April 2006: Missiles, Bombs, Explosives

The scene [source] in central Tel-Aviv on April 17 after a fast-food stand is attacked by Islamic
Jihad murderers. Nine innocent people are murdered in the outrage.

2006-04-30	Perfidious Hamas: Last Wednesday, 26th April, an attempt was made to drive a huge quantity of explosives into the Karni crossing between Israel and Palestinian-controlled Gaza. The goal was to kill Israelis - a replay of a deadly attack at Karni in January 2005 that took 6 Israeli lives. Today, it is revealed that the terror attack was master-minded by Ahmed Randur, the senior Hamas (government) figure in north Gaza. For an insightful analysis of what all this means, click here - offline copy here: "By showing its true face Hamas is sabotaging its own public relations campaign..." The Karni crossing has been closed repeatedly by the Israeli authorities in recent months due to military intelligence alerts of planned attacks - reports which are now shown to be accurate but which were repeatedly pooh-poohed in sneering terms by such luminaries as Chris McGreal writing in The Guardian. Stay tuned for The Guardian's apology (holding breath not advised).
2006-04-28	Missiles: Another four deadly Qassam missiles crash into Israeli territory today. Whether or not they kill and maim is largely accidental given the poor skills of those firing them, but there is no reason to doubt their desire to cause maximum mayhem. Which other country would tolerate even one such attack, let alone the dozens that have fallen weekly since Hamas took over next door?
2006-04-27	Missile Attack: As evening falls in Israel's western Negev, a Qassam rocket explodes near Kibbutz Sa'ad, a community in which hundreds of people live, work and go about the business of trying to stay alive. Informed news-consumers in most parts of the world may be surprised to know (since it's almost never reported in their mainstream media) that dozens such missiles have been fired into Israel monthly since the start of this year; 35 landed during the week of Passover alone. The fact that much of the time they fail to kill may explain why scant attention is paid to them. These odds somehow fail to calm the people living in the target zone.
2006-04-26	Attempted Murders: "Suicide" bombers have made 82 attempts at infiltrating the security barrier. And that's only since the start of 2006. And only in the vicinity of Jerusalem. This emerged in a hearing at the High Court of Justice reported today. Israel's justice system continues to patiently accept and hear legal petitions against the barrier or its path: 62 are currently pending, filling the court's docket and causing years of life-sapping delay in the construction of one of the most effective and proven ways of protecting innocent people on both sides of the fence.
2006-04-25	Perspective: It's Holocaust Memorial Day: how surprising that the Israeli military is dealing with 76 current and active terror warnings of which 20 are classified as 'concrete'?
2006-04-24	Caught: Acting on field intelligence, Israeli forces stop a terrorist just north of Jerusalem on his way into the capital to carry out an attack. Haaretz (and almost no one outside Israel) report this, adding that it comes "...amid a steep increase in the number of alerts for attacks planned by Fatah cells. Military sources said Sunday that it appeared that, for the first time, the number of Fatah-linked alerts is equal to, or even greater than, the number of alerts pertaining to planned operations by the Islamic Jihad." Note that Fatah answers to Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority. (Why is this analysis and news report buried in the recesses of blogs and minor news sources?!)
2006-04-23	Missile Attacks: Buried in one of the Israeli newspapers today and      barely reported elsewhere is the delayed disclosure (by the Israeli military) that a Katyusha artillery rocket was fired into Israeli civilian territory from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Friday. For most of us, Katyusha or Qassam - they're really all the same thing. But with a range of 15-30 kilometers and carrying a warhead of 20 kilograms, the Katyushas are considerably larger and deadlier than Qassam rockets - a significant escalation of lethality. The mainstream media meanwhile continue to report that the "truce" goes on, up is down and white is black.
2006-4-21	Bombers: In Dir Abu Def, just outside Jenin, Israeli security forces today intercept two members of Tanzim who are preparing to bomb a civilian target in Israel. This is totally unmentioned by any non-Israeli media. Tanzim are one of several terror groups affiliated with the mainstream Fatah political organization, led by Abbas, the Palestinian president.
2006-4-20	Missile Attacks: Almost entirely unreported, the steady barrage of rockets fired by Palestinian terrorists into civilian centers in Israel continues. During the week of Passover, ending today, 35 Qassam rockets landed on Israeli ground, mainly near the city of Ashkelon, every one of them intended to cause civilian deaths and injuries, every one constituting a casus belli (sufficient legal grounds to start a war against those who sent them). The barrage continues today in full force. The ongoing deadly attack remains ignored by media editors outside Israel. How can anyone understand Israeli military actions without knowing about the events that trigger them?
2006-04-17	Massacre: A 21 year-old Palestinian Arab man from the Jenin area explodes at the Rosh Ha'eer fast-food restaurant, next to Tel Aviv's Old Central Bus Station. The same restaurant had been bombed in Jan 2006 with no fatalities. This time 9 killed, 65 injured and maimed. Islamic Jihad proudly claims the credit. Government-controlled newspapers in Egypt (that has diplomatic relations and a 'cold peace' with Israel) are divided between those who condemn and those who praise the terror attack. The Hamas government faces no such difficulty, declaring the Palestinian Arabs "have the will and the right to defend themselves and to confront as much as they can the arrogances of the occupation". (Both Islamic Jihad and Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claim credit for this massacre.)
2006-04-14	Rocket: A Qassam launched from northern Gaza lands near Kibbutz Yad Mordechai's dining room while members are at dinner. The building is damaged and the al-Quds Brigades claim the credit. Some two hundred (repeat: 200) Qassam rockets have fallen on the grounds of the kibbutz (6 km south of the city of Ashkelon) in the past few months. Is anyone paying attention?