HAMAS, THE RULERS OF GAZA, are not satisfied sending civilians before their fighters as shields.
Now they are flying kites over the fence with incendiary devices to set fire to Israeli land.
As King Solomon is alleged to have opined: There is nothing new under the sun.
DURING WORLD WAR 2, the Japanese floated balloons with incendiary and anti-personnel bombs over the coasts the U.S. (a few landed in Canada and Mexico) with the same intent: Set fire of America’s forests and kill anyone nearby with shrapnel.
How that would have helped the Japanese war effort escapes me.
If anything, that would be like poking a sleeping bear with a sharp stick; the response would not be pretty.
The balloon bombs killed 6 people in Bly OR on May 5, 1945, and fell on at least 17 U.S. states. A number of balloon evidence also was found in Canada’s western provinces.
According to Wikipedia1, From late 1944 until early 1945, the Japanese launched more than 9,300 fire balloons, of which 300 were found or observed in the U.S. Despite the high hopes of their designers, the balloons were ineffective as weapons, causing only six deaths (from one single incident) and a small amount of damage.
The Japanese designed two balloon types.
The first was called the "Type B Balloon" and was designed by the Japanese Navy. It was 9 m (30 ft) in diameter and consisted of rubberized silk. The type B balloons were sent first and mainly used for meteorological purposes. The Japanese used them to determine the possibility of the bomb-carrying balloons reaching North America.
The second type was the bomb-carrying balloon. Japanese bomb-carrying balloons were 10 m (33 ft) in diameter and, when fully inflated, held about 540 m3 (19,000 cu ft) of hydrogen. Their launch sites were located on the east coast of the main Japanese island of Honshū.
Studies by Wasaburo Oishi, credited with the discovery of the high-altitude air currents, enabled Japan to attack North America during World War II with at least 9,000 incendiary bombs carried by stratospheric balloons and then dropped by a timer mechanism on U.S. forests. Very few bombs in this bombing campaign, called Project Fu-Go, actually reached their targets. "
Guided by Oishi's wind charts, 9,000 fire balloon bombs, called Fu-go, were unleashed by Japan between November 1944 and April 1945." Oishi's wind calculations were wrong, and instead of taking 65 hours to reach the US from Japan, it took 96 hours on average. As a result, most of the fire balloons fell harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean, instead of on the American mainland.
Fortunately, the rulers of Hamastan (Gaza) focus most of their attention on tunnels.
Likewise, the rulers so willing to sacrifice non-combatants, apparently lack either hydrogen or helium to float balloons into Israel. Both are commercially available so Israel must assure the gases are not imported into Gaza or PA-controlled areas of Israel.
(Hydrogen is explosive and it is likely – based on history – that Hamas balloon makers would blow themselves up before any balloon was launched.)
The problem for the Japanese – and it would be a problem for Hamas – is that the balloons are slaves to the wind; the direction in which thy float cannot be controlled from the ground.
Unlike the Japanese balloons that traveled at about 30,000 feet (9,144 meters), Hamas balloons would be low flying and easy targets for Israelis with “two-two” (.22 caliber) rifles – good for target practice as the gas bags floated near the border.
Sources
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon
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