29-Mar-18: High alert for yet more uninvited visitors - this time in Beer Sheva

Police check driver identities in Beer Sheva today [Image Source]

Israel Police announced earlier today (Thursday) the existence of a potential “security incident” in Beer Sheva, as they sent in police reinforcements, according to a Ynet flash around 2:30 this afternoon.

They set up roadblocks and patrolled the city from above by helicopter. Times of Israel said very shortly afterwards that a suspected would-be terrorist and his alleged accomplice are in custody following a manhunt in the area, but there is no confirmation from the police as we write this (3:30 pm).

The police have not yet specified the nature of the threat posed by the suspects.

This is playing out after the spate of infiltrations about which we reported just a few hours ago ["29-Mar-18: Unwanted visitors on Israel's Gaza border"] and just before a major security-centered event that Hamas is orchestrating on the border fence separating the Gaza Strip which it occupies and controls tightly, and Israel.

21-Oct-16: If a mass-casualty, Arab-on-Israeli plot is thwarted in time, is it still terrorism?

The targeted wedding hall, as it appears on its website

People who have experienced terrorism the hardest way - personally, like us - tend to pay more attention than most others to acts of terror that don't get all the way to fruition. Also: to the way the news reporting industry tends to focus serious attention on stories where there is actual human blood resulting from terror attacks and incomparably less attention where blood is absent and the terrorists are thwarted before their evil plans make the transition from potential to hideous reality.

Unless you follow the Israeli news-reporting media closely, it's unlikely you will know that a mass-murder plot, energetically pursued by a gang of Palestinian Arab terrorists, failed to happen recently. That's because - other than in parts of the Israeli news channels - there has been almost no news-report attention paid to it. Not enough blood.

Yesterday (Thursday), indictments were filed against several Palestinian Arabs in the same Be'er Sheva district court where the ongoing legal process against a senior World Vision manager is underway. (Other than the charge that terrorism was the goal in both prosecutions, the two seem to be unrelated.)

The allegations against the accused men are that they formed themselves into a terrorist ring, and planned to launch a mass-casualty attack at a strategic Israeli target, with an emphasis on the greatest possible number of Israeli casualties.

As has been the case with most terror assaults on Israelis in the past, the targets, while certainly strategic, were rarely military. Or guarded. Or connected to the government or to the police or to figures of authority. For instance, from a quick random selection:

• An armed assault on a rickety old passenger bus traveling from Tel Aviv to Eilat in Israel's south on March 17, 1954 - the Scorpion Pass killings in which 11 unarmed travelers were shot to death at point blank range;
• A murderous attack on a synagogue in Kfar Chabad filled with children, in April 1956 (three children and a youth worker were killed, many others injured); 
• Two civilian hikers climbing the rocky desert path to the ancient site of Masada on April 27, 1959  - shot and killed by Arabs;
• From their vantage point on the Old City ramparts, armed soldiers of the Jordanian army took pot-shots at civilian Israelis on the streets of the impoverished Jerusalem neighborhood of Musrara on May 31, 1965, killing two civilians at very close range - one of them a 14 year-old schoolgirl, Yaffa Binyamin, and wounding four others.

All these, from a much longer list, are from the pre-1967 period. So the nonsense about Palestinian Arab terror being a response to "occupation" need not unduly trouble us.

In the years since, Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks have been directed at civilian aircraft and their passengers; airports; athletes at the Olympics; guests attending a Bar Mitzvah celebration; guests standing outside a Bar Mitzvah celebration; people strolling in city squares; school buses and the children on-board; pizzerias and their young customers; movie theatres and their patrons; restaurants and their diners; passenger buses and the commuters on board; a discotheque and the people lined up outside before coming in; houses of worship; schools and their school-children; hotels; students in a university cafeteria; bombs placed to exploded inside cafes, outside cafes and on and on.

The notion of strategic targets has a wide and varied meaning in the context of Arab-on-Israeli terror. Here's what Israel National News has reported on this latest chapter in the chronicles of that generations-long savagery.

It has been cleared for publication that a terror ring that had been planning a mass terror attack at an event hall in southern Israel has been arrested... Mahmoud Yusef Hassin Abu Taha of Khan Yunis in Gaza, who was arrested last month for trying to pass into Israel, revealed upon investigation that he stood at the head of an Islamic Jihad-affiliated organization in the Gaza Strip that had planned to carry out a number of attacks... Mahmoud had been drafted by Wael Sufyan Abu Taha, a senior operative of Islamic Jihad living in Gaza, who instructed Mahmoud to set up a terror infrastructure for carrying out attacks. Mahmoud didn’t hesitate, and drafted three more. One of them, a Gaza resident who had been residing in Israel illegally, was employed at the event hall for which the terror attack was planned... [F]or the purposes of preparing the attack, the terror group leader and employee of the hall undertook an initial check of the scene of the planned attack, according to which they were able to consolidate and ensure that a maximum number of people were murdered in the attack...

And the second part of the plan:

The ring had also been planning to capture and murder a soldier so as to use his body as a bargaining chip... Abu Taha planned an attack whereby a soldier would be captured and murdered - and his body used as a bargaining chip. To this end, he received thousands of shekels to rent an Israeli apartment - to where the soldier would be lured and murdered - to bury his body in the area and to transfer his belongings to Gaza - for the purposes of bargaining with Israel.

And this detail:

[T]hey planned to throw grenades into a crowd of dancers celebrating at the... events hall and to use weapons they would hide in trash cans ahead of the attack before fleeing the scene. They also considered detonating pipe bombs concealed under the dining tables.

Israel-based i24news names the other allegedly-terror-minded members of the busted cell:

55-year-old Shafiq Ahmad Hamad Abu Taha, who resided in Israeli illegally, 39-year-old Ahmed Tisir Abdulrahman Abu Taha from Gaza, who also resided in Israel illegally, and 40-year-old Hani Masood Nasir Abu Amra, originally from Deir al-Balah in Gaza, who lived in Israeli with temporary resident status through marriage by way of the "family reunification" law.

The four indicted Abu Taha terror-gang members make an appearance
in Beer Sheva District Court yesterday [Image Source]

Four members' names make clear they are related as members of the notorious Abu Taha clan. Some of the highlights of their activities are mentioned in this article ("Five Killed and Seven Injured in Armed Clan Clashes in Khan Yunis") from 2006.

A report in Haaretz says the one non-Abu Taha in the list, the one whose marriage gave him residency rights, has been living in Tel Sheva, a neighbourhood of Beer Sheva. (We wrote a personal note about it here.) That report goes on to make an astute observation that

The Shin Bet said the affair shows the way terrorist groups exploit entry permits into Israel, which are granted for humanitarian and economic reasons; as well as the danger of the terrorists' use of Palestinians who are residing in Israel illegally.

Things might have changed by the time you look, but when we searched Google for news stories that mention the men charged with terrorism yesterday, the only reports we could see [here] are Israeli or serve a specifically-Jewish readership. Knowing, as Israelis, that there are men, and surely women too, out there conspiring daily to attack our wedding halls and public and private places and to kill as many of us as they can, while the mainstream news-reporting industry politely turns away, is deeply disturbing.

You sometimes hear people dismiss outrage over jihadism and Islamist via the idiotic aphorism "One person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter." A much more meaningful observation might be: "One person's terrorist is another's non-story." That reflects the threat much more accurately.

Apathy, distance and agenda-driven journalistic reporting mean that not enough people are willing to look and see what terror is, and what its practitioners seek to do. That enlarges the danger to all of us.

18-Jan-16: May it be Your will...

Source: Kolech

Dafna Meir was stabbed to death Sunday at the door of the Otniel home she and her husband Natan made for their family of four biological children and two additional children they fostered. The killer is still on the run.

Mrs Meir was a nurse - which in Israeli hospitals always means nursing patients who are Jewish, Moslem, Christian and whoever else needs nursing - and a guide to many. She also managed to write a blog (in Hebrew, naturally enough), Women's Ways.

There, she published a prayer she had composed while studying for an exam in the Neurosurgery department at Beer Sheva's Soroka Hospital where she worked. That prayer has today been rendered into English (sincere thanks to Rochel Sylvetsky-Tabak)
and was originally published earlier today on the Israel National News site.

We hope it is copied and conveyed widely.

May it be Your Will, Creator of the world, He Who manages it with mercy and loving kindness, to grant me the ability to give medications to Your people in need of salvation, and also to the members of other nations who are in the devoted care of your faithful messengers, who continue their holy work day and night, on the Sabbath and holidays, without letup.
Grant that I understand, remember and realize, that the medications are a gift from You, and their efficacy is Your message to us.
Grant that I view and feel joy at their beneficial influence of the medications I, mercifully, can give those who are ill.
Grant me the ability to concentrate when giving out these medicines, to understand the way each acts on disease.
Grant that I notice in time any of my errors or those of my colleagues when handing out medications, and that I act quickly to correct the errors before the medication enters the body of the patient.
Grant that I act with modesty, learn and teach others about the successes and failures in giving medication.
Grant that I give medications to the sick from a position of good health and that I remember to be grateful that I myself do not have to take them.
Grant that I learn to have empathy, although in good health, with the patient's suffering and help him with all my ability every day and every hour, using the tools that You have given me.
Amen.

May her memory be as a blessing.

And see "Sometimes I feel we are in a game of Russian Roulette" which Dafna Meir Z"L wrote recently about her thoughts on security and danger. That too was translated by Rochel Sylvetsky-Tabak.

24-Dec-15: A thwarted stabbing assault near Hebron

At Tzomet Hakvasim (in English: Sheep Junction; also called Tzomet Ha'ari) on Route 60 near the Beit Hagai community in the South Hebron hills area, a Palestinian Arab male launched a stabbing attack this morning on soldiers manning the security checkpoint located there.

(Route 60 is better known to Israelis as "Way of the Patriarchs" (Hebrew: דרך האבות‎) since, as Wikipedia describes, it follows the path of the ancient highway running the length of Israel's central watershed and plays a role in the travels of the Biblical patriarchs. Today's Route 60 runs north/south between Beer Sheva in Israel's Negev desert all the way to Nazareth in the Galilee.)

Kvasim has some heavy history: the service men were surely aware that three of their IDF colleagues had been killed at the same spot on January 23, 2003 in a shooting attack for which both Hamas and Fatah/PA/PLO improbably claimed 'credit'. The Hebrew name Tzomet Ha'Ari pays homage to the Hebrew names of the three fallen soldiers:  אסף ביטן, רון ברד ויעקב נעים - Asaf, Ron, Yaakov).

The security checkpoint was removed by decision of the government of Israel in 2008 (reported here) and then reinstated some time later.

The assailant's weapon of choice in this morning's Kvasim attack was a screwdriver was shot and killed near the West Bank city of Hebron Thursday morning, the Israeli military said. He "approached a checkpoint near Hebron and attempted to stab the security forces", says Times of Israel's report. He was shot by IDF fire before doing any serious harm, and died of his wounds at the scene.

Ma'an News Agency identifies the failed knifer as Eiad Jamal Issa Ideis 25 (and elsewhere as Eyad Jamal Ed’eis, 26; and as Eyad Edeasat) from the town of of Yatta, located close to the scene of the attack. We assume posters announcing his elevation to martyrdom - the underlying justification and 'reward' for such pointless aggression - are being printed as we write this. In parts of the Arabic-language social media (here for instance), the attempted killer is said to have been "executed in cold blood by Israeli forces".

Fortunately, no Israelis were injured in this incident. It came less than an hour after another knifing assault near Ariel, with more serious consequences to the Israeli targets, as we reported here.

14-Nov-15: Friday's lethal attack destroyed an Israeli family preparing for their daughter's wedding

Site of the Friday afternoon murders, near Otniel [Image Source: EPA]

Some additional aspects of the tragedy ["13-Nov-15: Again: Israeli lives extinguished by Pal Arab terrorists"] we reported here Friday afternoon, just before the peace and spirituality of the Sabbath arrived.

Times of Israel reports that Rabbi Ya’akov Litman, 40, and his son Netanel, 18, were murdered in the shooting attack around 3:00 pm Friday near the Jewish community of Otniel. They along with other members of the family, residents of the Kiryat Arba community, were driving from their home to Meitar, near Be'er Sheva, for what sounds to us, from the vague description in the news reports, to be a Shabbat Hatan, the celebration of the upcoming wedding (set for November 17) of their daughter and sister. She was evidently not in the family van. Instead of a welcome, joyous and presumably long-awaited celebration, the Litmans and their family and friends have had to arrange a funeral for the father and son in Jerusalem tonight.

The other family members in the van were the wife and mother, a 16-year-old son and three young daughter aged 11, 9 and 5, according to Haaretz. All were lightly hurt with bruises and shrapnel injuries. Based on our familiarity with Jewish custom, the fourth daughter preparing for her wedding was very likely spending the Shabbat in or near her home with friends.

Haaretz says the gunman was waiting by the side of the road for any Israeli vehicle to drive by. Investigators found 14 bullets had been fired at the Litmans. The shooter fled, and a search has been underway since last night, focusing on the Palestinian Arab towns of Yatta and Dhahiriya.

Times of Israel says Ya’akov Litman, the driver, was wounded by the gun fire, swerved into the opposite lane, and crashed into rocks at the side of the road. Netanel called rescue services but was then also shot dead. A Channel 2 news report quoted by the news site says that after this, one of the gunmen came closer and fired additional bullets after killing the father and son.

A younger son then called the Magen David Adom hotline to report the attack, reporting as well that a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance had just driven past the scene of the attack, and had deliberately ignored them and failed to stop. (Israel is said to be filing a protest with the International Committee of the Red Cross about this. Israelis are holding their breaths waiting for a robust response from Geneva. Not.) Haaretz says the MDA team reached the scene soon afterwards, pronounced the father and son dead at the scene, and rushed the other family members to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva.

There are reports tonight that the murders were celebrated publicly by Hamas via social media.

25-Oct-15: A day in the life of a society under siege

From the Metzad community's website 

Not a quiet day here.

• At about 10:00 this morning (Sunday), an Israeli driving his vehicle near Metzad, a community in the Gush Etzion area, came under rock attack. He exited the vehicle for reasons about which we can speculate and was approached by one man or two who might have been dressed in clothing that made them look like Haredi Jews (those details are un-confirmed), one of whom attacked him with a knife, inflicting serious stabbing wounds and injuring him. The attackers fled, and are being pursued at this moment. The victim, aged about 58, was taken conscious by MDA ambulance to Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem with stab wounds to the upper body and trauma injuries to the head from being hit by a hurled rock. [Info source: Israel National News]
• Just before 10:00 am this morning, a Palestinian Arab passing through Tapuah Junction in Samaria was stopped for questioning by Border Police and was found to have a concealed knife on his person. There's an understandable reluctance to accept 'explanations' these days, and he was promptly arrested and taken in for questioning. [Info source: Israel National News]
• Around 1:30 pm today (Sunday), Israeli security forces foiled yet another stabbing attack, this time at a checkpoint in Hebron adjacent to the ancient Tomb of the Patriarchs. The attacker, a Palestinian Arab woman who pulled a knife at the site, was shot and died of her injuries. She failed in inflicting harm on the Israelis at the site. Hers will not be the last such attempt. [Info source: Times of Israel] For the record, the unsuccessful and thwarted stabbing attack is reported in a sadly familiar way by the Palestinian Arab Ma'an News Agency today: "Israeli border police shot and killed a Palestinian women in Hebron city near the Ibrahimi Mosque in the southern occupied West Bank, witnesses said." True and factual, but incomplete, entirely free of meaningful context and calculated to mislead. 
• Early this morning, police arrested an Arab male traveling on an inter-city bus who was overheard saying he intended to become a shahid, or martyr. He had boarded the bus on Route 90 near Kibbutz Gesher, several kilometers south of Tiberias. When the bus reached Tiberias, he was arrested, and removed. Police then found a knife and a kippa (Jewish-style skull-cap) in his possession. But after interrogation, the police released him, issuing a statement that they were satisfied he had not been planning to carry out a terror attack.
• Important revelations arising from the fatal attack (one Israeli killed, 10 injured) at Be'er Sheva's central bus station exactly a week ago (on Sunday October 18, 2015), carried out by Muhanad Al-Aqabi (also writtem Al-Okabi), 21, an Israeli citizen from Hura. It now emerges from the ongoing enquiry that Al-Aqabi, who was killed by security personnel in the course of his attack, had maintained contact with terrorists in the service of Hamas prior to mounting the terror assault. Israel National News reports today that he had images of Hamas terrorists, weapons and other materials on his mobile phone. The new data discovered by police indicates the attack was planned with Hamas.
• Around 5:15 pm, according to an unpublished report. there was another stabbing attack at Tapuah Junction, the second of the day. The victim suffered stab wounds to the chest, causing him serious-to-critical injuries. The attacker fled and we assume is being pursued. (We see that Times of Israel is reporting on a stabbing at about the same time, but at Ariel Junction, near the Samarian city of Ariel. For the moment, we assume the two reports are referring to the same attack.)

The day goes on.

10-Oct-15: Bloody Saturday and Hamas says "we intend to join in"

[Source]

Shabbat ended here in Jerusalem about four hours ago. The sirens of police and emergency vehicles throughout the night and day ensured that the drama unfolding in this city was never far from most people's thoughts, notwithstanding the specialness of the day and its message of peace.

A survey of the day's events:

• Around the middle of this morning, two Jewish men, wearing the traditional black Sabbath garb that marks them as belonging to the Haredi sector, were attacked while walking home from Sabbath prayers at a local synagogue in the Nevi'im Street neighbourhood of Jerusalem adjoining the Old City. Medics who rushed to the scene found both men "on their feet... conscious and in stable condition", according to a Times of Israel report. One was moderately injured while other other sustained light wounds. Both, suffering from stab wounds to the upper part of the body, were rushed to Shaare Zedek Medical Center for emergency treatment. Police arriving at the site of the attack "saw the terrorist with a knife in his hand and called on him to halt. The terrorist ran towards them with his weapon and the two cocked their weapons, fired at him and neutralized him. The attacker was identified as Ishak Badran of Kafr Aqab in East Jerusalem." His life ended at the age of 16. In the Palestinian Arab media, they're saluting him today as "the child martyr". A photograph doing the rounds today on Twitter [here] purports to show him holding the knife before police did what they had to do:

[Image Source]

• A second knifing attack in Jerusalem happened around 3:45 pm at Damascus Gate in the Old City. A police statement says two Border Police officers on patrol in the area noticed a Palestinian Arab male acting suspiciously. They asked him for identification and in the course of handing over his ID card, he pulled out a knife and stabbed one officer in the neck. Other nearby service personnel saw the attack and opened fire, killing the attacker, but also accidentally hitting two Israeli officers, one seriously. The dead terrorist is named as Muhammad Saed Ali, 19, from Shuafat in North Jerusalem. According to a Reuters report tonight, Hamas has issued a statement saying the attacker (Reuters calls him a shooter) "was one of its members. "The hero martyr fought the Israeli occupation with language they understand," Hamas said." That's interesting; perhaps the editors at The Guardian, always careful not to take sides in such matters unless it's to castigate Israel, ought to mention it some place, because right now they are telling their news consumers that Mr Ali "was shot dead after Israeli police alleged that he stabbed two police officers." Do you think the Islamist thugs of Hamas might be offended by the Guardian's squeamishness? We certainly hope so.
• Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system batteries were emplaced in Ofakim and Be'er Sheva (both of them are cities in Israel's south) today after two separate rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip during Friday night. The first of the attacks consisted of two Israel-bound rockets fired late Friday night - both failed to get as far as Israeli territory and crashed into people or property inside the Gaza Strip, with zero news reporting about the outcome, which is what normally happens with Fell Shorts. A second attack, at about 1:00 am Saturday morning, resulted in a crash landing in an open area in the Eshkol region, close to the border fence with Gaza. Fortunately no injuries or damage, but that, as we keep saying here, was never the intention of the terrorists who have death and destruction on their minds and in their prayers.
• Related to that last note: William Booth, writing for the Washington Post on Friday ["Gazans join in widespread violence sweeping Israel", Washington Post, October 9, 2015] said: "Palestinians in Gaza joined in angry protests sweeping across Israel and the West Bank, rushing Israel’s perimeter fence and throwing stones at soldiers, who shot and killed six Gaza residents and wounded 60, many of whom were in serious condition, according to the Health Ministry. The clash at the Gaza fence marks the highest death toll in the coastal enclave since last year’s war between Hamas and Israel. After Friday prayers in Gaza, the leader of the Islamist militant movement Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, declared that a third Palestinian uprising, or intifada, had begun “and we intend to join in.”
• Over at the Wall Street Journal, Haniyeh is quoted differently but no less savagely: "A leader of Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules in the Gaza Strip, spoke in support of the attacks on Israelis. Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas politician, in a sermon on Friday called for “the strengthening and increasing of the intifada,” saying Gaza was “ready for confrontation."
• Incoming rocket warnings are sounding as we write this. The area under attack appears to be Ashkelon, a coastal city in southern Israel within a few seconds' rocket-firing distance from the terror-infested Gaza Strip. Initial indication [at 11:20 pm] - a successful mid-air intercept, which means the trajectory of the terrorists' rocket was calculated to be threatening to lives or property in the target area. There are also reports that Hamas has in the past few minutes been threatening (via its media channels) to launch additional rockets with longer-range targets as their goal.
• Earlier this evening, we learned the government of Israel has issued emergency call-up notices (in Hebrew: Tzav 8) to three Border Police reserves units. They are expected to be deployed in and around Jerusalem.
• There have been violent riots and clashes in Ramleh, Shuafat (North Jerusalem), Taibe.
• We are scanning reports throughout the evening of Arab rock-hurling attacks on Israeli buses and cars, as well as firebombings in a number of dispersed locations throughout Israel. 

More coming.

09-Oct-15: The wave of terror attacks goes on

In the aftermath of this morning's murderous attack on an Israeli in the
Kiryat Arba community, the assailant's knife and blood are left behind
after the victim is taken to hospital and the attacker is shot dead [Image Source]

The coordinated eruption of rock-hurlings, stabbings, shootings and assaults by Arabs on Israelis continues in full force today, Friday.

We heard a commentator on BBC's Outside Source, reporting from the Mount of Olives an hour ago, call them lone-wolf attacks (she may also have slipped the word "alleged" into the sentence to flesh out the effect of her political korrectness) but they are nothing of the sort - unless wolves take their orders via shrill voices broadcasting messages of hate-based incitement via the social media and in mosques and prayer rooms.

The direction of the reporting, at a time when Arab-on-Jew attacks are happening at a furious pace throughout the country, is reflected in the precisely-worded lede of a major BBC report at this hour:

Israelis and Palestinians have been injured in a fresh spate of stabbings, including what Israeli police say was an apparent revenge attack on Arabs... The attacks come amid soaring tensions between Israelis and Palestinians...  ["Israelis and Palestinians injured in new stabbing attacks", uploaded to BBC's website around 3:00 pm Friday]

Here's an incomplete summary as of 2:30 pm Friday:

• An Arab woman attacked a security guard with her knife in Afula's bus station around 2:00 pm this afternoon. (Another knifing attack was launched on one of Afula's main streets just last night.) The guard was unarmed according to this report, though he was part of the team responsible for safeguarding passengers moving through this northern city's main transit hub. Friday early afternoon is one of the week's two major public transport rush-hours throughout Israel. Friday is the start of the weekend in Israel, and many travelers want to be at their destination before the sun sets signifying the start of the Sabbath, The attacker, evidently a resident of the predominantly Arab Israeli city of Nazareth, whose name is reported as Asraa Zidan Tawfik Abed, was stopped with a bullet fired by one of two IDF soldiers (says Jerusalem Post), one male, one female, who fired at her legs and brought her down but did not kill her (this is not Syria or Jordan). The knife-woman is now in Afula's Ha'emek Hospital getting the best treatment that Israeli medicine can offer. We wish her a speedy recovery and a very long prison sentence. The guard's selfless actions almost certainly saved lives today.
• In the southern city of Dimona, a Jewish youth of 17 stabbed four Arabs this morning. BBC calls them "two Israeli Bedouins and two Palestinians". The attacks occurred at a shopping center and nearby. A security guard tackled the knife-wielding Israeli and held him till police arrived to arrest him. This Jew-on-Arab attack has caused an uncommon amount of consternation. News reporters often search high and low to spin terrorism and related events in this country as if they were part of some mythical cycle-of-violence, which they are not. The violence in this current wave is like that of previous waves - calculated to deliver a message of hatred-driven terror into the hearts of Israelis. Unfortunately an Israeli engaging in similar-looking tactics, even given the vast gulf that separates Israeli public opinion about terror from Palestinian Arab views on the same subject, makes it that little bit easier for those superficial reports to be made and to sound credible. All four of the Arab victims are out of danger. Two have moderate injuries and the other two are said to have light injuries. Three of them were taken to Beer Sheba's Soroka Medical Center for treatment. According to Associated Press, "Dimona mayor Beni Bitton said the stabber is a "mentally ill man." He told Channel 10 TV that two of the victims worked for City Hall, and that passers-by quickly rushed to help the wounded Arabs and provided first aid."
• On the narrow route that passes the notoriously violent Arab village, Beit Ummar (about which we have written frequently), hails of rocks yesterday and today (and many times in the past) continue to make life dangerous for Israeli traffic traveling on the Gush Etzion, Kiryat Arba and Karmei Tzur roads. Numerous vehicles have been damaged during today's violence.
• In Jerusalem around noon today in the haredi Shmuel Hanavi neighbourhood, a Jewish teenager of 16 (according to Jerusalem Post) was stabbed and moderately injured by a Palestinian Arab from Hebron. Israel National News reports that the assailant was tracked down by security personnel and apprehended soon after, The wounded boy is getting treated at Hadassah hospital.
• Also around noon, in Kiryat Arba - close to the spot where a serious very similar attack took place yesterday - a policeman was stabbed and injured by a Palestinian Arab male. The assailant was shot by other officers and died of his wounds.
• We are hearing reports from the coastal city of Ashdod about Arab construction workers hurling rocks and cinder blocks at passing cars in the early afternoon.
• And perhaps feeling out-activisted by the Fatah-controlled crowds of lone-wolves in Judea and Samara, the Hamas overlords of the Gaza Strip appear to be flexing their muscles this afternoon. A Times of Israel report, uploaded around 3:00 pm Friday, says "Hamas’s chief in Gaza on Friday called for additional violence against Israel. "Gaza will fulfill its role in the Jerusalem intifada and it is more than ready for confrontation,” Ismail Haniyeh said during a sermon for weekly Muslim prayers at a mosque in Gaza City. “We are calling for the strengthening and increasing of the intifada… It is the only path that will lead to liberation,” he said." The results were not long in coming: "Some 200 Palestinians approached the fence closest to the Nahal Oz Kibbutz in the northern Gaza Strip. “They began throwing stones and rolling burning tires at Israeli forces,” an army spokesperson said. IDF troops, who remained on the Israeli side of the border, opened fire at the protesters, who were approximately 150 feet (50 meters) away, in order to break up the protest and push them from the fence, the spokesman said."

More when we can manage to write and edit. The Sabbath is approaching fast.

16-Jun-15: Kay Wilson's revenge

In the BBC's initial report, the reporter [video]
struggles with the claim that the
attackers are allegedly "Arabs" [Source]

A ferocious attack by terror-minded Palestinian Arabs on a pair of defenseless women hiking in the hills near Jerusalem on December 18, 2010 [BBC report here; The Guardian, here] is the prelude to an extraordinary recent talk recorded on video as a TEDx event.

Speaking to an audience in Beer Sheva on the campus of Ben Gurion University of the Negev on May 13, 2015, Kay Wilson passionately and articulately walks her audience through the before, the during and the after of being murdered - and surviving. She shares what it means to witness her friend and companion butchered right beside her, and to identify the killers - who must have thought they had gotten away with their barbarism - and watch them convicted.

There are societies all over the world where a person who undergoes what she did becomes twisted, vicious and bent on revenge. Even if her own website [Let My People Giggle] had been given a different name, it would be clear that hatefulness is not what Kay embodies.

But in a way, standing up in front of audiences, as she now does, and projecting a message of optimism and humanity is an act of revenge.

She describes here as only a survivor can what it means to agonize over what was lost, to celebrate what remains, and above all to embrace life. Though someone has given this video clip a title that includes the words "idiot's guide", it is not at all for idiots. Material dealing with terror and those who engage in it or give it their support is all over the Internet. Actual idiots (we know too many) will not find it hard to locate speeches and video clips that fully address their needs.

Kay Wilson's presentation is literally unforgettable.

From the notes accompanying the YouTube post:

Kay Wilson is a British-born Israeli. She is a jazz pianist, cartoonist, a licensed tour guide and a writer whose articles are published in The Tower, Arutz 7 and the Times of Israel. Kay is also the survivor of a horrific machete attack that occurred in December 2010 while guiding her American friend and client, the late Kristine Luken. The two women were attacked and held at knife point and eventually tied up and then brutally stabbed. Kay watched helplessly as her friend was executed. Despite sustaining horrendous injuries herself, she managed to play dead and later escape. After nearly four years of physical rehabilitation and trauma therapy, Kay began working as an inspirational speaker, speaking for non-profits on issues of human rights for global victims of terrorism and campaigning against hate speech on university campuses. 

Kay Wilson and Arnold Roth met in December 2014 when both participated in a different kind of video testimony [online here, and background here]. And we wrote about her a year before that in a post on our blog ["30-Dec-13: Pretend walls, twisted messages: praising evil, condemning the innocents"]. Kay recounted her experiences to the Jerusalem Post in an interview ["‘What a waste, I’m 46 years old and I’m being murdered’"] published there in January 2011.

14-Jun-15: Israel's anti-rocket defence system gets wider deployment

Taking cover on a road in Israel's Negev as incoming Gazan rocket
warning is heard, July 2014 [Image: Reuters]

Rockets being flung into the sky in the general direction of Israel might sound (if people hear about them at all) like a vague and trivial threat. The media repetition of how few Israelis, relative to the dead and injured on the Arab side, have been hurt reinforces that impression.

In reality, vast parts of southern Israel are under actual threat of attack by them right now. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live in communities in those parts, and anxiety levels are running high. Relying on the good sense of the terrorists to avoid self-damaging escalation is generally perceived, based on overwhelming evidence, as not getting our side very far.

Hence:

[Israeli S]ecurity officials decided last week to deploy four Iron Dome air defense system batteries in Ashdod, Netivot, Ashkelon and Beersheba... ["More Iron Dome batteries deployed in light of renewed rocket fire", Jerusalem Post, tonight]

According to an article that appeared last summer (see "15 things you didn't knw about the Iron Dome")

The cost of launching a missile from the Iron Dome at a threatening rocket has been reported to cost anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000 [while] the rockets fired by terror groups at Israel are estimated to cost between a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. 

A 2013 report in TIME Magazine looked at the cost on a per-battery basis:

At about $50 million per battery — the launchers with 20 missiles each, ground radar and command-and-control center, led by an officer equipped with an abort button — Iron Dome still costs plenty, especially since Israel estimates it would need at least 13 of them to protect the entire country.

14-Jul-14: Searching for a way to make a positive, concrete, meaningful contribution?

If you are among the ranks of Israel's many friends who want to do something concrete that positively helps the people living under terrorist rocket-fire, here's a suggestion. 

Keren Malki, the foundation we created in memory of the life of our daughter Malki (you can see her photo on the right of this page), has a unique and effective program called Therapists on Wheels that sends highly-qualified therapists - physical, occupational and speech - into the homes of Israelis living in communities far from Israel's center. 

There, in those homes, they deliver vital para-medical therapy sessions to children challenged by often-severe special needs. 

Currently we send therapists to Be'er Sheva, Sderot, Ashkelon and other places in Israel's southern periphery that right now are in the cross-hairs of the Hamas terror-rocketeers. 

In these difficult days, the professional team who run Keren Malki's operations are doing everything possible so that the special-needs children in those places don't miss out on therapies that are so vital to their well-being. 

You can learn more and possibly also give your support to Keren Malki's Zlata Hersch Memorial Therapists on Wheels Program, by clicking here.

13-Jul-14: Sunday and more in-bound victim-seeking rockets

Iron Dome battery, somewhere in Israel

In the three hours of daylight this morning, Israel's skies have already been pierced repeatedly by yet more Gazan rockets. Thankfully the price paid on our side in personal injuries and property damage - while unbearably high - might easily have been far, far worse. Details to follow.

We plan to update this post through the morning hours of Sunday, and pray the reports become ordinary and boring. (We're again working from a Tablet; please excuse the deficient spelling and formatting.)

• 08:35 am: The IDF, summing up the events of the past 24 hours of the latest phase of this ongoing war, says 129 rockets were fired into Israel during Saturday, 9 of the intercepted in midair by Iron Dome. They don't report on how many lives were threatened or saved or rendered paralyzed by fear.
• 08:50 am: Khaled Abu Toameh tweets: "Egyptians ban European medical team from entering Gaza Strip to treat Palestinians." [His source]
• 09:15 am: Not now but earlier this morning, around day-break, in-bound terror rockets were intercepted in the skies over Ashdod and Rishon Leziyon in central Israel. Calling them terror rockets is critical to understanding the strategy of the jihadist practitioners of terror who fire them: in terms of a military strategy, assuming Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the other terror groups even had one which is doubtful on the evidence, they make near-zero effort to attack the IDF and its resources. Their war - by disgraceful choice and shameful ideology - is waged principally against ordinary people and ordinary places. Israel's Iron Dome missile-defense system stopped and destroyed multiple rockets over Israeli cities today in the course of fighting off a missile barrage from Gaza that began this (Sunday) morning around 06:00 am.
• 09:20 am:  Israelis are geing reminded this morning by Israel Police that Iron Dome throws those rockets off course but does not always succeed in detonating their warhead. "Anyone who finds a fallen rocket is asked to call the police so that trained sappers can safely remove the warhead." It's a message worth passing along.
• 09:30 am: Apologists for what the Gazans do like to call it one of the world's most densely populated places. The facts plainly contradict this claim but let's pretend for a moment that it's true and relevant. One of the more revealing stats just disclosed in an IDF media briefing in the past hour is that Israeli forces have so far targetted and successfully neutralized “735 concealed rocket launchers, 64 training bases and militant compounds, 58 weapons storage and manufacturing facilities, 32 Hamas leadership facilities, 29 communications infrastructures". Given the compact dimensions of the Hamas death-cult's Gazan domain, it boggles the mind to imagine  an urban landscape so densely populated with the instruments of murder.
• 09:50 am: Additional data from the IDF briefing: "635 rockets have hit southern Israel since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge, with 147 interceptions by the Iron Dome..."
• 10:00 am: Over at jpost.com, this bulletin went up during the small hours of Sunday morning: "3:50 a.m. Israel Navy commandos raided a facility from which Hamas fired many long-range rocket at Israeli cities, the IDF said. During the raid, the commandos were shot at by Hamas gunmen, and returned fire. "The facility was hit and damaged," the army said."
• 10:07 am: Tzeva Adom sirens right now in a huge swathe of central and southern Israel including the cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod.
• 10:45 am: Be'er Sheva sirens now.
• 10:50 am: Tzeva Adom in Merhavim region.
• 10:55 am: Ynet says Iron Dome downs one rocket over Ashkelon.
• 11:12 am: Several Tzeva Adom focuses at this moment in Ashkekon area.
• 11:50 am: Israel Radio is reporting that the call by the IDF to residents of the northern part of the Gaza Strip has had an effect... of sorts. Its estimate is that about 4,000 Gazans have evacuated, leaving their homes and taking refuge with UNRWA.
• 02:20 pm: Tzeva Adom sirens are being heard right now in Ashkelon, the Hof Ashkelon region and the city of Ashdod. A boy of 16 was critically injured in one of the earlier attacks on Ashkelon today. Times of Israel says "he was playing outside when the sirens went off, and did not seek shelter. He was injured by shrapnel from the projectile."
• 03:00 pm: Times of Israel says "a teenager armed with a knife" attempted to stab a security guard at the Jerusalem  Light Rail station outside the Mahaneh Yehuda market on Jaffa Road. It's referred to as a foiled terror attack: "The culprit attempted to stab the officer, who responded by aiming his gun and directing the youth to lie on the ground. The security guard, along with Border Police who arrived at the scene, disarmed and detained the youth." He is now being questioned. Here's a photo of the incident's immediate aftermath, as it appears on The Muqata's Facebook Page:

• 03:15 pm: In the past twenty minutes or so, three more rockets fired by the terrorists from Gaza were shot down and destroyed in mid-flight by the Iron Dome missile defense system over the southern Israeli cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon [Ynet].
• 04:30 pm: Times of Israel: A rocket has hit a residential area in Ashkelon, sparking a fire. Police and fire fighters are at the scene. Three missiles land in the Eshkol region. There are no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
• 04:35 pm: Channel 2 broadcasting live reports on sirens in Hadera, Haifa and Nahariya, and rocket crashes in the Western Galilee. Tel Aviv heard sirens a few minutes before, as did a large number of communities in the center and north of Israel.
• 05:15 pm: Times of Israel: "The missiles that hit Hadera and the northern city of Nahariya, over 170 kilometers from the Gaza Strip, were launched from the Gaza Strip, Channel 2 reports. Hamas TV claims it fired an R160 rocket at Nahariya, which has a range of 160 kilometers. Analysts have claimed over the past week that Hamas and Islamic Jihad empty long-distance rockets of their warheads in order to increase their range."
• 06:30 pm: We wrote in the early hours of this morning [here] about how the IDF has been warning people who live in the northern Gaza Strip communities to leave the area as fast as possible. Gaza's Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry responded with its own counter-announcement telling Gazans not to heed the Israeli army warnings and to stay put. In other words, telling them to become human shields. If you were wondering how this all worked out, here's how. According to a Times of Israel note this evening, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (the notorious UNRWA, about whom we have written frequently) now says some 10,000 Gazans from the Beit Lahiya area have abandoned their homes and have moved out. Those Hamas directives are being ignored on a very large basis.

Back soon.

11-Jul-14: Friday afternoon and a war rages on

Running for shelter in Ashdod yesterday as another rocket's arrival
is announced via the Tzeva Adom siren [Image Source]

It's a hot Friday afternoon, and terrorist rockets are penetrating almost all parts of Israel.

• 2:00 pm: The Iron Dome missile defense system [source] intercepted three Gazan missiles in the skies over Ashdod and Gan Yavne in the past half hour. Residents of these south-of-Tel Aviv suburbs are having a hellish day as rocket barrages race towards them from concealed launchers embedded inside Gazan schools, mosques and homes.
• 3:45 pm: What's behind the Hamas escalation, and why now? In an analytical piece ["Israel Under Attack"] for Weekly Standard, Lee Smith writes:
  If Hamas is pacing its missile fire, it means they’re in it for the long haul. If they’re crossing red lines by firing missiles at Dimona as well as Ben Gurion airport, it means they’re going all out. The question is why. Some analysts point to likely Iranian involvement— indeed use of the long-range M-302, not previously in the arsenal of Hamas, underscores that suggestion. It’s true that Hamas’s relations with Iran have been somewhat cooler since they fell out over the Syrian civil war (Hamas sided with their Sunni co-religionists; Tehran has thrown its full weight behind the Assad regime)... If Iran is not in fact driving the campaign, then Hamas may be putting on a demonstration for Tehran of how helpful it can be to the Islamic Republic. With Hezbollah tied down in Syria fighting alongside Assad, Hamas is more useful to Iran than ever—especially since Hamas is now in possession of long-range missiles capable of striking anywhere inside Israel, making it another tool of Iranian deterrence should the Israelis consider striking Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities.
• 3:50 pm: Israel National News reports that Tzeva Adom sirens were heard in Be'er Sheva around 3:30 this (Friday) afternoon, as well as in the Merhavim region, Omer, the Bnei Shimon region, Ofakim, and Tel Sheva. A Gazan rocket crashed to earth soon afterwards in an open area near Be'er Sheva.
• 4:40 pm: As the Sabbath approaches, the city administration in Ashdod has announced a ruling:  Prayers in synagogues that lack a bomb shelter should not take place and the buildings should be shut. Ashdod Mayor Yechiel Lasri says, according to Times of Israel quoting a Haredi newspaper: “Shabbat prayers must not be held in synagogues where there is no protection... anyone who wants to pray should choose a synagogue that has [a bomb shelter].”
• 4:45 pm: We Tweeted this earlier today:

Everyone knows what's meant when we say "women and children first". Now pause to think what it means when the men of Hamas say it.

— This Ongoing War (@ThisOngoingWar) July 11, 2014

• 5:06 pm: Another rocket barrage on Ashkelon city and nearby area and Sha'ar Hanegev region at this moment [Ynet]. A few minutes earlier, Tzeva Adom in Sdot Negev and Sha'ar Hanegev
• 5:20 pm: Ynet reports that the IDF has fired smoke shells at empty areas of southern Gaza
• 6:00 pm: Again, a heavy wave of rockets across parts of Israel's south in the last few minutes
• 6:02 pm: Elhanan Miller in Times of Israel has an intriguing report: "Hamas has requested that citizens not share photos of rockets launched from residential areas in downtown Gaza lest Israel strike those areas. The ministry’s social media department published a video in Arabic Thursday containing guidelines for “cautious and effective” social media engagement on Facebook and Twitter during Operation Protective Edge. The ministry calls on residents to be wary of repeating Israeli “rumors,” and of adopting “the occupation’s narrative.” “Always doubt it and dispel it,” the video advises. “Beware of posting photos of missiles launched from the center of town directed at Israel. This is used as a pretext to strike residential areas in the Gaza Strip,” it continues.
• 6:50 pm: In the skies above Rishon Leziyon, Israel's shopping hub, two Hamas rockets are brought down by the great work of the Iron Dome crews and their machines [Ynet]. Channel 2 News is showing a rocket that landed on one of Rishon's streets just a few minutes ago. 

9-Jul-14: What yesterday brought

Iron Dome battery in Tel Aviv yesterday
[Image Source: Flash 90/Times of Israel]

From Ynet this morning, summarizing in the briefest of terms the events of yesterday, Tuesday, day one of Israel's military counter-offensive against the forces of Gaza:

More than 117 rockets fell in Israeli territory, 29 of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile-defense system on the first day of ‘Operation Protective Edge’. In addition, the IDF carried out 234 attacks and 23 people were killed. 

The Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system intercepted "at least 2 rockets over Be'er Sheva" around 1:00 am, according to this Ynet report.

There have already been several rounds of Tzeva Adom warnings and incoming Gazan rockets since midnight, the most recent one around twenty minutes ago (6:00 am) in the Sha'ar Hanegev region.

7-Jul-14: A day in the life

In a society that values life, a mother shielding a child
as an incoming Gazan rocket pierces the sky is part of an
everyday experience. We hate it, we know we can end it at
a huge price, and we keep hoping the people on the far side of
the fence will be brought to their senses before all of us
pay even more for the hate and the madness.

We happen to be thinly stretched at the moment with family issues, and keeping track of the rapid-fire events going on in our area is beyond our capabilities.

So we are borrowing some work being done over at Haaretz, where they have a live-blog timeline of the rising violence and terrorism now underway. This post is based partly on events they report there, starting from midnight last (Sunday/Monday) night, as well as from other news sources.

Midnight to 3:00 am, Monday

• Twelve individuals are arrested for "rioting and stone-throwing" in parts of the Negev, including the Israeli Arab communities of Tel Sheva (see our earlier post), Hura, Ar'ara and Laqiya.
• It's the middle of the night, but firefighters from Be'er Sheva are rushed in to tackle burning debris caused by that imam-inspired Tel Sheva violence. Police are needed when the firefighters come under attack from locals on arrival. 
• Tzeva Adom incoming rocket sirens are sounding in Sderot and the Sha'ar Hanegev region
• Hamas says four of its militants/activists/revolutionaries are dead following an Israeli air strike in Gaza. On their own numbers, this brings Sunday night's total to six dead terrorists, with no suggestion of any innocents killed in the fire (though deaths of innocents are highly likely under the conditions that prevail in Gaza). Reuters, quoted by Haaretz, calls it "the biggest single Israeli hit against Hamas since 2012's Operation Pillar of Defense". We say they might more helpfully have called it an illustration of pin-point firepower, and a tour de force by an ethics-minded defensive military that takes more trouble to separate combatants from the civilians among whom they are deliberately embedded than any other military has managed to do in modern times.
• Around 2:30 am, the IDF spokesperson confirms an IAF strike on nine targets, including "concealed rocket launchers and other centers of terrorist activity in the Gaza Strip."
• Reuters says, around 2:50 am, that those IAF air strikes on Gaza have resulted in seven deaths.
• According to the IDF, a mortar shell has hit Israeli territory in the northern Golan Heights near the border with Syria. IDF opens fire across the border.

3:00 am to 6:00 am, Monday

• By Haaretz' count, there are now seven dead Hamas "men", along with two dead Islamic Jihad "members", plus three more confirmed wounded as a result of those IAF air strikes on Gaza. Quoting DPA, a major German news agency, it says six of those casualties come from a single strike on the Gazan town of Rafah.
• The IDF spokesperson says another five concealed rocket launchers are targeted by IAF airstrikes in north Gaza and destroyed.
• An AP report quoted by Haaretz puts the overnight death toll in the Palestinian Arab terrorist ranks in Gaza at 9, with the addition of two more from the ranks of Islamic Jihad.

6:00 am to 9:00 am, Monday

• Two rockets explode in the Eshkol region of southern Israel. One explodes inside a built-up area (deliberately fuzzy language for security reasons). A soldier is injured, and cars are damaged.
• The early morning rocket tally, as measured by the GANSO people (funded by the European Union and serving the small army of NGO workers based inside Gaza), was "32 rockets and 20 mortar shells... 3 rockets exploded at the launching site and 1 dropped short." In other words, still more Fell Shorts - the self-inflicted rocket casualties that are never ever reported by the mainstream media channels. To keep in mind when the body counts are published. 

9:00 am to noon, Monday

• According to the Palestinian news agency Ma'an, Israeli air attacks on Rafah and Beit Hanoun cause injuries to six civilians. One is in serious condition.
• The seven Hamas "members" killed overnight died (says Haaretz) in a tunnel collapse. It's unclear whether the collapse was the deliberate result of an Israeli attack. It points out that two weeks ago Hamas lost five other "members" in a mysterious explosion in a Gaza tunnel; at that time, there was no revenge attack by Hamas. "The high death toll overnight may paint a different picture, however. It remains to be seen if last night's airstrikes will prove to be a turning point, leading to an escalation in the rocket fire to Israel's south", writes Amos Harel.
• Israel's prime minister speaks to Hussein Abu Khdeir, father of the Arab 16 year old killed last week; reports say six Israelis have been arrested in connection with the death. "I wish to express the shock Israeli citizens and I feel by the repugnant murder of your son... We've acted immediately to find the murderers; they will be brought to trial and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. We reject any brutal behavior, and the murder of your son is despicable and cannot be accepted by any person." The boy's mother says “They’re only going to ask them questions and then release them. What’s the point? They need to treat them the way they treat us... They need to demolish their homes and round them up, the way they do it to our children.” We consider showing her some of our posts (this one, for instance) about how the head of the Palestinian Authority holds aloft the arms of men who murdered Israeli children and calls them heroes of the Arab nation. For now, we assume the impact of our message might get lost for all the fire-bombing and rock-hurling being done in memory of her son. 
• Around 11:00 am, Hamas confirms six of its "members" were killed in Israeli air strikes at a "resistance location" in Gazan Rafah, early this morning. Haaretz thinks this means a smuggling tunnel. Hamas says via Sami Abu Zuhri that Israel committed a "grave escalation" in violence and threatened to retaliate, saying Israel would "pay the price." For a sense of the moral and war-crimes background, read an earlier post of ours here quoting this same Abu Zuhri disgustingly praising the murder-by-Islamism of an Israeli woman in her seventies. 
• Times of Israel, quoting the IDF, says those Hamas tunnelers died as a result of a “work accident,” when an explosive-laden tunnel that was hit in an Israeli airstrike several days earlier exploded.
• About the same time, an incoming Gazan Grad rocket explodes in open terrain in Be'er Sheva. It's the second rocket fired on the city in 48 hours. The first was intercepted by Iron Dome.
• Haaretz says three of six the suspects in the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir have confessed and reenacted the crime.
• Around noon, there's a report that the speaker of the Knesset asks members of the Israeli parliament to "refrain from statements which could spark violence and legitimize the actions of one side or the other". We think it's worth pausing for a moment to ask when the speaker of any Arab parliament (there are some, not many) did something similar.

AP photo today shows IDF forces
massing on border with Gaza

Noon to 3:00 pm, Monday

• Just before 1:00 pm, two more rockets crash and explode in open areas in the Sdot Negev region of southern Israel. Another explodes in the beleagured Sha'ar Hanegev region. A few minutes later, mortars come crashing in to the Eshkol region, close to the fence with Gaza. And they keep coming.
• By 2:30 pm, Haaretz can report 9 rockets and mortar shells in Eshkol during the past hour alone.
• At about the same time, the government's so-called "Security cabinet" convenes in Jerusalem to decide on a response to the relentless rocket fire from Gaza. Let it be clear that every Israeli, whether politician or ordinary citizen, understands that at any given moment, Israel's massively superior firepower can be turned on the Gaza Strip and the problem will stop. This has always been about the price in moral and political terms that Israel is willing to pay.
• Two more rockets hit the Eshkol region around 3:30 pm.
• A few minutes later, there's mortar fire in Eshkol with resultant damage to unspecified properties (deliberately suppressed).
• A quarter hour later, the Israel Air Force launches strikes on the Gaza Strip.

3:00 pm to 6:00 pm, Monday

• Ynet says Tzeva Adom sirens are heard in the Sha'ar HaNegev region. 
• It's reported that the Security cabinet meeting results in the IDF being instructed to increase strikes against the Gaza Strip "in efforts to halt the rocket fire emanating from the coastal enclave".
• Also reported that some 1,500 IDF reserve soldiers, primarily from the Home Front Command including those trained to operate the Iron Dome anti-missile batteries, are issued urgent call-up papers for service on the southern border. Haaretz quotes an IDF official: “Quiet was not met with quiet, and therefore we are preparing for an escalation.” 
• Times of Israel quotes IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner who says the IDF is "still in a defensive position but has shifted its readiness in order to address an escalation in the ongoing conflict with the Gaza Strip." We're wondering, along with most concerned Israelis, how many warnings there are going to be.
• Around 6, there are (Ynet) four more incoming rockets from Gaza that crash and explode in open areas near or in (we'll keep it vague) Sderot and the Sha'ar Hanegev region. No injuries or damage reported at this stage.
• In all it's been a hot Monday, and it's not ended yet. The IDF says the tally of mortars, Qassam rockets and GRADs, all of them indiscriminately seeking Israeli victims, has reached about 50 today. There were dozens yesterday. (Remember when you last heard of a Hamas rocket hitting a military target? If not, you're closer to understanding their strategy.)

6.00 pm onwards, Monday

• A Times of Israel report says residents of the front-line desert communities of the Shaar HaNegev, Eshkol, and Hof Ashkelon regions being instructed to stay within 15 seconds of shelters, as Tzeva Adom incoming rocket sirens are being continuously heard.
• A directive from the IDF's Home Front Command to residents within 40 kilometers (24 miles) of the Gaza Strip: gatherings of over 500 people are now officially "strongly discouraged". It's bad news for people celebrating weddings at this peak-season time of year. That 40 km radius includes Ashdod, Israel's fifth-largest city with a population of about 210,000 and home to Israel's major sea port, and Be'er Sheva (pop.: 200,000).
• Proving the point, a heavy barrage of rockets from Gaza around dusk Monday night (according to Ynet) rained down on communities across the south. One or more are reported to have been brought down in mid-flight by Iron Dome counter-fire. Tzeva Adom warnings were heard moments before in Netivot, Ofakim, and the Bnei Shimon and Sdot Negev regions.
• Reporting from inside the Gaza Strip, the GANSO website says that last barrage was especially heavy: "07 JUL, 1830: Pal. ops. fired 30 rockets from Gaza toward the Green Line over the last minutes." Hint: that expression "toward the Green Line" is how they refer to Israeli civilians.

Needless to say, this is an ongoing war. Updates to come.