20-Jul-11: And you, how well did you sleep last night?

Rubens: Two sleeping children (not Israeli)

Yet again, with the world's media and political analysts and thought leaders looking the other way.

A rocket - a flying device filled with explosives, capable of killing and maiming innocent civilians and destroying their homes, cars, schools, buses, centers of worship, shops and shelters - was fired by the terrorists of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into Israel during the dark hours of this past night.

Ynet says there are no injuries or damage. We say: let's remind ourselves that attacks by this form of deadly weapon are calculated to create fear and disturbance of the most profound kind among a civilian population. They have negligible effect on military forces. They are indiscriminate firings, with a history of producing deaths and destruction, and they are being initiated from a postage-stamp-sized territory ruled by an iron fist by a totalitarian and highly ideological regime intent on causing maximum harm to innocent people because of their innocence.

This is what makes it terrorism.

Israel's ambassador to the UN delivered an articulate statement today of the dangers we Israelis see from the increase in such firings across Israel's border. He writes that they "highlight the serious consequences that result from the illegal smuggling of arms into the Gaza Strip – an integral part of Security Council resolution 1860 that does not receive the attention that it deserves from the international community."

No one seriously expects either the Security Council or Mr Ban Ki-moon to do anything about this. Equally, almost no one recognizes that the failure to respond, or even to pay attention to the fact that it's happening, leaves Israel's authorities with no alternative but to deal with the terrorists themselves.