21-Oct-08: Doing what they do best

Israel is ending three weeks of high holy days and pleasant festival dates tonight with the end of Tabernacles. A perfect time for the neighbourhood practitioners of terror to remind us they are still around:

Last update - 20:31 21/10/2008
Gaza militants fire Qassam into W. Negev after month-long lull
By Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Correspondent
Gaza militants fired a Qassam rocket into the western Negev Tuesday evening, for the first time in over a month, in violation of a cease fire agreement between Israel Hamas, signed in mid-June. The rocket struck an open area near Nativ Ha'asara. No injuries or damage were reported. Defense Minister Ehud Barak consulted his advisors and security officials following the strike, and later announced his decision to shut down the border crossings between Israel and the Strip in response. This decision is in keeping with Israel's routine response to Qassam fire underscoring the message that rockets result in closed borders.

The most recent terror-missile strike on Israel happened a little over a month ago, on September 14, when a Qassam rocket hit the western Negev town of Sderot, sparking a fire on a construction site. The Al-Quds Brigades, an operating unit of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, announced responsibility for that terror attack. (Their orders mainly come from Syria.) Another missile attack failed a few days later - the explosive device fell inside the Hamas Gaza zone where no one (on their side or in the media) pays much attention to the damage or injuries.

An Arab source published earlier this week said the same terror group lost another in a long line of paradise-bound operatives in an explosion-handling 'work accident' in Gaza (his funeral is depicted above), quickly reminding its readers that Al-Quds "fighters will continue their resistance against the Israeli occupation until liberation and Independence for the Palestinian people."

One of its more prominent killers was quoted in a different report last week announcing plans to get married in a few days time, boasting that he had just "completed a lengthy and intensive training program... In any case, our first priority is the battle against the enemy and the jihad."

Israel has seen a significant decline in the number of rockets fired into its territory from the Gaza Strip by the Palestinian Arab terrorists since a cease-fire in this ongoing war went into effect on 19th June. Not a cessation, of course, but a definite reduction. For those counting, there have been about twenty reported missile attacks on Israel since the lull began.

Constant Israeli vigilance and military preparedness are indispensable tools when your neighbourhood is characterized, as ours is, by a culture of religiously-inspired terror, murder and vengeance.