the territory, Israel holds Hamas responsible for all attacks emanating from the enclave and generally targets its assets in retaliatory strikes. Fifty-nine such operations were undertaken last year, according to statistics published by the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, primarily targeting Hamas weapons factories and training camps. The uptick in the rocket fire began in October, when the Israeli military inadvertently killed high-ranking PIJ members while destroying a cross-border terror tunnel; and continued into December after U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. There were a total of 21 rockets fired from Gaza at Israel in 2016, six more than in 2015, a period of relative quiet unseen since Hamas gained control over the Strip in 2007. That year, nearly 2,500 projectiles were fired at Israel and in 2008—when the IDF waged the first of three major military campaigns against Hamas over the past decade—the Jewish state was targeted more than 3,500 times. Almost 5,000 rockets were launched from the Strip at Israel in 2014, most in the run-up to and during the summer’s seven-week war. The figures released by the IDF do not include projectiles that landed in the Israeli Golan Heights, mainly the result of spillover from ongoing fighting in Syria.