23-Dec-12: The terrorist rocket-men of Gaza are back in action

The web has an endless supply of self-aggrandizing
shots like this one, showing the Gazan terrorists
with their Qassam human-killing rockets. Oddly,
there are far fewer pictures of those rockets in the act
of falling on top of a Palestinian Arab home in Gaza.
This happens all the time.

Earlier today (Sunday) just after dusk, Gaza-based Islamist terrorists launched one of their rockets in the direction of Israel. And, as has happened so frequently in the recent past when the rockets were being fired hourly, this one fell short [source, quoting IDF Spokesperson].

Today's rocket was a Qassam. It landed in an open area of the Gaza Strip and, as far as anyone can tell on the Israeli side, there was no damage to Gazan people or property.

Today's IDF announcement also informs us that during this past week, two more Gazan terrorist rockets were launched in the direction of Israel; they too exploded on the Palestinian Arab side of the Israel/Gaza border  fence like today's. We have no report as to damage and/or injuries.

The ceasefire signed by Hamas and the government of Israel on November 21, ending Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense, called for the Hamas terrorists to halt their own fire and to rein in the rockets of other terror groups.

It will be interesting to see if any news media outside Israel pick this evening's story up. To judge from past performance, they will not, because - as anyone paying attention knows - it's not news when Palestinian Arabs are hurt by other Arabs. To illustrate, take the killings less than a week ago of at least dozens of Palestinian Arabs in a 'refugee' camp located in Syria - see this State Dept press release. Barely made a ripple in the news.

It's especially not newsworthy when it's one of those "home-made rockets" (as the EU-funded GANSO website disingenuously refers to them) that crashes onto Gazan homes, as has happened dozens, if not hundreds, of times during 2012. Here's a fairly random selection of our postings in support of the claim:

• 18-Nov-12: Fell short? Not just the Hamas rockets but the ethics of the journalists covering them
• 8-Sep-12: Familiar routine: rocket and mortar attacks during Sabbath 
• 5-Jul-12: The terrorists of Gaza routinely mis-fire, dropping rockets on their Arab neighbors's heads. When do you hear about those self-inflicted injuries?
• 2-May-12: Terrorists' rocket falls short, crashes near security fence

[For the record, there's an additional report - carried by Ynet and published at about the same hour as the one above that says:

A rocket fired from the central Gaza Strip landed in an open area near Ashkelon for the first time since the end of Operation Pillar of Defense.

We suspect this is identical to the one that fell short, and will leave it to the IDF to confirm. That has not yet happened.]