There's a report this morning that last night, Saturday night, Israeli forces struck a Qassam-launch device in northern Gaza Saturday evening.
This is evidently connected to the fifty or sixty Qassams that have been fired into civilian parts of Israel during the past five days. Shortly after the IDF action, another Palestinian-Arab rocket fired from Gaza hit Israel, this time near Zikim, south of Ashkelon.
Without quoting sources, YNet says the IDF forces in the area "are now authorized to open fire at Palestinian rocket launching cells prior to, during or shortly after their attempt to fire Qassams" into Israel.
Leaving us to wonder why an army of national defence would ever hesitate to do these things in the first place. To be instructed to hold fire when their equipment and people catch terrorists caught in the act of preparing? That's beyond our understanding.
Meanwhile the goods crossings that allow food and other vitals to pass from Israel into Gaza were closed on Israeli order as soon as the Gazan barrages began this past Wednesday.
It would be nice to think that critics of this aspect of Israel's policy will mention the rocket attacks on Israeli towns. But past experience (see below) suggests they won't.
