22-Oct-12: Monday morning rocket barrage on southern Israel

Between 06:00 and 06:30 this morning (Monday), a barrage of at least four rockets crashed and exploded in  southern Israel's Hof Ashkelon region. Far from being empty desert as frequently portrayed in the news media, Hof Ashkelon encompasses some nineteen communities comprising five kibbutzim (Gevaram, Karmia, Nitzanim, Yad Mordechai and Zikim), eleven moshavim (co-operative agricultural communities), and the towns of Bat Hadar, Nitzan and the Kfar Silver youth village. No one is reported injured as a result of this latest attack. The terrifying Tzeva Adom incoming missile warning system sounded repeatedly at about the hour that most school children in the area would have been rising or making their way to school buses.

If there is a military target which the Gazan terrorists were trying to destroy somewhere in the vicinity, then it's difficult to know which, since the area is almost entirely agricultural fields, homes and light industry. It's the home of Kibbutz Yad Mordechai's famous beehives (established there in 1936) and honey, fruit jam and olive oil business that supplies supermarkets throughout Israel and beyond.

Come to think of it, the notion that dry fields, sandy soil and collective hard work have provided a basis for a thriving industry and community for three quarters of a century, within a short distance (a stone's throw) from  the despairing hovels of Gaza must indeed be a serious threat - to the vicious control imposed on their people by the thugs of Hamas.