20-Feb-12: Another rocket attack on southern Israel in the past hour [UPDATED}

One or two rockets have crashed into southern Israel in the past hour (it's now 1:50 am), according to the latest twitter from the IDF. (Israel's major news channels have not yet reported it.) The source of course is the terrorists in the rocket-rich Gaza Strip, and the target of course is anything Israeli or Jewish. They don't care - they simply fire in the general direction, which is one of the reasons we justifiably refer to them as terrorists. [Monday morning UPDATE: Ynet is now reporting it was two Qassam rockets.]

It seems likely the IDF will be going into assault mode before the sun rises again.

Earlier on Sunday, the Jerusalem Post carried reports of mounting calls within the IDF’s Southern Command, which has responsibility for Israel's Gaza border and the troubles we suffer there, to launch an offensive against the terrorist regime of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, because of the continuing rocket attacks over the weekend.

Readers who don't track such matters via blogs like this one are likely to be taken by surprise. Rocket attacks on southern Israel, for reasons that leave plenty of room for speculation, are almost never covered by the mainstream news media outside this country. For the record, 680 rockets and mortar shells were fired into Israel in 2011, including 80 long-range Grad-model Katyusha rockets. By comparison, in 2010 there were two Grad attacks. Since the beginning of 2012, nearly 30 rockets have already been fired into Israel. No one would put up with this. No one should.