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.

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. 

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.

6-Jul-14: For Hamas, Fatah and the PA, those rockets are about money, power, foreign aid and (naturally) corruption

A shared concern: Khaled Mashaal of Hamas;
Mahmoud Abbas of PA [Image Source: AP]

It was reported Thursday night that Israel had issued an ultimatum to Hamas in Gaza to halt the rocket fire or face a massive Israeli strike. The rockets have continued. Here's a Saturday night overview.

• The rocket-men of Gaza have been pressing their attacks further and further into Israel today, aiming at Be'er Sheva for the first time since November 2012's Operation Pillar of Defense. At that time, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem all absorbed Hamas rockets. In the course of eight days of fighting, the IDF carried out some 1,500 airstrikes against terrorist targets. Six Israelis and 167 Palestinians were killed.
• There were three rocket attacks on the southern desert city tonight (Saturday evening). One incoming rocket was intercepted in mid-flight by the IDF's Iron Dome defense system. Two others crashed and exploded in open fields with no reports of casualties. Beersheba has a population of 200,000. 
• Times of Israel says shortly after Be'er Sheva was attacked, five additional rockets were fired towards the Hof Ashkelon and Eshkol regions. Three were intercepted by Iron Dome; two crashed and exploded in open areas. 
• Ofakim (population 25,000) also came under rocket fire in another barrage today.
• By nightfall, the tally of rockets and mortar shells was at least 20 and possibly higher. That's also how many were fired at Israel during Friday.
• Times of Israel says: "With the attack on Beersheba, Israeli patience could now be wearing thin."
• Meanwhile a Hamas statement late tonight ["Hamas boasts that all Israeli cities are within its reach"] makes their public posture quite plain.

What's behind the Gaza rockets? According to Avi Issacharoff, who writes for Times of Israel today and has commented for several other media channels, it's about power and cash ["For Hamas, it’s all about the money", posted Saturday night July 5]. He quotes sources in Gaza who say the ongoing rocket fire from Gaza keeps happening because Hamas is seeking to achieve a public relations victory in the eyes of its Gazan public. They prefer to sidestep a larger conflict but they need to be seen as being unafraid of an escalation.

So where's the power? And what's happened to the cash?

• Hamas has threatened the PA that if the salaries of about 40,000 Hamas government employees, (essentially doing nothing for years already but being paid off nonetheless via foreign aid sources) are not paid by next Sunday, it will step back into the government offices in Hamas and take back control.
• Fatah and Hamas have been in a confrontation on this money issue since they created a so-called national unity government in April.
• The PA's president Mahmoud Abbas and his insiders have been saying for some weeks that the "reconciliation" agreement requires that a committee must decide on who gets to continue to be paid by the PA government from its foreign aid sources and who not. Those decisions have not yet been made. Much depends on this.
• The perpetually-broke PA is of course unable to make the payment itself. But no problem: Qatar says it will provide the money. However this is currently easier said than done, as Issacharoff writes: "Banks refuse to transfer the money to Hamas members’ accounts because of international laws restricting aid to terrorist groups, and Egypt refuses to let Qatar transfer cash overland into the Gaza Strip. Abbas, for his part, is not prepared to pay the salaries, and certainly not after the kidnapping and murders of three Israeli teens last month... Perhaps then Hamas feels it’s better to create tension with Israel (not a full-scale escalation) in a bid to increase pressure on Egypt to permit the transfer of funds or salaries to the Gaza Strip."
• The article closes with a quote from an anonymous senior terrorist from Hamas, saying “Those who expect Hamas to stop the rocket fire... should turn to (Palestinian Authority Prime Minister) Rami Hamdallah”. Message: This is really all about those salary payments.

Arguments among Palestinian Arab factions over cash and the payment of salaries to people who don't have to show up to work and who plainly have nothing to do and are not expected to do it are a constant in this ongoing war. The 2013 report of the European Union's Court of Auditors referred to it and got almost no attention. The Issacharoff article will probably get the same treatment. This is not what the mainstream news media want us to be thinking about Arab/Israel conflict.

Some of our earlier posts about the toxic role played by corruption and money in perpetuating the rocket-fire and other forms of Palestinian Arab terror:

• 9-Apr-14: Straight talk, crooked dealings: is the role of foreign aid in financing Palestinian Arab terror about to change?
• 10-Dec-13: EU may have located the billions it "lost" in Palestine. Or not.
• 17-Oct-13: Making sense of never-ending corruption
• 13-Oct-13: Massive scandal in Palestinian Arab financial affairs? No!
• 3-Oct-13: The business of terror: how money-making and power impact the search for peace
• 9-Sep-13: Snouts and troughs
• 12-Jul-12: Secret bank accounts, sweetheart deals for insiders, incredible riches for the president's sons: why would any Palestinian Arab politician ever give this up for... peace?
• 12-Jan-08: Open letter to the friends of our hostile neighbors

11-Mar-12: Scenes from an asymmetrical war

The people of Ashdod, a city south of Tel Aviv, have had a maddening
weekend with incoming rocket sirens round the clock
and the kind of tension and fear that people living far
from here cannot imagine. This Reuters photo shows
a launcher, part of the Iron Dome rocket shield system,
freshly deployed in a field on the edge of the city. 

The terrorists of Gaza, as we noted earlier tonight, have so far flung (the best word we can think of for their indiscriminate firing into southern Israel) some 135 rockets into southern Israel in the latest escalation in this ongoing war.

Around 11 o'clock on Saturday night, a barrage of five rockets emanating from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip crashed into the Eshkol region of southern Israel. This time, no injuries and no damage reported but there have been Israeli casualties during this past 30 hours of ceaseless indiscriminate rocket firing into Israel.

Most of the rockets have been fired in the general direction of Ashkelon and Ashdod and Gan Yavne, southern dormitory suburbs of Tel Aviv. One Israeli civilian was severely injured, but very fortunately the injury list at this stage is relatively short. The Iron Dome anti-rocket system developed and urgently pressed into service by the Israeli military last year has done an impressive job of intercepting those missiles and rockets calculated (by the IDF) to be heading towards populated areas and, as Tom Gross writes tonight, disregarding those that are heading towards fields and empty land:

Of the first hundred launched from Gaza in the last 24 hours, 29 of the incoming rockets were heading towards Israeli population centers. 27 of them have been intercepted by the Iron Dome: a success rate of 93%.

Ashdod, on Israel's southern coast: under more
normal circumstances, a relaxed, pleasant and
fast-growing Mediterranean city [Image Source]

A number of Palestinian Arab terrorists have been eliminated by IDF action in the past day, caught as they were in the act of launching rockets at Israeli targets. No doubt there will be changes in the coming hours, but at this point, we believe no Palestinian civilians have been harmed. The precision of the IDF attacks so far has been extraordinary.

The website of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights has been tracking this weekend's dead terrorists (hat tip to Mr Medad) and unwittingly helping the outside world see how much care the Israeli side takes in blunting the terrorists and their rockets while making maximum efforts to avoid injury or worse to bystanders. Here's a summary of their running list so far:

• Friday, March 9, 2012 at 6:15 pm: A vehicle carrying two leaders of the Popular Resistance Committees was  struck from the air. The men inside were killed. They were Zuhair Mousa Ahmed al-Qaissi, 49, from Rafah, the so-called Secretary-General of the Popular Resistance Committees [more about him in a moment]; and Mahmoud Ahmed Hanani, 44, from Nablus, the son-in-law of al-Qaissi. [Note that the report states this son-in-law had been released from an Israeli prison and expelled to Gaza in 2006.]  The Times of Israel says tonight that al-Qaissi had boasted about his involvement in the kidnapping and holding for ransom of Gilad Shalit. He was the head of the Popular Resistance Committees, a somewhat shadowy terrorist group linked to Hamas. The Times quotes him saying shortly after the Shalit kidnapping that he was handed over to Hamas because Hamas “had the capabilities and the locations which allowed them to keep the prisoner in a safe secret place.” 
• Friday, March 9, 2012 at 7:20 pm: Three "activists" [Palestinian Arab code-name for terrorists] of  the al-Quds Brigades division of Palestinian Islamic Jihad were spotted and killed from the air while they were "near al-Mentar Hill in the east of al-Shuja'iya neighborhood in the east of Gaza City" [Israeli reports say they were in the process of firing off rockets into Israel at that exact moment]. The men's names: Mohammed Khaled Harara, 24; Fadel 'Obaid al-Gharabli, 25;  Hazem 'Awadh Quraiqe', 33.
• Friday, March 9, 2012 at 10.30 pm: another pinpoint attack from an IDF jet eliminated Shadi Riad al-Saiqali, 27 another so-called "activist" from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, this time in the al-Tuffah neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. 
• Saturday, March 10, 2012 at 12:45 am: Another air-borne attack on Palestinian Islamic Jihad "activists", meaning terrorists in the process of despatching rockets into Israel from a location "near the headquarters of the Palestinian Legislative Council in the center of Gaza City". Three terrorists were all eliminated. Their names: Fa'eq Sameer Sa'ad, 28; Mo'tassem Diab Hajjaj, 22;  Ahmed 'Abdul Fattah Hajjaj, 24.
• Saturday, March 10, 2012 at 1:45 am:  Another air-borne attack on Palestinian Islamic Jihad "activists", meaning terrorists in the process of despatching rockets into Israel from a location "near Hammouda fuel station in the southeast of Beit Lahia". Killed: Mohammed Yahia Mohammed al-Mughari, 24; and Mahmoud Ismail Nejem, 22.  A third un-named terrorist (PHCR calls him an "activist") was seriously wounded.
• Saturday, March 10, 2012 at 4:10, yet another precise air-borne IDF attack on Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists caught in the act. They were driving on Saladin road near the entrance of the central Gaza Strip town of Deir al-Balah. Their car took a direct hit, killing Mohammed Ibrahim al-Ghamri, 26. Three others terrorists in the car were wounded. 

The late Zuhair Mousa Ahmed al-Qaissi

The rain of rockets has not yet ended, and neither have Israeli pinpoint military attacks on specified targets in the Gaza area. Since there's uncertainty about how much freedom-to-operate the Gazan thugs still have at this point, the authorities in Beersheba, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Netivot, Kiryat Gat, Ofakim, Beer Tuvia, Yavne and Gedera have announced that all schools in their regions will be closed today (Sunday).

To call the news coverage of the ongoing rocket barrage on southern Israel minimal would be an understatement. It's almost entirely unreported, though the reactions to the untimely deaths of 'activists' from the Palestinian Arab side [for instance, "Israel launches deadly air strikes on Gaza" over at the BBC right now] are given wide, headline-level prominence, particularly in third-world countries. Hard not to be extremely cynical about the hypocrisy that produces results like this.