Mark,
elder of zion keeps a series of rocket calendars showing how many rockets have been fired into Israel on a daily basis. See rocket calendars The numbers of rockets fired during between June and Nov seem to be more than 15 but less than 30. He also keeps track of mortars and there were mortar shells fired into Israel during that period.
One of the terms of the cease-fire was that Hamas wouldn’t attempt to re-arm during the period. They clearly violated that every day.
Since Cast Lead began there have been a number of Israeli deaths from rocket fire even though there were relatively few before that. The reason isn’t that there is a greater number of rockets being fired, there isn’t. The rockets are going farther but I think that’s only secondary. The reason is that Hamas has been firing Grad and Katyushas. These rockets have larger warheads than the Kassam rockets and therefore have a greater killing radius. They also have ball bearings in the warheads that scatter shrapnel over a wider area. Needless to say the Grads and Katyushas aren’t “homemde.”
After Hamas unilaterally abrogated the cease-fire on Dec 19 they started to fire increasing numbers of rockets into Israel. This is after years of firing rockets into Israel. The cease-fire was a test, of both sides I suppose. Israel has obviously decided that Enough is Enough and they won’t tolerate any rocket fire into their country anymore. If I was Israeli, I wouldn’t vote for politicians whose party had talked tough but hadn’t done anything significant to protect my country from rocket attacks.
