The rocket fire from the Sinai late Wednesday night did not come as a surprise for the Israeli defense establishment.

For months now, the IDF has been tracking Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist activity in the Sinai and there have been reports that the organizations have established rocket production lines in Egyptian territory and even moved some of their weapons caches there.

The groups’ rationale has been simple – in Gaza the weapons are targets for Israeli airstrikes. In Egypt, though, Israel cannot bomb them.

“This is exactly the dilemma we are currently facing,” a senior defense official said. “If we spot a rocket squad in the Sinai do we attack or not? If we attack, we are accused of violating Egyptian sovereignty and if we don’t attack then a rocket lands in Israel.”

Israeli assessments are that either a Palestinian terrorist group was behind the rocket fire or even possibly local Egyptian Bedouin who operate as “freelancers” for Gaza-based terrorist organizations.

Israel predicts that as the fence along the border is completed, the threat of rocket fire will increase.

A similar process took place in the Gaza Strip, around which the IDF has erected one of the most sophisticated security barriers in the world making it virtually impossible for terrorists to cross directly from Gaza into Israel. As a result, they instead focus on rocket fire.

“Now, with the Egyptian border still open, there is still a possibility for terror infiltrations,” a senior IDF officer explained recently. “But once the fence is completed and infiltrations become too difficult, these groups will likely invest in rocket fire instead.”

In the meantime, the IDF is considering connected the city of Eilat to the early-warning air siren system that operates relatively effectively throughout southern Israel. Another possibility would be to deploy an Iron Dome battery near Eilat, although still unlikely.

In the meantime, Israel will focus its response against terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip, even if they were not directly behind the rocket fire. The problem now though is that Friday night is the first night of Passover and airstrikes in Gaza could mean that the residents of southern Israel will need to hold their Seders in bomb shelters. (© 1995-2011, The Jerusalem Post 04/05/12)