How Hamas' long-range rockets changed Israel and the Middle East

Missiles that can reach once-safe Tel Aviv have made the war real in a whole new way for Israelis

An Israeli missile from the Iron Dome defense system is launched to intercept and destroy incoming rocket fire from Gaza on Nov. 17 in Tel Aviv.
(Image credit: Uriel Sanai/Getty Images)

Watching Israel and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip engage in a missile war, which could possibly lead to an Israeli ground invasion, has something of a bad-rerun quality to it (as this cartoon in The Week points out). But 2012's Operation Pillar of Defense, as Israel calls it, is different than 2008's Operation Cast Lead, the last time Israel invaded Gaza. One of the biggest changes: Hamas-aligned Qassam militants debuted new longer-range rockets on Sunday that can reach as far as the heavily populated metropolis of Tel Aviv.

"The significance of rockets fired on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem should not be underestimated," says Amir Oren in Israel's Haaretz. "Since 1948, no Arab country, except Iraq in 1991, has managed or dared to do what Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad have done" in targeting Israel's big cities. Until now, for all intents and purposes, "Tel Aviv, symbol of the Jewish state, has remained untouched." That's no longer true. And even though Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system has shot down the handful of rockets that made it to the cities, "what is important, psychologically, is that the imaginary barrier has been breached, and in a war of attrition, psychology is considered very important, especially in a population hovering between hope and despair."

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