24-Oct-12: Toll of missiles fired into Israel passed eighty this afternoon; don't wait for the BBC to report it

Everything that the BBC's editors want their audience to know about events
in the area is on this page. The snapshot above was taken at 15:20 GMT on Wednesday October 24, 2012.

We tuned in to the BBC World Service news on the car radio thirty minutes ago and caught the 4:30 pm news bulletin. As expected, the latest developments in and around Gaza were among the chief stories, and rightly so.

And - as we have grown accustomed to hearing over the years - the BBC's emphasis in the reporting of what is happening tells people like us - on the ground in the Middle East, acutely aware of the missile warfare being waged from Gaza - approaches the story in a way that causes us to despair. Basically, it's upside down.

The BBC radio bulletin, more or less accurately reflected in a story that appears at this moment on its website, says:

Gaza militants killed in strikes following rocket fire    The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have carried out air strikes over Gaza City, killing at least four Hamas militants and injuring several other people. It comes after a night of rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel which injured at least three people. Two large explosions were also heard in Gaza on Wednesday morning. [More]

Those are the first three lines of the report. You can read further but you will see no mention of the dramatic events of today, Wednesday, a day in which more than eighty missiles, rockets and mortars were fired at civilian Israeli targets by the terror squads of Gaza under Hamas leadership and inspiration. No mention.

For those with an interest in what's being done to Israelis by the terrorist thugs, here are some updates.

After the rocket/mortar barrages of early this morning about which we wrote here earlier, there was a three hour pause in which the incoming firing from Gaza stopped.  By then, an estimated eighty (that's 80) rockets and mortars had crashed into Israeli territory and exploded, causing fear, damage, destruction and injury on a scale ranging from minor to critical. They were made up of a mix of made-in-Gaza Qassam rockets and military-grade Grad rockets, generally imported, that have a substantially greater range and larger warhead.

Times of Israel says the rocket assault continued just after midday when a single barrage of eight rockets was fired into the Hof Ashkelon region, and two more in the Eshkol region. The Iron Dome intercepted and destroyed yet another missile fired at the city of Ashkelon, adding to this morning's tally of seven. In all five people have been injured today to the point of needing hospitalization. The terrorization of the population of southern Israel is happening on a scale that affects a much larger number of civilians. School classes were cancelled across wide swathes of Israel's south today, and in many places residents were instructed by Civil Defence and IDF authorities to remain within 15 seconds of their “secure rooms” in case of further attacks.

If you know people who get their news from the BBC, you might do them a favour and share these reports with them, since it does not look like the editors at BBC World Service plan to give too much attention to the Israeli victims of this ongoing war of terror being waged against a beleagured Israeli civilian population.