A large number of the civilian casualties in Gaza did not die as a result of the Israeli response to the unprovoked acts of war by Hamas (both rocket fire and territorial invasion via underground tunnels): they have died of the Hamas rockets themselves.
Do not be fooled into thinking these rockets to be ‘mere firecrackers’: without the Israeli defensive Iron Dome and the many bomb-shelters in Israel, the Israeli civilian casualties would be much, much higher.
This is no mere conjecture but a statement of fact.
How do I know this?
From the extensive deaths caused by these rockets when they accidentally land inside Gaza itself!
Certainly, non-Israeli reports of this are scarce because even though they don’t admit this, the reporters in Gaza are reporting under duress and thus act (willingly or not) as accomplices of Hamas: repeating in their reports only the numbers and things that Hamas wants reported, showing only the images that Hamas wants shown. Hardly ‘journalism’…
And if that is not enough, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia (hardly a Zionist source):
“The weapons, often generically referred to as Qassams, were initially crude and short-range, mainly affecting Sderot and other communities bordering the Gaza Strip. However, in 2006 more sophisticated rockets began to be deployed, reaching the larger coastal city of Ashkelon, and by early 2009 major cities Ashdod andBeersheba had been hit by Katyusha, WS-1B[8] and Grad rockets.[9] In 2012, Jerusalem and Israel’s commercial center Tel Aviv were targeted with locally made “M-75” and Iranian Fajr-5 rockets, respectively,[10] and in July 2014, the northern city of Haifa was targeted for the first time.[11] A few projectiles have contained white phosphorus.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18]“
Hardly ‘firecrackers’!
Estimates of PTSD among Israeli children living under constant threat of being targetted by these Qassam rockets is estimated at over 50% – yet these long-lasting scars are not included in the injuries incurred by Israeli civilians…
Of course, I pity the Gazan children no less – they suffer greatly and in more ways than the Israeli children…and will continue to suffer as long as Hamas is in power in Gaza and perhaps longer: until religious hatred of ‘the other’ stops destroying their young lives before they have a chance to get started!!!
A week ago today, there was a pro-Israel rally in Ottawa. I would really have liked to have attended, but, alas, I was out of town and out of internet reach, and thus did not get a word of it until after it happened. During this rally, an Israeli mother describes the effect living under constant fear of rocket attacks has had on her young family:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9kJaqlpYvE *
The world will not be a better place until we learn to set all dogmatic beliefs and irrational faiths aside and begin to live like moral human beings!
*sorry – WordPress just updated their ‘look’ and this seems to have broken the embedding mechanism – please, follow the link!
EDIT: More evidence of Hamas rockets being the source of Gazan child casualties is here.
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 
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