Israeli troops settled into a small town north of Gaza City, in an attempt to deny Palestinian terrorists positions from which they were firing home made Kassam rockets (range of 12 kilometers, warhead with 11 pounds of explosives.) The rockets are unguided and not very accurate, often failing to hit to the towns they are aimed at, or the warheads not exploding. But the more of them are fired, the better the chances that eventually one of them will kill some Israelis. 

Israeli tactics, emphasizing night vision equipment, good intelligence work, rapidly moving armored columns with helicopter gunship support, and armored bulldozers, has prevented Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups from putting up an effective resistance. There have been few Israeli casualties and the Palestinians have been unable to stop the Israelis from completing their missions (arrest of terrorist suspects, destructions of terrorist homes and bomb workshops.)

The Israeli counter-terror tactics are working, with the number of terror attacks detected and aborted way up and the number of attacks succeeding way down. But the attempts continue, and some will succeed.