25-Aug-14: In Gaza, the idea of Israelis tending to sick and injured Gazans makes them crazy

Erez during a previous Hamas assault in 2007

First, the good news.

The Erez Crossing, a passenger and cargo terminal built by the government of Israel to serve the needs of the hapless Palestinian subjects of the dark Hamas regime, is still functioning. People, including those seriously injured or ill and in desperate need of the medical and other care that Israel's modern facilities can provide, are able to pass through it and get to where they want to be in Israel, even in these very difficult days of war.

The less-good news is that Erez came under rocket barrage yesterday (Sunday). Despite this, the cross-over remained open for emergency medical cases thanks to the dedication of the Israelis who operate it.

Some 50 people were scheduled to use the Erez crossing Sunday, but Kamil Abu Rokan, the Director of the Crossings Point Authority of the Defense Ministry, and General Yoav Mordehai, the Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), closed the crossing to all traffic except for life-saving cases after the barrage... Two Gaza females were evacuated “20 minutes ago” (Sunday) via the crossing for life-saving surgery in Israel... Other taxi-drivers were on hand, “as always,” to transport emergency patients. [Times of Israel]

Barrage?

Four Israelis were injured Sunday, two of them seriously, when a large rocket and mortar barrage hit the Erez crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip... “The [drivers] sat in a shed and waited for the passengers and their relatives who were leaving Gaza for Israeli hospitals Ichilov and Tel Hashomer. Then seven shells fell — just one after the other. We didn’t have time to flee; it was a matter of a second...” The victims were Israeli-Arab taxi drivers, who were at the crossing to pick up wounded Gazans and bring them into Israel for medical treatment. The wounded were evacuated to Ashkelon’s Barzilai hospital. An outraged Israeli-Arab Erez crossing official, who spoke to Army Radio from a secured area at the crossing during a subsequent rocket attack, lambasted Hamas for not caring about the well-being of the Palestinians in Gaza. “This is an organization that cares about the [Palestinian] people? They’re shooting at the Palestinian terminal...” [Times of Israel]

The IDF says "some eleven mortar and rocket rounds landed near the crossing" and several people - there are conflicting media reports as to whether three or five - are injured.

Just one more small, under-reported and soon-to-be-forgotten story from the war waged by the Islamist terrorists against their own.

13-Nov-12: Reports of Ashdod rocket explosions

From the coastal city of Ashdod (Israel's sixth-largest with a population of 210,000) there are reports in the last few minutes - around 6:00 am Tuesday morning -  of two explosions from incoming rockets, but according to one eye witness no Tzeva Adom warning ahead of time. (If you don't know the sound, it's worth hearing just once - click to view and hear a brief video.)

We are checking now in the hope of being able to report that once again there are no casualties and no serious damage. Meanwhile the two Israel/Gaza border crossings - Erez and Kerem Shalom - are said to be re-opening this morning [Ynet] because of the "lull".

13-Jul-12: "Noticeable increase in attempted terror attacks since Shalit transaction"

A busload of some of the 1,027 convicted killers and lesser terrorists set loose by Israel
in the Gilad Shalit transaction is received in Gaza, October 2011 [Image Source]

When political commentators warn it's going to happen, you can take it or leave it. They're paid to worry and sound pessimistic, after all.

When parents whose child was murdered in a massacre engineered by the convicted killers who walked free say it's going to get worse, you can retort "So what? That's what you'd expect them to say, right?" 

But when a senior operational commander in the highest echelon of the IDF reports that the bad consequences have already begun to happen - perhaps it's time to prepare for worse to come.

From Yisrael Hayom (Israel Today), today:

Shalit deal sparks increase in terror, says IDF officer There has been a sharp increase in the number of attempted terror attacks since the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit last October, according to the outgoing commander of the Binyamin division, Col. Saar Tzur."Prison is like university for the terrorists – anyone who goes in comes out upgraded," Tzur said in an interview with Army Radio. He said that following the Schalit deal, there was a noticeable increase in the number of attempted terror attacks both in the Judea and Samaria region, which falls under his command, and inside Israel proper. "It doesn't matter whether they were released to Gaza, the West Bank or abroad – we see a return to terrorism,” Tzur said. “Another problem is a considerable increase in the flow of funding [to terrorist groups]..." "Civilians don't notice it, but we're working a lot harder – lots more pinpoint operations aimed at capturing cells while they are still at the planning, rather than operational, stage," he said.

This might be the absolute, very last such comment emanating from a senior military voice. Or it might be the first of many. 

Meanwhile....

On Israel's Gaza border, a solitary armed terrorist approaching the border fence opened fire on an IDF patrol in the middle of this hot Friday afternoon, close to the Erez Checkpoint. That's the major pedestrian/cargo terminal located at the northern end of the Gaza Strip. The Gazan gunman was hit by the Israeli fire and died. From bitter past experience, the Home Front Command has just issued a formal warning to Israeli residents in villages close to Israel's Gaza border to be on rocket alert. That means stay no further than 15 seconds running time from the nearest bomb shelter. 

16-Jun-07: Asset transfers

As Palestinians - evidently members of Fatah - flee across the Erez Crossing into Israel today, seeking refuge from the massacres carried out by their brother Palestinian-Arabs, we need to recall this:

Our World: The waning of American will
Caroline Glick - The Jerusalem Post (5-Feb-07)
...Fatah forces make no attempt to hide their involvement in terror attacks against Israel. They wear their Aksa Martyr Brigades T-shirts beneath their official uniforms. And yet, this week it was revealed that some $76.4 million of the $86.4 million that the US plans to give to Fatah will go to training 13,500 terror forces. That is, the US is now openly involved in training and equipping Palestinian terrorists who, as Abbas makes clear, are seeking to expand their operations to kill Israelis.

Next this

Congress okays $59m in U.S. funds for Abbas' security forces | Reuters (10-Apr-07)
The Bush administration has been given a green light by Congress to spend $59 million to bolster Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' presidential guard and for other security expenses, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday.
"We are good to go ... we have addressed Congress's concerns and there is good political support for this," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said the money, which had been held up by Congress, would also be used for security improvements at Gaza's main commercial crossings with Israel, for logistics and communications equipment, and other security expenses.

And this...

Abbas to use taxes transferred from Israel to pay PA security forces
A senior aide to Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday that the Palestinian Authority chairman will use some of the $100 million in tax rebates recently transferred by Israel to pay overdue salaries of the Palestinian security forces.
The announcement came as fighting between the Abbas-allied security forces and Hamas gunmen flared in the Gaza Strip over the weekend, leaving 17 people dead.
In all, Abbas is spending $152 million for salaries of the security forces and other items, such as debt payment and welfare services, his aide, Rafiq Husseini, told a news conference.
In addition to the Israeli tax rebates - money that was frozen after Hamas came to power last year - Abbas has received $30 million from the United Arab Emirates and $22 million from Qatar, Husseini said.

And now this...

Fatah flees, abandoning U.S.-supplied weapons, vehicles to Hamas
GAZA CITY — Friday, June 15, 2007: Hamas has captured thousands of assault rifles and scores of combat vehicles financed by the United States and supplied by Egypt and Jordan to the Palestinian Authority. Hamas seized the weapons, ammunition and vehicles while capturing security installations in the Gaza Strip aligned with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. For the most part, Fatah-aligned PA officers fled the Hamas assaults.
"I would say that they have most of the weapons and armored vehicles sent by Egypt and Jordan over the last year," a PA security officer said.
On Wednesday, Hamas's website posted photographs of the weapons and vehicles seized from PA installations, according to Middle East Newsline. Some of the vehicles were covered with Hamas's insignia. The officer said Hamas seized thousands of U.S.-origin M-16 and Soviet-origin AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifles as well as military radios. He said other booty captured by Hamas included trucks, mortars and hand grenades.
Hamas also blew up the headquarters of the Preventive Security Apparatus in Khan Yunis. At least three people were killed.The officer said Hamas forces took over arsenals of the PG and NSF throughout the central and northern Gaza Strip. He said most of the new weapons, particularly armored vehicles, were in PG installations.

Bottom line: Virtually every confidence-building measure, every piece of foreign aid, directed at the corrupt and self-serving Palestinian Authority regime of Abbas for the past several years has benefited no one more than the barbarian gunmen and thugocracy of Hamas. They have now taken possession or will shortly control virtually everything military and strategic that flowed into Gaza in the past two years. The process is not yet complete, and is about to get into high gear in the West Bank.

A persistent failure to understand the nature of the terrorist regime - a wilful failure to look at the plain facts coupled with a steady stream of imbecilic advice from wishful-thinkers - has produced a catastrophe. We now have a well-armed jihadist regime on our southern border, the long-dreaded Hamastan. Its clear intentions are to join with our enemies in the north who waged a full-scale war against our cities last summer and have every intention and ability to do it again in the near future.

Where are the resignations of the long line of "peace activists" and Middle East strategic 'experts'?

13-Jun-07: What hath that nation wrought?!

Any political dispute, and especially one that's been conducted between nations and religious blocs for generations, is capable of being interpreted this way or that way. There's room, in other words, to see some justice and perhaps some wrong on both sides. You can't be treated as a lunatic if you choose one or the other viewpoints because there's plenty of ground to support whatever side you take.

But that's not true when it comes to the terrorists. Absolutely not true. What the terrorists have done to their own communities is appalling, sickening, satanic. It has to stop, and it must be stopped. This is true everywhere, at all times, and without pre-conditions. Civilized society depends on understanding this.

Now let's turn to what we are learning, day after day, after Palestinian Arab terror and the remarkable things their people have done to themselves, to their society and especially to their children.

Official Israeli government channels released a report this afternoon about a terrorist massacre that didn't happen because it was discovered in time. The details are beyond belief - so bestial, so barbaric, so primitive - they're sufficient grounds for treating Palestinian Arab society as being in a class of its own, outside the community of normal human society.

On 20th May 2007, three weeks ago, two Palestinian Arab women presented themselves at the Erez Crossing in the Gaza Strip, intending to enter Israel for medical treatment. Israel admits hundreds of such Arabs every day on those grounds. Has done so for decades.

Acting on detailed and accurate intelligence, Israeli security personnel arrested them. The screams and shouts of protest at the crossing can be imagined without too much effort. The scene, had it been filmed by foreign news crews, would undoubtedly have prompted sneering news reports and angry demonstrations (and might still) in many of the world's fashionable boulevards and town squares.

So here's what followed. Both women now admit to being members of Islamic Jihad, and say they were on their way to do a double-bombing in some crowded place or other - a restaurant, a wedding hall, any place where large numbers of Israelis gather - in Tel Aviv and Netanya. No specific location, just as long as plenty of Jews are there. The bombs were to be their own bodies.

Here's what we know about the two intended murderers.

Fatma Yunes Hassan Zak is 39, lives in Gaza, a mother of eight children, pregnant with her ninth. She's an experienced handler of Islamic Jihad terrorists and coordinator of Islamic Jihad women who volunteer to be suicide bombers. She also works as a manager in Islamic Jihad's "employment" office.

Her 19-year-old son, also an Islamic Jihad terrorist, was in on the conspiracy.

So was her niece, Ruda Ibrahim Yunes Haviv, 30, a resident of Gaza. She's the mother of four children. The two women were a team, and were planning to die a violent and messy death. Not going to happen now, thank heavens.

Keep these little details in mind the next time your local lunatic fringe takes to the streets demanding that the Israeli "occupying" power releases "innocent" Pal-Arab women and children. And try to contemplate what it must be like to live in the neighbourhood, or be the children, of this sort of mother from hell.

13-May-07: On unspeakable depravity and those who defend it

This woman, a mother of little children and the daughter of a wealthy
family, turned herself into a human bomb in January 2004, soon
after this photo was snapped. She has become a Palestinian Arab poster-girl
for their monstrous notion of motherhood [Image Source]

Unlike most people, we have every reason to think hard about what it takes to turn a person into a human bomb.

The murder of our daughter at the hands of barbarian thugs, religious fanatics and foaming-at-the-mouth racist extremists is the hardest thing we have ever had to face in life. Whatever we thought we knew about human society, about people who espouse religious values different from ours, about the racism and xenophobic hatred that infects the societies bordering our country in all directions - all went a little way towards explaining the impossible-to-explain.

But at the end, we are left with more questions than answers.

The little that we do understand about the ability of Hamas to persuade young Palestinian Arabs to die violently stems from the knowledge we have gotten about how Hamas and other dark forces in the Arab world educate their children. Education is at the black heart of this 'achievement'. No society in the history of mankind has done more to create a culture of self-destruction. Self-destruction... in the interests of destroying the lives of those they hate.

You can see -- if you are interested in seeing -- endless expressions of a poisonous racism, of religious intolerance and of mindless hatred in all aspects of the Palestinian Arab media and education system. It goes hand-in-hand with the broad-scale brainwashing of children, the creation of a death-worship cult, and child abuse on a scale that we in the more cultured parts of the world simply cannot grasp.

All of this would be tragic enough on its own. But what continues to appall us is the way this poisoning of an entire society's young minds is ignored and swept under the carpet. Or subtly supported and understood and quietly half-justified in Europe and elsewhere.

This is on our minds because events this week make clear that the whole appalling story of Palestinian Arab manipulation of their children is getting worse, much worse.

We wrote last week about the Mickey Mouse-lookalike who promotes Islamic domination to children on a Hamas-operated television station. For a short while afterwards, there were reports that some Hamas regime official or another had gone public with a statement that this sickening piece of government-sponsored madness was being pulled. Turns out the death-cult apparatchik spoke prematurely because it's going strong as of today. In fact, there's no sign that the pedophiles and child-slaughterers of Hamas have any intention of bringing it to an end. Why should they? It's achieving exactly what they want.

For the rest of us, it remains to wonder how Pal-Arabs and their apologists sleep at night.

What do they say to themselves as they watch the four-year-old daughter of now-deceased bomber-murderer-terrorist Reem Riyashi singing to her dead mother and vowing to follow in her footsteps? The latest Palestinian Media Watch bulletin records how that particular video clip ends with the little girl picking up sticks of explosives from her mother's drawer.

What happens after that is left to the viewers' imaginations.

(It's helpful to know that Reem Riyashi killed four Israelis and wounded seven at the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel in 2004. She gained the sympathy of the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint by telling them that she had a metal plate in her leg that would trigger the metal detector. After she was taken to a room to be searched privately, she detonated the bomb hidden under her clothes.)

This sickening message is pumped out by official Pal-Arab television seven days a week.

There are always going to be people who are utterly confused about the two sides of this divide - the one that separates barbarism from civilization. The media are filled with them. The hate mail we get at this blog is evidence of plenty more befuddlement and moral myopia. But none of this changes the basic, inescapable reality that you are either for encouraging children to go out and commit murder or against it. And if you don't get that one right, you have a lot of explaining to do to yourself, your own children and to history.

20-Sep-06: Gaza's Unreported Terror War on Israel Continues

Far from the latte-laden attention of mainstream media editors, photographers and reporters, the war of rockets and explosives directed at Israelis continues in Gaza, almost entirely unreported in the pages of anything you are likely to read or on any television screen.

Several hours ago, Wednesday morning, a 15-year-old boy suffered moderate injuries when a Qassam rocket hit the grounds of one of the kibbutzim in the Western Negev. He's now in Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon after a piece of shrapnel struck his chest. A woman was treated for shock. The kibbutz’s greenhouses and tomato crop suffered severe damage.

A second Qassam landed in the greenhouses of Kibbutz Erez that borders the Gaza Strip; fortunately no casualties or damage. In Sderot, loud explosions sent residents into air-raid shelters and protected rooms.

Yediot Aharonot quotes Gil Taasa, head of security at Kibbutz Nativ Ha’asara, located near Wednesday’s rocket landing sites, saying:

“The Israeli government has been ignoring the Qassam fire for six years now, and it is clear that we will eventually have to go to war to stop the rocket-fire, as was the case in Lebanon – but it will be too late because the Palestinians are constantly arming themselves; we should act now before an inquiry commission is set up in a few years to investigate the matter.”

Earlier this morning, the Israel Air Force carried out a strike on a house in the militant stronghold of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip early, causing no casualties. The attack targeted a house which field intelligence established was being used as a weapons-storage facility. As is the usual practice when Israel attacks the terrorists, residents in the vicinity of the house were warned to leave the building well-enough in advance for this to be done, and it was done - hence no injuries. Haaretz quotes witnesses saying the house, which was destroyed, belonged to a Palestinian militant.

This morning's air attack on Rafah is likely to get some press mentions. The now-daily rocket attacks on undisputed, unoccupied Israeli towns and communes and the people who carry out their peaceful, constructive lives within them, will be largely ignored. (Reuters proves us right this morning.) This absence of contextually-sound, accurate reporting of events is at the root of terror's success in this ongoing war.

Update: Credit is claimed by this group of self-justifying savages.

10-Sep-06: Incoming Rocket

Once again, a Palestinian Arab rocket is fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel at about 6.30 today, Sunday morning, this one crashing close to the Erez Crossing. No injuries or serious damage.

For the teeming Gazan population, Erez is a critically important gateway into and out of the Strip . It might be interesting to analyze why terrorists would want to damage it (as they have damaged other cross-overs repeatedly in the past six years), but the reality is the Qassam rockets they fire are the equivalent of heavy, blunt instruments. PA president Mahmoud Abbas absurdly calls them "pipes" (see "Pipedreams and Pipe-nightmares"), but while incapable of accuracy because of their lack of a guidance system, they are deadly weapons which give articulate expression to the hateful, violent outlook of the thugs who have already fired hundreds of them into Israeli towns and houses in the past two years.