This Ongoing War: A Blog: 24-Dec-08: In southern Israel, it's raining rockets

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

24-Dec-08: In southern Israel, it's raining rockets

For its own good reasons, the Hamas regime is fully engaged in a strategy of steady terrorist escalation against Israeli civilians. The result is that today, the first really cold and rainy winter day of the season, has been violent and deeply worrying.

The New York Times version of today's turbulence along the southern border of Israel with Gaza says that the terrorists of Gaza

"...increased the range and intensity of their rocket fire against Israel Wednesday as the Israeli security cabinet weighed options that include broader military action or efforts to renew a truce that recently expired. More than 60 rockets and mortars were fired at southern Israel by the afternoon... [They] slammed into the Israeli border town of Sderot, the yard of a house and a water park in the coastal city of Ashkelon, an Israeli factory at Nir Oz near the Gaza border, and hit a house outside the Western Negev town of Netivot. The strikes caused extensive damage and widespread panic among the residents... Scores of adults and children were treated for shock, the emergency medical service said."

Tonight's television news programs are reporting that, while Israel's military is primed and ready to intervene and silence the rocket launchers, and now has a green light to go ahead from the Israeli cabinet, efforts are still underway to try to avoid the bloodshed that will inevitably follow once the IDF is unleashed.

UPDATE Thursday 25-Dec-08 8:00am: The Jerusalem Post summary of yesterday's Hamas mayhem says: "The IDF received the green light Wednesday for a series of operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, after more than 60 mortar shells and Katyusha and Kassam rockets pounded the Negev. The barrage hit communities throughout the south, reaching as far north as Ashkelon and as far south as Kerem Shalom. At least two Grad-model Katyusha rockets were fired into Ashkelon on Wednesday, and a Kassam with extended range hit Netivot.... The terrorists hit close to educational facilities and homes. Nearly 60 people, almost half of them children or teenagers, were treated for emotional trauma and anxiety.

Haaretz now says Wednesday's toll was "more than 80 rockets and mortar shells into Israel".

To see our child's killer brought to justice and face Federal terrorism charges in a Washington DC court, two things need to happen.

One: The US has to explain to Jordan the imperative of the Hashemite Kingdom complying with its legal obligations under the 1995 Jordan/US Extradition Treaty whose validity Jordan has disingenuously denied since March 2017.

Two: Jordan must arrest Ahlam Tamimi who has lived free in Jordan's capital since 2011 and hand her to US law enforcement officials who will put her on a flight to the US.

You can help (even if you are not a US citizen) by signing our petition. We hope you will. Go to

change.org/ExtraditeTamimi

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THIS ONGOING WAR is not part of the activity of the Malki Foundation which was founded by us, Frimet and Arnold Roth of Jerusalem, on September 11, 2001. But it is inspired by the same tragic circumstances. The Malki Foundation (also known by its Hebrew name: Keren Malki) is a memorial to the life of our daughter, Malki who was murdered at the age of 15 in a massacre in the centre of Jerusalem carried out by Hamas.

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