6-Jul-12: You thought this morning would be rocket-free? The attacks, mostly unreported, are a constant

The Color Red (Tzeva Adom) incoming-rocket warning system sounded its frightening wail yet again this morning (Friday) between 6 and 7, followed soon after by a report that a rocket had crashed into the Shaar Hanegev region of southern Israel. 

At this stage, it appears, without our being certain, that this attack on civilian targets, like so many before it, resulted in the sowing of fear and panic without, thankfully, causing property damage or human injury or worse. This is of course small comfort to the 6,000 residents of the area impacted this morning who need to cope not only with the ongoing and unpredictable physical threats but with the general outside apathy that accompanies the thousands (!) of such rocket firings that have been their lot in the past years. 

That's the situation in the south. In the north, the authorities appear to be engaged again in a war of words with the notoriously deaf terrorists sitting just across our border with Lebanon. JPost refers to a hitherto-unreported incident last week in which a small force of soldiers from the IDF's Paratroop Brigade were patrolling the border and spotted Lebanese troops positioned a meters 20 meters away on the other side of the fence. The Lebanese were aiming their weapons, including a rocket-propelled grenade, at them. An Arabic-speaking IDF soldier heard the Lebanese commander dividing up targets for his men. The Israeli soldiers called for backup that rapidly arrived on the scene and the Lebanese withdrew, avoiding an unwanted escalation. 

Brig.-Gen. Herzi Halevy, who headed the Paratroop Brigade during Operation Cast Lead in 2009, is quoted in today's Jerusalem Post warning the terrorists in Lebanon that Israel will take immediate air and ground action in a future war that, in his words, would cause “extensive damage, not as a punishment but rather to hit the enemy where it is... The damage will be far greater [in Lebanon] than the Second Lebanon War”.

Meanwhile the rockets in the south keep coming. Perhaps the terrorists don't read our newspapers.