02-Aug-15: Violence, incitement, double-talk, more violence

Site of the child's death: Intensive IDF and Israel Police investigation
[Image Source]

In the wake of Friday morning's apparent attack on a sleeping Palestinian Arab family in their home, the death of their infant and widespread Arab rioting, there's a poisonous atmosphere of unrestrained incitement to revenge and further acts of violence and murder.

Not so much from the Israeli side: the president condemned the awful events, addressed an anti-violence-and-incitement rally in downtown Jerusalem on Saturday night and conveyed the same message to the Arabic media on Friday. The prime minister visited the injured family in hospital (as did the president) and told them and the media that

we’re shocked, we’re outraged,.. We condemn this. There is zero tolerance for terrorism wherever it comes from, whatever side of the fence it comes from. We have to fight it and fight it together. [Jerusalem Post, July 31, 2015]

During Saturday night, there were reports of incoming explosive missiles emanating from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and directed at Israelis. Readers of this blog know better than most that rocket attacks by Palestinian Arab terrorists are very far from new in southern Israel, or rare, and those doing the firing have never needed a trigger like the death of a Palestinian Arab child.

Two rockets fell near the Israel-Gaza border fence late on Saturday night. No warning sirens were heard and the military was initially unsure whether the projectiles struck the Israeli or Gazan side of the border... The [IDF] army’s official policy is to retaliate to attacks based on their damage, not the attackers’ intent. Misfired rockets landing on the Gaza side of the fence do not generally elicit an Israeli response. [Times of Israel, today]

If, as is the case with many of the previous Gazan Fell Shorts (Palestinian Arab rockets that misfire and hit something Gazan instead of something Israeli) someone was hurt or something was damaged on the Arab side, this will almost certainly go unreported. (Check out some of our past Fell Short reports.)

Though no news channel, to our knowledge, quotes Gazan sources on the subject of last night's rocket attack, this morning we checked the European Union-funded GANSO website which we have mentioned numerous times in the past. Visit their Incident Alerts page right now, as we did (see image below) and you see their report of four, not two, Gazan rockets last night, all of which crash landed on the Gazan side of the border.

Was anyone killed? Were any houses destroyed? No one, but literally no one, seems ever to report on such Arab-on-Arab casualties. Why? Ask the foreign media reporting from there. They're sure to find a justification.

From the GANSO website, Sunday morning August 2, 2015. Published in Gaza, GANSO say 4 rockets were fired at Israeli targets last night, not just 2 as reported in Israel. And not one managed to get as far as the Gazan border. Our sympathies to the hapless Gazans who have to live with this kind of catastrophe daily/nightly.

In the background - the very distant background to judge by the almost entirely absent media news coverage - there have been dozens of attacks on Israelis during Friday and the Sabbath day. This Hebrew-language report provides a summary and a time line, replete with photographs depicting the aftermath at some of the attack sites. One of them [here] shows a fire bomb (a so-called Molotov Cocktail) being hurled at an Israeli bus inside Jerusalem on Saturday evening. Israel National News [here] provides its customary close-the-action reports on the weekend's wave of anti-Israel violence.

In the Palestinian Arab media, the call to arms is unmistakable:

Clashes broke out across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank on Friday night in response to the death of an 18-month-old Palestinian who was burned alive in an arson attack carried out by suspected Israeli settlers earlier that day... [Maan News, Saturday]

It's almost comical to witness the straight-faced reporting of old/new threats emanating from the terror-addicted ranks of the Islamist Hamas regime in Gaza whose rockets and thuggish "security" agents have been - and continue to be - the cause of so many Palestinian Arab deaths:

Hamas said Friday that every Israeli is now a legitimate target following the deadly terror attack in the village of Duma in which a Palestinian toddler was killed, Israel Radio reported. In an official message to the public, Hamas also called for a "day of rage" to protest the deadly terror attack and "in order to protect al-Aksa mosque..." Israeli and Palestinian Authority security forces are on high alert in Jerusalem and the West Bank as Hamas calls for "day of rage." [Jerusalem Post, Friday]

Alert readers understand that declaring Israelis now to be legitimate targets for the rage and murderous hatred of the ranks of Hamas is a cynical joke. The Hamas Charter, its constitution, lays down the foundation for "legitimizing" the murder of Israelis, and virtually every public statement by its spokespersons reinforces the message. Friday's declaration is entirely directed at foreigners, and in particular foreign news reporters.

But not all. This Hamas statement was plainly directed at Palestinian Arab society:

Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri has accused Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas with bearing responsibility for the death of an Arab infant in the village of Duma in Samaria on Friday, which came during an arson attack the IDF suspects may have been committed by Jewish extremists. "I call on Abbas to stop pursuing Hamas in the (West) Bank, and place on him personal responsibility for the burning of the infant Ali Dawabsha, due to his harassment of resistance fighters," said the terrorist spokesperson. "If Hamas had a free hand to act in the (West) Bank, the settlers wouldn't be able to commit crimes like this and burn our children," claimed Abu Zuhri. [Israel National News, August 1, 2015]

(Abu Zuhri's non-stop venom has been the subject of some of our previous comments.)

Some other selected voices from this weekend (all direct quotes):

• Palestinian officials say Israel is "fully responsible" for the death of an infant in an arson attack blamed on Jewish settlers... [T]he Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which dominates the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, said it held the Israeli government "fully responsible for the brutal assassination" of the child, Ali Saad Dawabsha. "This is a direct consequence of decades of impunity given by the Israeli government to settler terrorism," it said. [BBC, Friday] The head of the PLO is Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority.
• Husam Badran, a key Hamas leader in Judea and Samaria... [said] that "this crime has turned IDF soldiers and settlers into legitimate targets, in any location and situation... Badran called for every "free person who can harm the occupier to start conducting revenge activities" because "the enemy doesn't understand anything but the language of force." [Israel National News, July 31, 2015]
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the firebombing "an act of terrorism in every respect" and made a rare telephone call to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas... Abbas said he had ordered his foreign minister to file a complaint at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. "We want true justice, but I doubt that Israel will provide that," he said of the attack in Duma, near the northern city of Nablus. [AFP, July 31, 2015]
• The US State Department condemned the "vicious terrorist attack" in "the strongest possible terms," urging Israel to "apprehend the murderers" and calling on both sides to "avoid escalating tensions". [AFP, July 31, 2015] 

That last point causes us personal heartburn, and here's why.

The State Department and especially its now-departed spokesperson Marie Harf, have a history (with us personally) of being mystifyingly unable to label certain kinds of acts of murder as terror, let alone characterize them as vicious. That's astonishing (we feel) when you take into account the plain nature of the crimes of those people, determined in a court of law and with the terrorists mostly confessing to their savagery, and even taking credit for it. (For a reminder of the background: "14-Sep-13: Memo to Secretary of State Kerry: Your staff need some urgent guidance").

We're offering no prizes for readers who can figure out which vicious acts by which people are ranked as terror by State's clever professionals, and which are not. It's about as obvious and clear as such matters ever get. You have to be a certain sort of diplomat to be blind to the nature of what's happening.

Meanwhile. the intensive police and army manhunt for the perpetrators of the Duma village fire-bombing is still underway.

13-Jun-15: Gazan evidence that Gazan rocket attack Thursday night struck Gaza

About the rocket fired towards Israel from the rocket-infested Gaza Strip ["11-Jun-15: Thursday night incoming rocket warnings heard in southern Israel"]  this past Thursday night: two things to share. One - it received close to zero news media coverage outside Israel, which is nothing new. And two - a Gazan source says that the rocket failed to reach Israel and crashed onto the heads of Gaza's hapless Arab population. See the screen shot below:

Click the image to read its text

GANSO, which serves foreign aid workers based in Gaza and is funded from Switzerland, reported today that 

Pal. ops. fired 1 rocket from S-W of GC toward the Green Line. The rocket dropped short and landed inside Pal. terr.

Translation: "Pal. ops" refers to Gazan Arab terrorists, without specifying with which of the numerous Gaza-based terrorist groups they are affiliated. "Fired from S-W of GC" means the rocket launcher was located in or at the edge of Gaza City, "population of 515,556, making it the largest city in the State of Palestine", according to Wikipedia. "Toward the Green Line" means fired in the vague, general direction of where Israeli communities and Israeli civilians can be found and damaged, injured, killed or merely terrorized.

In other words, yet another "Fell Short". launched from an urban area filled with civilians who - for practical purposes - serve as human shields for the heroes doing the firing.

"Fell Shorts" happen almost every time the terror groups of the Gaza Strip fire lethal explosive devices in Israel's direction. The mainstream media pay them almost no attention, even when Gazan Arabs are maimed or die as a result,

22-Feb-14: On Israel's Gaza border, tensions are rising, rockets are crashing, terrorists are plotting

Rock throwers on the Gazan side of the border are dispersed, Friday February 21
[Image Source: AFP]

Far from the attention of most reporters working in this part of the world, Israel's shared border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip remains volatile. An Aljazeera report from Friday, quoting Hamas "medical sources" says

At least 13 men were wounded in fighting not far from Jabaliya northeast of Gaza City... Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for the Hamas-run health ministry, told AFP at least one man was in serious condition after being shot in the head, near the border fence in the central Gaza Strip. Qudra said the shooting came after the Palestinians threw stones at Israeli soldiers... Clashes are common on Fridays, with regular protests near the border in support of Gaza farmers who say troops uprooted their trees to create a buffer zone. Tensions have risen in and around Hamas-ruled Gaza after a year of relative calm, with Palestinian fighters firing projectiles at Israel and the Jewish state targeting Hamas facilities and fighters. [Aljazeera, February 21, 2014]

The "independent", European-funded Maan News Agency based in Bethlehem expands on this, saying

Dozens of others suffered from excessive tear gas inhalation as Israeli forces violently dispersed the group, which was protesting against the confiscation of lands near the border by Israeli authorities. [Maan]

AFP's account quotes an officer from the IDF Spokespersons Unit who points out that "hundreds of Palestinians" had been engaged in hurling rocks across the fence at the Israelis who were there to protect the border fence and prevent further acts of sabotage from the Gazan side.

The soldiers opened live fire at "the lower extremities of the main instigators" after attempts to disperse them with riot dispersal means failed, she said. [AFP]

Yaakov Lappin, writing in the Jerusalem Post tonight, says

hundreds of Palestinians approached the border fence that separates northern Gaza from Israel, entering a closed security zone, where they began damaging the fence. IDF soldiers dispatched to the area called on the suspects to leave, fired warning shots, and when that failed, fired at their legs, striking and injuring several Palestinians. "We believe these guys are being sent to the fence by a party that has an interest in letting off some domestic pressure. We are not prepared to let threats reach the fence. Live fire is a tool to stop this," the source said. [Jerusalem Post]

Quoting an unnamed IDF source, the JPost article refers to gradually rising levels of violence by Gaza terror groups:

The source said he believed Hamas is not interested in an escalation with Israel at this time because of its internal Gazan interests, and that it was still restraining smaller terror groups from heating things up. At the same time, "we understand that Hamas is not doing all that it can to stop attacks," the source said. Less established Gazan terror factions are trying to launch terror attacks against Israel continuously, he added. "The situation is stable, but we are seeing a creeping escalation. A few months ago, there were not many rockets. Now we're seeing more of them. We're seeing more friction along the fence then in the past..." [Jerusalem Post]

According to IDF figures, since the start of 2014, 37 Gazan rockets (so far) have been fired into southern Israel.

The GANSO website reports from Gaza that the terrorists who control that area fired yet another rocket in the general direction of the Israeli side of the border on Wednesday (see below).

From the GANSO Incidents Alert site. "Pal. ops" is the term they use for Gaza-based terrorist forces.
"Green Line" is their euphemism for the State of Israel.

As far as we can tell, no one reported this. It may have been yet another of those "Fell Shorts" (Gazan rocket falling onto Gazan territory, houses, people) that hold so little interest for foreign journalists working this beat.

The past few Fridays, down south on the Gaza border, have seen essentially the same fence-rushing scenarios play themselves out, suggesting someone has an interest in whipping up the Palestinian Arab crowds during or after their Friday morning mosque services.

A week ago, on Friday February 14, another crowd of Palestinian Arabs converged on the border fence with rocks, and began pelting the Israelis on the far side. 17 of the Gazan rock-throwers were injured when, again, they failed to stop when called on to do so from the Israeli side, leading to the IDF's soldiers opening fire. And a week before that, on Friday February 7, the same sequence of events produced five injured Arabs.

Past experience suggests the current level of terrorist violence is not likely to remain constant.

17-Feb-14: Were three more rockets fired at Israel today, fell short, and went unreported? Evidently yes

Islamic Jihad terrorists prepare rocket attack
on Israel [Image Source]

We have not heard of any rocket assaults on southern Israel today but over in Gaza they seem to believe they happened.

Here below is a screenshot we captured in the last few minutes (it's now 10 at night on Monday) from the website of GANSO, the Gaza NGO Safety Office. It calls itself

a project of CARE International, funded by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) with the aim of providing the information and analysis the NGO community needs in order to implement humanitarian projects safely.

 As you might be able to see from the image below

at GANSO ("funded by the Humanitarian Aid department of the European Commission") they say that at 10 this morning,

"Pal. ops. fired 3 rockets from E. of KY toward the Green Line. Updates to follow as received."

Or in plain English:

Palestinian Arab jihadists ("Pal. ops.") fired three more rockets from east of the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis into the air at 10 this morning, aiming more or less in the general direction of anything Israeli on the far side of the border - where "anything" includes children, adults, school buses, classrooms, bus stop shelters, speeding ambulances... basically any animate or inanimate object the jihadists can add to their list of outrages such that praise and salutation will be brought down on their heads by the psychopathic leadership that rules Gaza's Palestinian Arabs with an iron Islamist fist." More or less...

As far as we can tell, there are no published reports today of rockets either crashing into southern Israel this morning or being launched. This makes us think there are now three more "fell shorts" to add to the huge and growing tally to date. "Fell shorts", as we have noted here several times, are never news, not even when - as certainly happens - Gazan children or jihadist rocket men end up being injured or killed by them. And if these events are not reported, then in the realpolitik of international relations they simply never happened.

11-Jan-14: Saturday night rocket fire on southern Israel

Providing some appropriate context, a report from Times of Israel tonight says a Qassam rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel this evening (Saturday), shortly after the announcement of the death of Ariel Sharon.

While there is some doubt at this hour as to whether and where this crashed to earth, the report suggests the trajectory pointed to a spot

"not far from where relatives of late ex-prime minister Ariel Sharon gathered at the family home at Shikmim Farm. Red alert sirens sounded in the area near the coastal city of Ashkelon, but no impact was reported, an IDF spokesperson said. Palestinian sources reported Israeli retaliatory airstrikes into the Gaza Strip shortly thereafter. There was no confirmation of the reports."

The Dubai-based pan-Arab news website Al Arabiya doesn't seem to know anything about tonight's incoming Gazan rocket. (This is fairly standard practice in the Arab world.) But it does provide considerable coverage to Sharon's passing. He had been comatose since suffering a devastating stroke on January 4, 2006, eight years and one week ago.

The photo above, showing candies being handed out in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, is from Al Arabiya tonight.

The terrorists of Gaza, in their endless pursuit of Israeli civilian victims, don't actually need the passing of a prominent Israeli figure to provide them with incentives. The GANSO website, published from the Gaza Strip with "the assistance of the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid department", often discloses rocket attacks that don't make the general media or even the Israeli.

In many cases, this is because those rockets are in the "fell short" category, not managing to get as far as the Israeli side of the fence that separates our country from the toxic Hamas-controlled failed mini-state. Fell-shorts regularly injure and kill Gazans. This is rarely reported.

Today, GANSO's bulletin shows this:

http://www.gaza-nso.org/?p=incident-alerts

Here's an enlarged view of the text:

In the GANSO lexicon, "Pal. ops." is how they refer to terrorists in the service of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad or other members of the Islamist groups operating from Gaza under Hamas auspirces; "MA" is one of Gaza's five zones (Rafah, Khan Yunis, Middle Area, Gaza City, North Gaza), and "HMR" absurdly means Home-made Rocket. Military intelligence estimates there are tens of thousands of rockets in the control of the Gazan terror forces. GANSO and its European Union backers carefully avoid dealing with revelations as narrative-busting as that.

As for a terrorists rocket exploding prematurely in the packed Gaza Strip, did you read about that? We follow these things pretty closely and saw no mention. Were people hurt? Killed? Anyone's guess.