03-Jan-18: Wednesday rocket fire on southern Israel - and more Fell Shorts

Far from reporters' eyes and awareness, the southern half of Israel has come under rocket attack three five times in the past several days. In chronological order:

• On Friday, as we noted at the time ["29-Dec-17: Midday rockets from Gaza: two are intercepted in the air, one lands inside Israel"] three somethings (maybe mortars, maybe rockets - Israeli reports are divided, no one else cares) were lobbed into southern Israel in an attempt, it is speculated, to disrupt a well-attended ceremony for the missing-believed-killed IDF soldier Oren Shaul "whose remains are being held by Hamas in the coastal enclave" in the words of a Times of Israel report today. Two were intercepted in mid-air by Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile defense system. The third crashed into an Israeli community causing some building damage. It was announced yesterday (Tuesday) that the IDF has concluded that Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group serving as a well-armed proxy for the Iranian military carried out the attack.
• The on Monday night (not reported by us), a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip at anything Israeli crashed into an open field in the Eshkol region. Neither injuries nor damage resulted which was not and never is the intention of the terrorists doing the firing.
• This afternoon (Wednesday), a mortar fired from the Gaza Strip crashed into a field in the Eshkol region according to Times of Israel which says the IDF's early-detection systems spotted the launch as it happened but the site of its impact is still being sought. No Tzeva Adom (Red Alert) warnings were sounded, evidently indicating that once the trajectory was known, it was calculated not to be heading towards a populated area. For its part, Ynet says there were two rockets this afternoon: one around 2 pm, the other around 3:30 pm. (We see now that Times of Israel agrees.) Both crashed into the Eshkol region, and in neither case was there significant property damage or any injuries.

Several additional rocket and mortar firings during these past few days fell on top of Gazan homes and land and perhaps people. They're what we know as Fell Shorts. The Arab side never reports these, perhaps out of embarrassment. It's exceedingly rare for them to be mentioned at all by the major news syndication agencies like Reuters, AFP and Associated Press.

This is a pity because, as we see it, nothing expresses contempt for the lives and well-being of Gaza's Palestinian Arab population more clearly than the steady stream of rockets that fall short and land in their midst.

Victims of the property damage and of the injuries that follow are right out of luck, because no news reporters come to hear their stories. For Gaza's Hamas rulers, if no one knows about the Fell Shorts, they never happened. Click Fell Short to see that we have reported on close to a hundred such own-goals.

UPDATE Wednesday January 3, 2018 at 6:05pm: There's been a third Gaza-on-Israel firing - maybe a mortar, maybe a rocket. Times of Israel says unlike the two earlier attacks today, this latest one triggered the Color Red sirens indicating that there must have been a perceived danger to people and communities. As always, the rocket-persons can reliably be expected to continue until they're forcibly stopped.