Qassam rocket

Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel
A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel, December 2008.
By year
2001 · 2002–2006 · 2007 2008 · 2008 cease-fire Gaza War · 2009 · 2010
Groups responsible
Fatah · Hamas · Islamic Jihad Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine Popular Resistance Committees Ansar al-Sunna · Force 17
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
Hof Ashkelon (Karmia · Netiv HaAsara Yad Mordechai · Zikim) Eshkol (Nir Oz · Nirim · Yesha) Sha'ar HaNegev (Kfar Aza · Nahal Oz · Nir Am) Sdot Negev (Sa'ad) Merhavim
Settlements hit (evacuated)
Atzmona · Dugit · Elei Sinai Gadid · Ganei Tal · Katif Kfar Darom · Morag Netzarim · Netzer Hazani Neve Dekalim · Nisanit Rafiah Yam · Slav
Defenses
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

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, and often by foreign media.^[1]

The Qassam gained notoriety as the most well-known type of rocket deployed by Palestinian militants against Israeli civilian targets during the Second Intifada of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.^[2][3] From 2000 through present, Palestinian rockets have claimed the lives of 22 Israelis and one Thai national.^[4][5]

History of the Qassam

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 the 1936 Arab Revolt.^[6][7]

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 (2 mi) to 4.5 kilometers (3 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]

Israeli reaction

A Qassam rocket is displayed in Sderot town hall against a background of pictures of residents killed in rocket attacks

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 currently under development.

Palestinian reaction

The firing of Qassam rockets from 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, an Arab boy, and wounded 5 others.^{[14][15][16][17]}

Rocket specifications and cost

Rockets being exhibited

The aim of the Qassam rocket design appears to be ease and speed of manufacture, using common tools and components. To this end, 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, 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 axis during flight. While this results in a significant decrease in accuracy, it greatly simplifies rocket manufacture and the launch systems required.^[18]

The propellant in Palestinian rockets is generally made from fertilizer, and the TNT warhead is smuggled through the Rafah border tunnels into the Gaza Strip. The total cost of a rocket is about €500.^[19].

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", while they call most rockets fired from Lebanon "Katyushas", as a Katyusha is not a specific model but rather a generic class of rocket.

• Palestinian Islamic Jihad - Al Quds 101 & 2
• Popular Resistance Committees - al Nasser-3
• Tanzim - Saria-2
• Fatah - Kafah

Remnants of several types of rockets

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% - Popular 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.

References

External links

• 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, 2002)
• Gaza rockets kill two in Israel, BBC article (June 28, 2004)
• Palestinian Weapons Production and Smuggling : Missiles & Rockets
• A Visit to a Gaza Rocket Factory, by Ulrike Putz, der Spiegel international (January 29, 2008, in English)
• Victims of Qassam rockets in Sderot
• 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