04-Apr-18: In the war against the Gazan terrorists, the sea and "fisherman" have new significance

Israeli security video of naval forces seizing the attack ship

Think for a moment of all the news reports over the years of honest, hard-working, innocent-as-hell Gazan Palestinian Arab fishermen arrested for no reason whatsoever by mean Israeli naval forces.

The IDF and Israel's security establishment in general devotes massive resources to field intelligence. Israel's critics tend to relate to that sort of claim with cynicism, just because. That will probably continue today but for Israelis today brings some very disturbing news that, thankfully, includes something a positive outcome.

A Gazan Palestinian Arab plot to attack an Israeli naval vessel by missile, to then seize the survivors and do bad things to them or with them, was revealed today. It has ended well, at least so far. Here's how one report ["Shin Bet, IDF thwart Islamic Jihad attack on navy boats off Gaza coast", Times of Israel, April 4, 2018] tells it.

Security forces arrested a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group off the Gaza coast suspected of planning to sink an Israeli naval patrol boat and kidnap any survivors last month, Israel revealed on Wednesday. The plan was to use three boats to lure in a navy ship, fire a missile at it and then seize the wounded and slain soldiers, according to a joint statement by the Shin Bet security service and Israel Defense Forces. This plot was foiled on the night of March 12, when the navy’s 916th Patrol Squadron stopped a Palestinian boat that had left the designated Gaza fishing zone.

The video clip embedded above shows the nighttime seizure with well-armed IDF naval special forces boarding the fishing boat and arresting the 10 on board. The boat was impounded in Ashdod's sea-port.

It's likely that more information will emerge in days to come:

The crew was brought into Israeli custody for questioning, including Amin Saadi Muhammad Jumma’a, 24, a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad who told interrogators that he had received instructions from his commanders to prepare to carry out the attack on Israeli Navy ships... Jumma’a, a resident of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, told interrogators that the plan was for one boat to act as a diversion by leaving the fishing zone so that a navy ship would approach it...  “A second boat would attack the ship, firing a Kornet (anti-tank) missile at it, with the intention of causing injury and death to the soldiers on board,” the statement said. A third boat would then arrive on the scene and take the wounded soldiers hostage and steal the bodies of those killed, the security forces said.

Jumma’a (some reports spell his name as Juma) was indicted in a Beer Sheba court today (Wednesday) on multiple charges including planning to conduct a terror attack, acquiring weapons and belonging to a terrorist organization. The charge sheet says he was recruited into Islamic Jihad in 2016 and a year later agreed - after being promised $5,000 - to conduct the attack.

Of the ten men arrested, seven were released after interrogation by the Shin Bet. Two others are believed to be part of the plot and were not freed. The tenth is Jumma'a who is not going anywhere for now.

Over at Haaretz ["Israel Indicts Gaza Resident for Plot to Attack Navy Vessel and Abduct Troops", today] they say that

Intelligence services believe the plot reflects a desire by terrorist organizations in Gaza to shift their attention to sea in light of Israel's successes against the threat of underground tunnels. The military has deployed a number of methods meant to counteract this growing threat, and is preparing for the possibility that these groups may attempt to target Israel's offshore gas fields. 

In an Associated Press interview with a spokesperson for Islamic Jihad, Daoud Shehab, he "had no information about the Israeli announcement" but offered the not-so-startling insight that PIJ terrorists are involved in "open confrontation" with Israel:

"It's also our right to look for suitable ways to force Israel to release Palestinian prisoners," he added.

And Israel's right to do everything necessary to thwart them.

03-Apr-18: On Israel's Gaza border, more clashes today and a death

Today's Gazan attackers approach the border fence
[Video grab from the IDF surveillance video clip mentioned in the post]

There's no reason to expect the provocative efforts undertaken by Hamas and the consequent seriously raised tensions on the Gaza Strip's border with Israel to abate in the foreseeable future. The widespread criticism of Israel that erupted after 16 Palestinian Arabs were killed while rioting there this past weekend amount to the fulfillment of a dream for the Islamist terrorist organization. Their plan, by and large, is working. It's being marketed as “Return Marches” and set to continue, says Hamas, weekly into May.

No major surprise then that violent riots occurred throughout today (Tuesday) in four locations along the Gaza Strip barrier.

IDF forces used crowd dispersal measures and fired at suspects who attempted to breach the perimeter fence.The IDF says its soldiers today (Tuesday) used live fire against a group of Palestinian Arabs who succeeded in getting through the security fence. According to Times of Israel, one of the men in the group was shot dead:

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry identified the dead man as 25-year-old Ahmed Arafa, saying he was shot in the chest during clashes east of Bureij in central Gaza. The military wing of the DFLP terrorist group identified him as a member.

From Wikipedia:

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) (Arabic: 'الجبهة الديموقراطية لتحرير فلسطين', transliterated Al-Jabha al-Dimuqratiya Li-Tahrir Filastin) is a Palestinian Marxist–Leninist, secular political and militant organization. It is also frequently referred to as the Democratic Front, or al-Jabha al-Dimuqratiyah (الجبهة الديموقراطية). It is a member organization of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The group maintains a para-military wing called the National Resistance Brigades. Although the National Resistance Brigades have fighters based in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, these fighters have been engaged in relatively few military operations since the Second Intifada. The National Resistance Brigades continue to take part in training exercises at paramilitary camps near Rafah and Khan Yunis. One of the attacks for which the DFLP is best known is the 1974 Ma'alot massacre in which 25 schoolchildren and teachers were killed... The DFLP is believed to receive limited financial and military aid from Syria, where it is active in the Palestinian refugee camps. The DFLP's leader, Nayif Hawatmeh lives in Syria.

A brief surveillance video clip of about 25 seconds [click here to view], provided by the army to selected news media today, shows, according to Times of Israel

a person smashing the fence with what appears to be a metal pipe. He is joined by four others, two of which go through a hole in the fence. Then it appears warning shots were fired. The two men run back into Gaza, and once they are through the fence the video cuts out. It was unclear when Arafa was shot. According to the Israel Defense Forces, dozens of Palestinians took part [today] in “violent riots in four locations along the Gaza Strip.” The army said it used mostly less-lethal riot dispersal measures against the demonstrators — tear gas and rubber bullets — but used live rounds against the people who sabotaged the fence. “The IDF will not allow security infrastructure and the fence, which protects Israeli citizens to be damaged, and we will take action against terrorists who are involved,” the army said in a statement. “We again warn against approaching the fence,” the IDF added.

Media channels traditionally hostile to Israel, like Agence France Press (AFP) are blandly reporting tonight that

A Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli forces on the Gaza border Tuesday, the health ministry in the strip said, as tensions remained days after 17 people were killed when a mass demonstration led to clashes. The ministry identified the dead man as 25-year-old Ahmad Arafa, saying he was shot in the chest during clashes east of Bureij in central Gaza. The Israeli army said it was looking into the incident and could not immediately comment. It was the first death since at least 17 Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops Friday when a protest by tens of thousands of people resulted in clashes... Israel has defended its soldiers' actions on Friday, saying they opened fire only when necessary against those throwing stones and firebombs or rolling tires at soldiers. It said there were attempts to damage the fence and infiltrate Israel, while alleging there was also an attempted gun attack against soldiers along the border. Palestinians say protesters were fired on while posing no threat to soldiers.

Our guess is the surveillance video clip showing today's penetration of the fence and infiltration from Gaza into Israel will not influence the outlook of the AFP editors.

As far as we know, AFP has no reporters stationed in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. In choosing to quote the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry as its source, it keeps its news consumers in the dark about its highly-compromised nature as a source of objective reporting.

We also noticed the Turkish Anadolu Agency described today's dead attacker this way:

“Ahmed Omar Arafa, 25, was martyred after being shot in the chest by Israeli soldiers near the eastern border of the Al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip,” Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said in a statement.

Israel's friends had better get used to the new normal. For the next few weeks, the incompetent Hamas regime, unable to otherwise address the mounting fury of its subjects over a failed economy and a collapsed infrastructure, will be feeding news agencies with a steady stream of news fodder based on harmless, peaceful, unarmed protestors being mercilessly gunned-down without any good reason by mean Zionists. Hold tight.

14-Dec-17: Understanding what happened after Wednesday night's Gazan rocket attack on Israel

Haaretz says (rather blandly) three rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel yesterday (Wednesday): 

Two were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system and one fell into an open area as alarm sirens sounded in southern Israeli districts and cities including Sderot. Magen David Adom emergency responders said that a 30-year-old man wounded his leg while running for cover, and two others were being treated for shock. The rocket fire on Israel from the Gaza Strip Wednesday evening is returning the residents of the Gaza border region back to a state of tension they haven’t experienced since Operation Protective Edge over three years ago. No less [sic] than 15 rockets have been fired into Israeli territory since U.S. President Donald Trump’s declaration on Jerusalem, and although the Israel Defense Forces has been showing restraint, it will have a hard time holding back for much longer. 

Others say there were four, not three, and the difference points to something significant:

On Wednesday night, four rockets were fired from Gaza at southern Israel. Two of them were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, a third struck an open field and the fourth fell short of the border and hit a school in the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli officials... [Times of Israel, today]

So that's five Arab-on-Israeli attack rockets intercepted in mid-air and brought down by the amazing, life-saving, defensive Iron Dome system so far this week. 

As far as we know, neither Haaretz nor any non-Israeli news source has drawn attention to how yet-another Fell Short rocket dispatched on its murderous path towards Israel failed to cross the border and fell onto the heads of hapless Gazan Palestinian Arabs.

This time it struck a school according to Israeli assessments:

Beit Hanoun’s Ghazi al-Shawa public school, according to Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Defense Ministry liaison with the Palestinians.

Given the late-night hour, it was probably empty of students. But who really knows? And just imagine the reaction if it was an Israeli attack that view up a Gazan (almost certainly meaning UNRWA) school. Does anyone think The Guardian (which has a documented interest in Gazan schools being attacked) will give its readers any insight into this latest school bombing.

Fell Shorts are never reported by the terrorist regime in Gaza. If they did, they might have to own up to the utter contempt they have for harming their own side. Fell Shorts are very rarely reported by major news agencies.

By way of response, Israel this morning (Thursday) imposed a closure of its Gaza crossings:

Israel announced the closure of its Gaza border crossings on Thursday in response to daily rocket fire from the enclave over the past week after US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital stoked Palestinian anger. [Reuters, this morning]

An Israeli source adds:

The army said the Kerem Shalom Crossing, from which goods enter and leave the Strip, as well as the pedestrian Erez Crossing would be shuttered beginning on Thursday, in light of “security events and in accordance with security assessments.” It was not clear when the crossings would reopen, the army said. A military spokesperson said that in “humanitarian cases” Gaza residents may be allowed to pass through the Erez Crossing, but that this would be contingent upon approval from Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, Israel’s chief military liaison to the Palestinians, known formally as the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). [Times of Israel, today]

CNN's reporting on this ["Israel closes Gaza border crossings", CNN, today - archived here in case they change the text] maintains CNN's not-exactly-stellar record for perspective and fairness:

The Israeli military said it will close border crossings into Gaza beginning Thursday until further notice "due to the security events and in accordance with security assessments."
The crossings being closed, Kerem Shalom and Erez, are the only two on the Israeli border left. Israel has closed border crossings when tensions are high, some which have not been reopened to date. The territory is also under a naval blockade by the Israeli navy. Kerem Shalom is the crossing point where goods and supplies are brought into Gaza; Erez is the point where people cross. Shutting the two points effectively cuts off Gaza from the rest of the world by land, save for its small Egyptian border, which is generally closed. The territory is also under a naval blockade by the Israeli navy.

(Yes, Israel's navy gets mentioned twice. There's something about sailors in uniform.)

CNN has an interesting way of looking at this. Gaza, which everyone knows views Israel as its sworn enemy and which is busily attacking Israelis with rockets and tunnels at this moment, is shut off "from the rest of the world" by Israel closing its border this morning. Oh, "save for its small Egyptian border" which is "generally closed".

The word agitprop was invented for silliness of this CNN sort.

20-Oct-15: Children and what a soulless society can do to them

Mandela [Image Source: UNICEF]

 "There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children."

Nelson Mandela 1918-2013, addressing the launch of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, Pretoria, South Africa, May 8, 1995 [source]

Hamas, which more closely resembles a death cult than a functioning government, organized a rally this past Friday night in Rafah, Gaza Strip. If a picture is worth a thousand words, these representative photos below, published originally in Arabic-language channels and not (yet) syndicated by the major news agency names, sum up the self-inflicted tragedy of the Palestinian Arabs.

They also highlight the hypocrisy of those who ignore the evidence in front of their faces in the rush to embrace the Islamists and their "struggle" to "resist". So does the utter silence emanating from the many child-protection agencies around the world who published heart-rending images of under-nourished or war-impacted or genitally-mutilated children (as they should) but will not touch the rampant, highly public child abuse that is a daily reality in the world of the jihadists, and in particular the dark netherworld of Hamas. What they have done to their children is beyond forgiveness,

Now bear in mind as you glance at them what's going on in the late Nelson Mandela's homeland the last few days:

Khaled Mashal, Hamas' political leader since 2004, was invited to participate in a conference of South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), and will meet South African President Jacob Zuma. ANC said the conference will discuss "Palestinian identity issues, in addition to an independent, sovereign Palestinian state, free from Israeli occupation." [Xinhua, October 19, 2015]

And this:

Jacob Zuma (as head of the African National Congress) honors
his invited guest and arch-terrorist Khaled Meshaal
in Johannesburg, South Africa yesterday [Image Source]

The ANC released a number of tweets chronicling the meeting between Hamas leader Khaled Mashal and the South African president and a press conference that followed. Photos shared by the ANC showed South African leaders exchanging gifts with Mashal as well as the signing of a letter of intent for the two governments to build a lasting relationship. Many of the tweets expressed solidarity with Palestine. One quoted South African politician Gwede Mantashe saying, "we will call on all progressive countries to support the cause of the Palestinian people." Another tweet said that the "ANC is always on the side of the oppressed. Hence we support Palestine and Western Sahara." [i24news, October 19, 2015] 

No immediate word on how firmly the ANC stands behind children with daggers or the adults who put them there. Or whether they subscribe, as Hamas does, to the uplifting value of viciously murdering unarmed Jews and other Israelis as part of its efforts to “free Al-Aqsa”.

The source of the photos of knife-clutching children below, all taken on Friday October 16, 2015 at a Hamas event on the streets of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, is Donia Al-Watan, a Palestinian Arab website that describes itself as "the first electronic Palestinian newspaper concerned with Palestinian affairs, along with the regional and global news... [and] classified as one of the most Arabic websites that enhance democracy."

Child victim

Child victim

Child victim

Adult role model

Universal Children's Day takes place on November 20, exactly a month from today. The annual event was initiated by the UN General Assembly in 1954 as a way of encouraging states to "to promote mutual exchange and understanding among children" and similar blah blah. But also "to initiate action to benefit and promote the welfare of the world's children", a noble and concrete goal that seems as far away from being achieved today as it ever was in the past. We don't say that the vicious and violent grip that Hamas has on the children on the Gaza Strip can be reversed by concerted action by the world's nations. That would be asking for too much, and it isn't going to happen. But that they remain utterly silent in the face of the murder-centric child abuse that goes on in front of the cameras daily and nightly in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip - that's beyond unconscionable. 

Not for the first time, we ask: where is UNICEF? Or Save the Children, or Defence for Children Internation­al-Palestine (DCIP) or Terre des Hommes, or the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement or even the dishonorable Amnesty International (on whom we have not yet entirely given up hope)? Or the other well-funded, high-profile public interest organizations that purport to care for the welfare of children but that take so little interest in the unfolding tragedy of the children of the Palestinian Arabs and the terror-obsessed jihadists cheating them of their future?

Some previous posts of ours (backwards, chronologically) on this very painful theme:

• 12-Feb-15: It's Red Hand Day. Do you know where the children are?
• 24-Nov-14: Destroying their own children's lives is not the worst option for the terrorists. In their eyes, it may even be the best
• 22-Nov-14: What youths and children are good for
• 02-Nov-14: Understanding what they really mean when the terrorists say children are their main concern
• 08-Oct-14: Children, innocence, rhetoric and savagery
• 15-Aug-14: Terror and children
• 27-Jan-13: Hamas' new army of children: Will the UN's and foreign funders' role in this scandal be critiqued by the news-reporting media?
• 24-Jan-13: Sacrificing the lives of an entire generation of adolescents on their altar of hatred, the thugs of Hamas boast of plans to create a children's army
• 21-Jul-14: War, civilians, children: what the terrorists of Hamas can teach us
• 2-Jul-14: Our side and theirs: an email to a well-meaning friend
• 27-Jan-14: In Gaza, a death cult celebrates its graduating class
• 15-Jan-14: When a society praises itself for turning its children into human bombs, whose problem is that?
• 8-Oct-13: Children and their indispensable role in the conflict
• 3-Jul-13: Educating the next generation: an early-summer reflection on asymmetry
• 18-Jun-13: They want their children to become killers and they say why. The rest of us are left with questions
• 4-May-13: So you thought the people who raise children to become "the fertilizer of their land" could sink no further?
• 29-Apr-13: Hamas demonstrates importance of solid education
• 17-Mar-13: A little village in the hills, and the monsters it spawns

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.

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.

15-Sep-06: Tonight in Rafah

Another Rashomon moment.

IDF intelligence sources in recent days identified a building in Rafah at the southern end of the Gaza Strip, close to the border with Egypt, that was serving as the concealed entrance to an arms-smuggling tunnel. This past night (Thursday/Friday), IDF planes bombed the building and destroyed it. No persons were hurt.

Experience tells us that if this event is reported in any form at all, it will be along the lines of a Gaza grandmother in dusty black robe, sitting on the ground, arms stretched to the heavens, wailing over the cold-blooded destruction by the Zionist occupation forces of yet another refugee dwelling. When we spot the pictures on any of the usual picture sites, we'll copy one here. Meanwhile we'll tap into our archive. (To be clear, losing your home is a misery. But everything we have learned about how images are willingly manipulated by activist photographers and editors tells us you must ask questions and demand to know the context. Most people don't, and they are routinely served visual falsehoods.)

The reality is, as always, a little different from the spin.

The building in Rafah serves terrorism. The smuggling activity conducted from within it is not calculated to deliver fresh eggs to the hungry of Rafah but to bring armed terrorists into Israel and to serve as a conduit for explosives and other armaments. Its true nature and the threat to human lives it poses to people on both sides of the barrier is, by its nature, well-known to the authorities and to the neighbours on the Gaza side. It doesn't faze them.

Prior to sending in the planes, the IDF - as it customarily does - delivered warnings to the Gazans living in the vicinity of the building to leave. It reminded them people staying in structures that serve the terrorists and store and smuggle weaponry take enormous risks. Once the message was communicated, the bombs hit their target (that was a few hours ago) causing what the IDF's press office called a series of secondary explosions in the building. Secondary explosions happen when explosives - in this case in large quantities evidently - are contained within buildings.

The laconic language of the IDF announcement could hardly have less impact, but there's sense in its words neveretheless - sense which is rarely communicated to the news-consuming public via the mainstream media:

Terrorist organizations operate from within civilian population, while cynically exploiting uninvolved civilians and using them as human shields, exploiting their homes to store weaponry and launching rockets at Israeli towns from populated areas.

Meanwhile 3 more Qassam rockets landed inside Israel overnight. Two struck agricultural hot-houses on the grounds of Kibbutz Netiv Hasarah near the Gaza security fence. One landed south of Ashkelon in an open field near the Shaar Hanegev neighbourhood. No injuries or damage are reported. (With Palestinian Arab terror attacks, it's usually pot-luck. They don't aim and they don't dare as long as it's Israel and Israelis.) The IDF responded by firing at the rocket-launching sites - not "retaliation" as some news channels like to say, but attempting to permanently eliminate the rocket-firing equipment and their terrorist operators.

If anyone comes across a different version of these events from a Palestinian Arab perspective, we'd be very interested to know about it.

Nothing in today's blog is earth-shattering (except in a literal sense) and clearly has a very small impact on people living far away. But for those of us actively engaged in living our lives here in Israel, it's depressing to see how an ongoing low-intensity war of terror on our flanks is basically wished out of existence by those charged with reporting it.