23-Nov-20: Four Arab-on-Israeli terror attempts; close to zero media attention

Qalandiya Crossing, the pedestrian part - seen in a 2019 photo
[Image Source]

No one was hurt. But that was surely not the intention of the perpetrators behind four terror attacks directed against Israelis in the past few days. 

In four separate attempts this past weekend, terrorists sought to carry out lethal attacks directed at Israelis targeted at random. 

Two happened on the edges of the capital, Jerusalem, a third in the country's south and the fourth in the Samaria District. None of them individually got much attention, and we don't see any media saying that four in the space of a single weekend means something.

It's reported ["Explosives placed by terrorists near Jerusalem over weekend" | Jerusalem Post. November 22, 2020] that at the Qalandiya Crossing on Jerusalem's north-eastern entrance, two explosive packages were concealed Friday night close to where vehicles drive through. One exploded but failed to cause injury or damage. Witnesses spotted two suspects arriving at the crossing, placing the explosives and fleeing from the scene. A chase ensued with Border Police eventually arresting two under-age suspects in a nearby convenience store. This Arab source names them as Khaled Salim and Ismail Abu Zaidiya, both residents of the Qalandiya "refugee camp".

It didn't end there. In taking the prisoners away, the security people were confronted by dozens of Palestinian Arabs hurling rocks at them. Riot dispersal measures were used and the melee - which could easily have become the story - ended with no injuries.

The second attempt, on Friday night at the ancient Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem, was thwarted when a lookout spotted a suspect placing an explosive close to the walled complex and running away from the scene. He was pursued by Border Police who caught up with him and placed him under arrest. He is an 18-year-old male from a so-called refugee camp in the Bethlehem area. His explosive failed to detonate.

IDF forces apprehending a terror suspect this past weekend.
No one was hurt which - being Israelis - was the intention.
[Image Source]

A media release quoted in the Jerusalem Post report says "Border Police are working in the Jerusalem Envelope area to strengthen deterrence and thwart terrorism while increasing the deployment of forces in sensitive places where there have been recent attempts to harm civilians and security forces."

Then Saturday night around 9:30 pm, a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel set off the Tzeva Adom (Color Red) missile attack sirens in the southern coastal city of Ashkelon, according to a Ynet report. The resulting explosion caused damage to a warehouse in an industrial zone of the city. But fortunately no injuries - and to state the obvious (whenever missiles are fired into cities by malevolents totally indifferent to outcomes) this could have been a far more troubling event.

Then on Sunday morning in a third hidden explosives incident reported by Jerusalem Post - making it the fourth terror event of this weekend - IDF combat soldiers carrying out routine searches uncovered camouflaged explosives placed just outside the village of al-Mughayyir, south of Jenin. The military assessment is the intention of those who planted the explosives was to harm Israeli soldiers.

Seems a good time to mention that, for the Palestinian Authority, "...rewarding terrorists is not about social welfare. It is about incentivizing and rewarding terror and murder. “Pay for slay” is an abomination that should enjoy universal condemnation." Those sentiments, which are easy to agree with, come from "Lies, damn lies and Palestinian Authority’s ‘pay for slay’ policy", an op ed published by Jewish News Syndicate four days ago. It's authored by Maurice Hirsch who served in past years as director of the IDF Military Prosecution for Judea and Samaria. 

He's the kind of hands-on expert who can be expected to have some well-founded sense of what foreign aid funding achieves once it's handed over to the terror-addicted kleptocrats of the PA.

As it happens, Yossi Kuperwasser of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a former Director General of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and past head of the Research Division of IDF Military Intelligence, released a brief the same day as the Hirsch piece. It's called "Will the Palestinian Authority Stop Paying Terrorists? End the “Pay to Slay” Program?" and he leaves readers with the impression that no they won't. 

With predictable consequences.

02-Nov-19: Again: Friday night rocket barrages from Gaza

As the Sabbath ends here in Jerusalem, we - like many of the families living around us - go as soon as we can to our Internet devices to see what we didn't hear about during the past 25 hours. And it turns out to have been an especially violent weekend.

Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip fired 10 rockets into Israel in two separate barrages on Friday night, the army said... Warning sirens had gone off in the town of Sderot and in other Israeli communities along the Gaza border as many families were eating Friday night Shabbat dinner... One projectile slammed into a house in the town of Sderot, while the Iron Dome system intercepted eight and the tenth fell in open ground. The army responded several hours later with strikes on several terror targets in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
Palestinian media reported that several airstrikes targeted training sites and outposts affiliated with Hamas and other groups. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said three men sustained moderate or serious shrapnel wounds from one of the airstrikes.
In the early hours of Saturday, sirens again sounded in Sderot and the village of Ibim. The IDF later attributed the sirens to “non-rocket fire” from Gaza into Israel.
During the earlier barrage, a 65-year-old woman was lightly hurt when she fell while running toward a shelter, medics said. Five people were treated for anxiety.
The attack was one of the largest in recent months...
The rocket barrages came a day after a rocket fired from Gaza landed in an open field. There were no reports of injuries or damage in Thursday’s attack. ["Rocket fired from Gaza hits home in Sderot as Iron Dome intercepts 8 others", Times of Israel, November 1, 2019]

Deploying the Iron Dome anti-missile system is expensive, as the news media here frequently remind us. As a general matter, the system rapidly informs its operators if a specific Israel-bound attack is on a trajectory likely to cause damage or injury. Then and (usually) only then, the IDF shoots to intercept.

There were eight intercepts on Friday night.

Here's how a crash-landing Gazan rocket, fired off in the general direction of anything Israeli, looks when it strikes your home. The security cam video clip in the Tweet below is from around 9:00 pm Friday night, via an Israeli news program:

תיעוד נוסף ממצלמת אבטחה של פגיעת הרקטה בבית בשדרות @bokeralmog

(צילום: אלברט אבוחצירא) pic.twitter.com/X3GVQDtpvI

— חדשות 13 (@newsisrael13) November 1, 2019

The family living in the house, according to a paramedic quoted by Ynet,

"a couple in their 40s and their children, were in an adjacent building," he said. "They told us that as soon as the sirens sounded, they entered the protected area and left a few minutes later. They were not injured and did not need medical attention."

Spokesthugs for Hamas are quoted tonight [here] saying the Israeli airstrikes that followed shortly after the Gazan rocket barrages are a “dangerous escalation” and that the “Zionist enemy bears responsibility for its consequences and ramifications.”

05-Oct-19: Paying the price of Gazan terror again, two more Gazan Fell Shorts crash into Gaza

Remember our post about Fell Shorts from just a couple of weeks ago? 

In "19-Sep-19 Gazan victims of a cognitive war: Who cares?", we wrote about the almost entirely unreported phenomenon of rockets fired from the rocket-infested, Hamas-occupied Gaza Strip in the general direction of Israel but which fall short, crashing onto the heads of homes of hapless Gazans.

It happened again in the early hours of this morning, Saturday.

Two projectiles fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip on Friday fell short of the border fence, landing inside the Hamas-held territory, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. The launches triggered incoming rocket sirens in the Gaza border community of Kissufim in southern Israel shortly before midnight.
The incident came hours after a Palestinian man was killed during riots along the Gaza-Israel border fence on Friday, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, as thousands took part in weekly protests.
Alaa Hamdan, 28, was shot in the chest by IDF soldiers in a clash near Jabalia in northern Gaza, the ministry’s spokesman said. The IDF had no immediate comment on the death.
Israel’s Channel 12 said the death may have been caused by a Palestinian grenade.
[Times of Israel, October 5, 2019]

Haaretz adds that

A statement from the Eshkol Regional Council on the Gaza border said that although phone apps sent out an alert of a rocket siren in the area, no such siren was activated, and no explosions were heard. The Israel Defense Forces clarified that it identified two launches [from Gaza], which did not cross into Israeli territory. 

Who was injured in Gaza by the Gazan rocket? What damage was caused? We'll likely never know. Media coverage of Gaza from within Gaza is strictly controlled by Hamas, the Islamist terrorist organization that has ruled it since violently wresting control from Fatah in 2006. Unless the news can inflict harm on Israel, it will never be reported.

19-Sep-19 Gazan victims of a cognitive war: Who cares?

Nurses in a Gaza hospital [Image Source: Aljazeera]

Associated Press reported last night on something that happens often - much more often than even attentive followers of events in the Arab vs Israel conflict know - but that rarely gets reported even though it involves Palestinian Arab victims.

Because they're the victims of extreme Palestinian Arab malevolence, such events and their often lethal consequences go unnoticed.

We have reported on many dozens of them in this blog.We call them Fell Shorts.

Rockets fired from Gaza fall short, wound 7 Palestinians
By Associated Press
September 18 at 2:57 PM
JERUSALEM — Seven Palestinians have been wounded after a rocket barrage from the Gaza Strip exploded near a house inside the coastal enclave. Palestinian eyewitnesses said Wednesday that two of the three rockets struck outside a home in the southern city of Rafah, and a third fell near the fence separating Israel and the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military said it had identified “a failed launch attempt” from the Gaza Strip, but that no projectiles entered Israel. Gaza’s health ministry said seven people were wounded, but didn’t elaborate on their condition. It wasn’t clear which Palestinian militant group in Gaza was behind the rocket fire.

The AP dateline is Jerusalem. It's worth recalling that almost everything that is reported from the Hamas-occupied Gaza Strip is based on what the Hamas regime chooses to announce. Reporters, to say it mildly, do not operate freely there.

Times of Israel bases its report of the same Fell Shorts on AP. But there are differences and they're also worth noting:

• The rocket barrage from the Gaza Strip was aimed at Israel.
• It points out that Gaza’s health ministry is Hamas-run. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Everything it does and says is meaningfully colored by that reality. The same goes for what it doesn't say.
• It provided some context not found in the AP report: "Rockets have been fired at Israeli cities and communities multiple times this month — with most intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system or landing in open areas — drawing retaliatory Israeli airstrikes."
• But while the AP version doesn't seem to know about the context and those ongoing rocket attacks directed from Gaza against any Israeli communities within firing range, the AP editors choose to inject this sanguine note which their Israeli counterparts wisely did not: "Israel and Hamas reached an informal cease-fire in May, following the worst bout of fighting since a 2014 war between them, which has largely held." Right, except when it hasn't.

What happened in the end to those "wounded" Palestinian Gazan Arabs next to whose home the  Palestinian Arabs rockets crashed? 

Hamas certainly knows. Its ministry of "health" knows too but isn't saying; that's not its job. The unfortunate family itself knows. But since they can only blame the heroes of the anti-Zionist revolution for what was done to them, their voices count literally for nothing in that blighted society. There are many such silenced voices in Gaza.

In blunt terms, without intending to sound offensive or insensitive - when it comes to Palestinian Arab victims of Palestinian Arab terrorist violence, who cares?

02-May-19: Multiple events coming up so the Gazans crank up their rockets

10 am The silence of siren time - Yom Hashoah [Image Source]

The Hamas-run Gaza Strip, known for possessing one of the world's largest rocket arsenals, has been making its lethal presence felt again today as the general climate in our neighourhood for trouble and violence edges upwards.

It's Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) but the pragmatic concerns of most Israelis aren't limited (if they ever were) to looking back at the blood-soaked recent history of our people. There are daily murderous attacks on Jews by powerful, absurdly-well-armed enemies right here and now and even if most of the media attention fails to deal with the threats on our borders, Israelis and the security establishment must.

Haaretz says two rockets were fired by Gaza-based terrorist forces into the southern region of Israel early this morning (Thursday). A barrage of explosive-laden balloons was launched in the same general direction during Wednesday:

Alarms sounded in Israeli communities along the Gaza border, including Sha'ar Hanegev and Sdot Negev Regional Councils, before the rocket fire, but there were no reports of damage and no one was hurt. Palestinian media reported that a Hamas training facility in Gaza was target by the Israeli air force. It was heavily damaged, reports say, but no casualties were reported.

According to Aljazeera, those Israel-bound rockets have a known origin:

Hamas, the group that governs the Gaza Strip, reportedly launched two rockets towards Israel on Thursday morning in response to Israeli rocket fire.

Threats were issued ahead of the rockets:

Palestinian groups in Gaza have threatened over the past week to resume certain activities at the border that were recently frozen, including the use of incendiary balloons. Sources in the committee that organizes weekly protests at the border said this week that Israeli failure to implement recently agreed-upon understandings is leading to anger in Gaza and could lead to violent escalation [Haaretz]

The balloons caused serious damage and loss:

Fire and rescue services were called [Wednesday] to put out two fires near Israeli border communities, which authorities say were caused by firebombs from Gaza [Haaretz]

And on Monday, as we tweeted, another Gazan rocket landed in Israeli waters. Haaretz says

The Israeli army said the rocket launched by Islamic Jihad on Monday was aimed at hitting one of Israeli communities along the border. It named Islamic Jihad officials directly, publishing their photos, and laid responsibility for the attack on the organization, an unusual move as it normally holds Hamas accountable for aggression coming out of the Strip.

Aljazeera adds that on Tuesday

Israel reduced Gaza's fishing limit from 15 nautical miles (27.8km) to six nautical miles (11.1km) after it alleged a rocket was fired from the territory by Islamic Jihad - an allegation the Palestinian group denied. Rights group call Israel's ever-changing limit of Gaza's fishing zone as "illegal collective punishment".

PIJ forces on Israel's Gaza border [Image Source]
@MargieinTelAviv points out that you only see them in uniforms on
videos and handouts. When it comes to actual fighting they
wear civilian clothes and refuse to admit that they are Hamas/PIJ
terrorists so that Hamas can claim civilian deaths.
But their FBook pomp betrays them

About that rocket, Anna Aronheim, writing in the Jerusalem Post, quotes the IDF Spokesperson Brig-Gen Ronen Manelis, saying Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) launched it from the al-Attra neighborhood of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza Strip. And naming names:

“It was intentionally fired by the group,” Manelis said, adding that the PIJ operative who gave the order for the launch is Baha’a Abu al-Ata, the PIJ commander of the northern Strip. According to Manelis, al-Ata received his orders directly from the group’s leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah in Damascus. PIJ, the military said, is trying to carry out low-level attacks and maintain a low profile so that Hamas doesn’t figure out that they are trying to undermine ceasefire efforts between the ruling group in the coastal enclave and Israel.
“There are dozens of countries around the world which are trying to improve the humanitarian situation in the Strip but and at the same time there is one man inside Gaza and one man outside the Strip which is trying to torpedo that,” he said... On a call with reporters, Manelis noted that the rocket launch came shortly before a potentially tense month, with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Nakba Day, Israel’s Memorial Day and Independence Day, and the one year anniversary of the opening of the American Embassy in Jerusalem... Manelis also noted that the IDF is also preparing for violence ahead of Eurovision, which will take place in Tel Aviv in May with thousands of tourists expected to visit. Due to a fear of escalation in the south over the coming weeks, Israel’s military deployed several Iron Dome missile defense batteries across the country. ["IDF reduces Gaza fishing zone after rocket fromm PIJ", Jerusalem Post, April 30, 2019]

Palestinian Islamic Jihad, substantially backed by Iran and considered its proxy force in the area, is the second-largest of the terrorist groups active in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip but takes care to act independently of it. Ynet says today that its leadership was "summoned" by Egyptian intelligence officials to Cairo today

in an effort to prevent a further escalation of violence between Israel, Hamas and Islamic Jihad forces in Gaza.

While they were doing that this morning, Israelis were standing still for two minutes of silence, remembering lives lost to a fathomless hatred that the PIJ and Hamas people can easily identify with.

07-Jan-19: Pre-dawn Gazan rocket attack on Ashkelon is thwarted

The marina at Ashkelon [Image Source]

It's a little after seven in the morning on a chilly January Monday and the sleep-deprived citizens of Ashdod are, not for the first time, counting their blessings.

Around three this morning, incoming-rocket warnings were sounded in the coastal city that has the misfortune of being within easy firing range of the rocket-rich Gaza Strip and its mayhem-minded terrorist hordes:

...[W]arning sirens blared in the southern city of Ashkelon and the nearby Ashkelon beach region after 3 am. The IDF said it identified a single launch from Gaza that was intercepted by Iron Dome. Residents reported hearing loud explosions, apparently from the interceptor. The launch came hours after the Israeli Air Force struck two Hamas positions in the eastern Gaza Strip in response to an explosive device that was flown into southern Israel earlier in the day, the army said. On Sunday morning, a bomb was flown into Israel using a large cluster of balloons and a drone-like glider device, landing in a carrot field in the Sdot Negev region of southern Israel shortly before noon... ["Air force hits Gaza targets after rocket fired into Israel", Times of Israel, January 7, 2019]

Following the now-familiar playbook, the in-bound rocket was aimed at civilian targets (Ashkelon is not a military base but a bustling city of about 140,000 civilian residents). The fact that it was intercepted mid-flight indicates it was on-target for causing the very sort of damage and destruction that it was intended to. The Iron Dome system calculates the trajectory of enemy rocket attacks before telling its operators whether or not to commit to firing off one of its counter-measure rockets.

No less familiar, Israel's response was to fire from the air against "several terror targets at a Hamas training camp in the northern Gaza Strip" according to Times of Israel quoting the IDF. Since this happened in the dark of the early morning, it's likely no one was injured on the ground.

Yesterday's balloon attack: The payload exploded while
being examined by Israeli police [Image Source: IDF]

Yesterday (Sunday), a brightly-colored, large cluster of balloons carrying an explosive payload as well as (bizarrely) a non-functioning drone-looking device floated across Gaza's frontier with Israel and exploded in a carrot field in one of southern Israel's Gaza containment communities:

The balloons were attached to a drone, which was labeled with a logo from the Gaza engineering college. The balloons sat in a field near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip for most of the day before security personnel could raise the drone using heavy machinery. When that occurred, the device detonated, but the incident did not cause any damage or injuries. Palestinians frequently send balloons, kites and other items laced with incendiary devices over the border fence in attempts to harm Israeli territory, since the "Great March of Return" riots along the fence began in March 2018. The devices have burned more than half the forested land in the area, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) data showed in October... ["Israel hits Hamas posts after incendiary balloons, drone, fall near border", Jerusalem Post, January 6, 2019]

Given the very different kind of media coverage terrorism gets here versus outside Israel, the capacity of Hamas' rocket-equipped forces to deliver serious and deadly harm to Israelis is well-recognized by Israelis; much less so by people far from the scene. Less than a month ago, some 300 Israel-bound rockets were fired from Gaza [Ynet, December 11, 2018] during a single, very violent 5-hour time span on a Monday evening.

No one expects attacks of that sort to end soon.

29-Dec-18: A quiet weekend

Dutch police action [Image Source]

A handful of terror-centric reports that arrived in our news filter this quiet weekend and that, for the most part, have gotten very little media attention.

Friday night Arab-on-Israel rocket attack

A rocket was fired Friday from the Gaza Strip into Israel, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said, the first such incident in over six weeks. The Red Alert alarm warning system was not activated as the projectile landed in an open area, the spokesperson added. No injuries or damage were reported. [Times of Israel]

Five men arrested in Rotterdam on terrorism charges 

Five men have been arrested in Rotterdam on charges of preparing a terrorist attack, broadcaster NOS said on Saturday. Four were arrested early on Saturday morning at homes in the centre and east of the port city and the fifth man was picked up later in the day. The first four are aged 20 to 30 and have a ‘non-western’ background, broadcaster NOS said. One is said to be a Syrian refugee with residency status named as Saleh H. A second man is said to be an Egyptian national... [DutchNews.nl]

Egypt security forces kill 40 suspected terrorists in raids - report 

Egyptian security forces killed 40 alleged terrorists in raids in the Giza and North Sinai regions early Saturday, state media reported, a day after four people were killed when a roadside bomb struck a tourist bus in Giza. Egypt's Interior Ministry said the raids, conducted at dawn Saturday, targeted three suspected hideouts of terrorists who were planning hostile acts during the Christmas holidays, according to the state-run Al-Ahram online newspaper. Ammunition, firearms and improvised explosive devices were recovered in significant numbers... Three Vietnamese tourists and an Egyptian tour guide were killed and at least 11 people were injured in the attack Friday in a central tourist area of Giza, near Cairo, where the pyramids are located... [CNN]

...meanwhile from the Palestinian Authority's media mouthpiece:

"...Spokesman Yousef al-Mahmoud said in a statement that the Palestinian people and its leadership stand with Egypt in fighting “this cowardly terrorism aimed at innocent people and the security and stability of the Egyptian people.” He expressed belief that Egypt is capable of fighting terrorism and those who stand behind it, calling on Arab countries to stand together in fighting terrorism and extremism targeting the Arab world in particular and the world in general.

Three charged with planning terror attack in Sweden

Sweden's prosecution authority said on Thursday it had charged three men with planning a terror attack in Sweden, warning the plot could have caused serious damage had it not been prevented... The men, aged between 30 and 46, originally hail from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Their residency status in Sweden could not immediately be verified... The three are suspected of "obtaining and storing large amounts of chemicals and other equipment with the aim of killing and wounding other people," the prosecution authority said in a statement. "If the terrorist crime had been carried out, it could have seriously hurt Sweden." The trio were also charged, along with three other people, with financing terrorism. Prosecutors accuse them of sending money abroad to fund the so-called Islamic State's operations... According to Dagens Nyheter, at least one of the suspects had been in contact with Rakhmat Akilov, a radicalized Uzbek asylum seeker who mowed down pedestrians in Stockholm with a stolen truck in April 2017, killing five people. Akilov was sentenced to life in prison in June 2018... [TheLocal (Sweden)]

03-Feb-18: Friday night Gazan rocket attack - the second in two nights

As the Sabbath departs, we're at our desk catching up on the developments of the past 25 hours. As happens far too often, terrorism is part of the story.

At about 9:30 pm Friday night, “Red Alert” in-bound-rocket warning sirens were heard across a broad swath of southern Israel. The last Arab-on-Israeli rocket attack emanating from Gaza was all the way back on... the previous evening (see our earlier report).

Israel National News quotes the IDF confirming that a rocket fired by hostile forces in Gaza exploded in an open region, causing no injuries and little damage. According to Haaretz, Israeli air force planes late Friday night struck two Hamas targets in Gaza by way of response, hitting what it called "terror targets belonging to Hamas" in the southern part of the Strip, part of a military facility. 

16-Jan-18: In Gaza, another invisible "Fell Short" wrecks a Palestinian Arab home

From the Deir al-Balah municipal website

This happened on Monday according to a report published late Monday night:

A rocket fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip struck a Palestinian home in Deir al-Balah by mistake, Arab media reported Monday. Located in the central Gaza Strip, two residents of Deir al-Balah were badly wounded and a third lightly wounded. ["Rocket from Gaza Strip accidentally strikes Palestinian home", Jerusalem Post, January 15, 2018]

Another "Fell Short". We only know about them from open sources but have reported on nearly a hundred of them in the past few years. Nearly a hundred rockets fired in the general direction of Israel with the intent of doing any sort of damage to any target that is Israeli - humans, buildings, vehicles, hardly matters what - that failed to cross the Gaza/Israel border. They fell short.

The ghastly aspects of this are not merely in the cold-blooded, blind Palestinian Arab pursuit of damage and injury to anything Israeli, which there certainly is. But where are the media reports about this? And about those that preceded? These rockets might just as well have been invisible for all the attention they get.

The answer seems to be, no one cares very much. Arabs injuring other Arabs (or worse) isn't a theme that gets much media attention except in Israel. And the Hamas regime that keeps the Gaza Strip under its doctrinaire jack-boot has even less interest in publicizing Fell Shorts or the misery they bring into the lives of hapless Palestinian Arabs onto whose heads, roofs and homes they crash.

Deir al-Balah might sound like a nondescript village to people unfamiliar with Gaza. It's not: located right in the middle of the Gaza Strip, it has a population of about 60,000. And lots of homes.

Monday was a busy rocket day for the Gazans though if you rely on the non-Israeli media you would find it hard to know that. Times of Israel reported

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Monday said the Hamas terror group had conducted rocket-launching experiments overnight, with the group preferring continued investment in war than in the well-being of the Gaza Strip’s population. Speaking a day after the IDF announced it had destroyed another border-crossing Hamas attack tunnel, the third in recent months, Liberman said: “I hear a lot about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, about the difficult situation. “The budget for Hamas’s military wing in 2017 was $260 million,” the minister said, noting that about $100 million was supplied by Iran. “All of this $260 million was invested in tunnels and in producing rockets. If they had invested $260 million in their water systems or their health systems they would be in a totally different place.” Liberman said that on Sunday night Hamas “fired three rockets into the sea, and this shows that despite the humanitarian situation and despite shortages in basic supplies they continue” to focus on warfare.

A reasonable person can understand the fury of the Palestinian Arabs. Harder by far is understanding why they don't do the logical thing and act against their inept and utterly corrupt rulers to improve their own lives and futures.

This post, like a number of others before it, has been translated to Polish ("W Gazie kolejna niewidzialna rakieta, która “spadła za blisko” i zniszczyła dom palestyńskich Arabów") by courtesy of Malgorzata Koraszewska over on the Listy z naszego sadu website. Our sincere thanks to her, and great appreciation to readers of this blog in Poland.

03-Jan-18: Wednesday rocket fire on southern Israel - and more Fell Shorts

Far from reporters' eyes and awareness, the southern half of Israel has come under rocket attack three five times in the past several days. In chronological order:

• On Friday, as we noted at the time ["29-Dec-17: Midday rockets from Gaza: two are intercepted in the air, one lands inside Israel"] three somethings (maybe mortars, maybe rockets - Israeli reports are divided, no one else cares) were lobbed into southern Israel in an attempt, it is speculated, to disrupt a well-attended ceremony for the missing-believed-killed IDF soldier Oren Shaul "whose remains are being held by Hamas in the coastal enclave" in the words of a Times of Israel report today. Two were intercepted in mid-air by Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile defense system. The third crashed into an Israeli community causing some building damage. It was announced yesterday (Tuesday) that the IDF has concluded that Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group serving as a well-armed proxy for the Iranian military carried out the attack.
• The on Monday night (not reported by us), a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip at anything Israeli crashed into an open field in the Eshkol region. Neither injuries nor damage resulted which was not and never is the intention of the terrorists doing the firing.
• This afternoon (Wednesday), a mortar fired from the Gaza Strip crashed into a field in the Eshkol region according to Times of Israel which says the IDF's early-detection systems spotted the launch as it happened but the site of its impact is still being sought. No Tzeva Adom (Red Alert) warnings were sounded, evidently indicating that once the trajectory was known, it was calculated not to be heading towards a populated area. For its part, Ynet says there were two rockets this afternoon: one around 2 pm, the other around 3:30 pm. (We see now that Times of Israel agrees.) Both crashed into the Eshkol region, and in neither case was there significant property damage or any injuries.

Several additional rocket and mortar firings during these past few days fell on top of Gazan homes and land and perhaps people. They're what we know as Fell Shorts. The Arab side never reports these, perhaps out of embarrassment. It's exceedingly rare for them to be mentioned at all by the major news syndication agencies like Reuters, AFP and Associated Press.

This is a pity because, as we see it, nothing expresses contempt for the lives and well-being of Gaza's Palestinian Arab population more clearly than the steady stream of rockets that fall short and land in their midst.

Victims of the property damage and of the injuries that follow are right out of luck, because no news reporters come to hear their stories. For Gaza's Hamas rulers, if no one knows about the Fell Shorts, they never happened. Click Fell Short to see that we have reported on close to a hundred such own-goals.

UPDATE Wednesday January 3, 2018 at 6:05pm: There's been a third Gaza-on-Israel firing - maybe a mortar, maybe a rocket. Times of Israel says unlike the two earlier attacks today, this latest one triggered the Color Red sirens indicating that there must have been a perceived danger to people and communities. As always, the rocket-persons can reliably be expected to continue until they're forcibly stopped.

29-Dec-17: Midday rockets from Gaza: two are intercepted in the air, one lands inside Israel

Kfar Aza around noon today [Image capture from this video]

It's a short and overcast Friday. In winter, the Sabbath arrives a little after four in the afternoon. But today, for thousands in Israel's south, the usual Erev Shabbat routine wasn't so routine.

Around 11:50 this morning, inbound rocket warnings were heard in dozens of Israeli communities in the a broad swathe of south-central Israel adjacent to the rocket-infested Gaza Strip.

Israel National News:

Sirens sounded in southern Israel as rockets were fired from Gaza at the Sdot Negev and Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Councils and two were intercepted by Iron Dome missiles. No one was hurt, but at least one building was damaged. According to an IDF spokesperson, three rockets were identified as being fired towards Israel, and the Iron Dome intercepted two of them. Arab media reported that IDF tanks responding to the rockets shot at targets in Gaza.

People attending a ceremony in Kfar Aza to mark the birthday of Oren Shaul took whatever cover they could as the photo above shows. To remind readers who do not recognize his name, the IDF has determined that he was killed in the fighting with Hamas during the summer of 2014. Hamas continues to hold his body for ransom.

Times of Israel says the third of today's three rockets

fell in Israeli territory in the Shaar Hanegev region, on the Gaza border.  Police said they found the rocket at the entrance to a building that had sustained damaged from the fall. Rocket warning sirens were heard shortly before midday in the Shaar Hanegev and Sedot Hanegev regions, sending frightened residents running to shelters. There were no immediate reports of casualties...

Zahava Shaul is accompanied to a nearby shelter as the rocket warnings are
heard [Image Source: Ynet]

UPDATE 2:30 pm December 29, 2017 | According to an updated Times of Israel report ["Gaza rockets apparently target ceremony for captured soldier", Times of Israel, today]:

The three rockets fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel on Friday appeared to have been launched to deliberately coincide with a ceremony marking what would have been the 24th birthday of an IDF soldier who was killed, and whose remains were captured by Hamas, in 2014. A military official could not yet say that this was definitively the case, as the army was still investigating the issue, but said it “absolutely could be,” noting the uncommon timing of the attack. 

Ynet quoted Oren Shaul's mother, Zahava - imagine what the event must have felt like for her - saying "It's an unpleasant and frightening experience. The most important thing is that no one was hurt." The head of the Zionist Union political party Avi Gabbay who attended the ceremony said: "The rocket fire in the middle of the ceremony proves, more than a thousand witnesses, that deterrence has been lost. They knew there was a ceremony happening here, and they fired. It's intolerable. I hope our government responds properly." Among the other dignitaries present: Communications Minister Ayoob Kara (Likud); MK Oren Hazan (Likud); Golani Brigade Commander Shlomi Binder; Maj. Gen. (res) Hagai Topolanski, the former head of the IDF's Manpower Directorate; Haim Jelin MK, former head of the Eshkol Regional Council.

Times of Israel points out that

This month saw two weeks of near-daily rocket launches, the largest incidence of missile-fire from the Strip since the 2014 Israel-Hamas war. These daily attacks had recently seemed to have come to an end. According to Israeli assessments, the rockets are not being launched by Hamas, but by other terrorist groups in the Strip. However, analysts have noted that Hamas has been either unwilling or unable to clamp down on the groups, as it has in the past.

18-Dec-17: Sunday night Gazan rockets seek Israeli targets again

Source

If you follow our Twitter account, you may know we tweeted last night (Sunday) just before 9 o'clock Jerusalem time about inbound rocket warnings being heard in southern Israel again.

In the hours that followed, it emerged that three rockets were fired by terrorists in the rocket-rich Gaza Strip at anything Israeli (they don't care). Two struck ground in the Hof Ashkelon region. A third failed to get across the border and as with so many, fell short on Hamas-controlled territory. Did it kill or maim any Palestinian Arabs living in the Gaza Strip? Did it destroy or damage a school, an ambulance, a hospital? It's unlikely we will ever know unless Israeli intelligence picks up the details and reports it. The Hamas regime in Gaza will not. When it comes to their Fell Shorts , they don't want anyone to know.

According to Times of Israel, quoting Israel Police, one of the rockets crash-landed and exploded in an un-named Israeli community (last night on Israel's Channel 10 news, Moshav Netiv Ha'asara was suggested as the site). The other crashed into an open field nearby. Reports at this stage say there are no injuries to people and relatively small property damage to an Israeli residence.

The same report says

It was not immediately clear why the missiles were not intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system, an army spokesperson said.

The rocket men of Gaza certainly sought a larger return on their investment and fortunately were denied it this time. There is not the slightest doubt they will keep trying. They will invent justifications for public relations purposes but the reality is they will keep doing this until they are stopped. At this stage, the only way they will be stopped involves the IDF and selective, well-directed force.

16-Dec-17: Friday night Arab-on-Israeli Gazan rocket crashes into Gazan home

Last night's "fell short" Gazan rocket crashed into a residence in Beit
Hanoun, a  Gazan settlement [Image Source]

More Arab-on-Israel rocket attacks this past Friday night (we were busy with the Jewish Sabbath) from the rocket-infested, Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

Ynet ["Rocket fired from Gaza hits home in Gaza", December 15, 2017] reports

A rocket fired from Gaza into Israel Friday hit a residential building in Beit Hanoun in the strip and caused it considerable damage, according to the Arabic-language Facebook page of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. "Once again, the terrorist organizations launch rockets at the residents of Gaza themselves," the post said. This is the second time in a week that a rocket fired by Palestinians hits a building in the northeast Gaza city. In the previous incident, a public school classroom was completely demolished.

Times of Israel ["IDF: Gaza rocket fired at Israel falls short, strikes house in Strip", December 15, 2017], quoting a Hadashot report, says the damaged home belongs to the brother of a senior Hamas official, Mushir al-Masri.

This Al-Masri has scored several mentions in our blog. He was one of the Hamas men ignominiously roused from their sleep by police and promptly thrown out of an Eastern European country a few years back [see "15-Feb-13: Gnashing of teeth in Gaza as its reps are roused from bed and thrown out of Bulgaria"]. He was Hamas spokes-thug in relation to another terrorist-prisoner deal in 2014 [here], and again in 2015 [here].

It's worth pointing out again that yet another Arab-on-Israeli rocket attack resulting in damage (and perhaps worse) to Palestinian Arabs in Gaza - what we call Fell Shorts - has gone entirely unreported in the non-Israeli media. (And if we're wrong, please correct us.) We have reported on dozens of them in the past few years - check here.

11-Dec-17: Another Gazan rocket attack this evening

Times of Israel says there has been another Gazan rocket attack on southern Israel this evening (Monday). "At least one rocket", it reports, resulting in Israel Defense Forces "retaliatory fire".

A short while ago, projectiles were launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israel,” the military said in a statement... An impact of the Gazan missile was not identified, the army said, but reports indicated the missile landed in an open area near the border fence in the Eshkol region, opposite the southern Strip. No alert sirens sounded in the Gaza border region. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Israel responded by targeting Hamas posts in southern Gaza with tank fire and an air strike, the army said. “The IDF hold Hamas responsible for these aggressive acts originating from the Gaza Strip.” Palestinian media reported that Hamas positions in Khan Younis were hit by the Israeli fire... Tensions have been rising since Wednesday, when US President Donald Trump declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Hamas on Thursday had called for a new intifada against Israel... ["IDF hits Hamas posts after missile fired from Gaza", Times of Israel , December 11, 2017]

Because it is so close to the rocket-rich, terrorism-addicted Gaza Strip, Israel's Eshkol region has

been the target of thousands of rocket attacks since 2000. Despite Iron Dome coverage in the region, usage of the system is generally limited to populated areas and allows other rockets to land in open areas. As a result, there has been widespread damage to farms, vehicles and various outlying structures. During the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, farmers reported massive damages to their crops due to rockets landing in open fields. On 26 August 2014 a mortar shell fired from Gaza was reported to have killed one person and seriously wounded two others... [Wikipedia]

Other than via Israeli news channels, tonight's rocket attack - as is often the case - gets no coverage from any news media anywhere as of 8:15 pm Monday night.

09-Dec-17: Friday night rocket-reminder of Gazan rage

Sderot [Image Source]

We're just getting to the developments of the Shabbat just ended, with Tzeva Adom incoming-rocket warnings being sounded three times on Friday evening, after the onset of the Sabbath, in a broad swathe of southern Israel communities. Ynet reports that residents of those cities, towns and homes within shooting distance of Gaza vicinity "who were forced to flee Friday to shelters and protected areas due to rockets being fired from Gaza said Saturday they knew it was coming, but knowing never makes it any easier."

Israel National News:

A rocket fired from Gaza exploded on Friday evening in the city of Sderot in southern Israel. The rocket caused damage to several vehicles but there were no physical injuries. The attack on Sderot was the third rocket attack on southern Israel within several hours. Earlier on Friday evening, Gaza-based terrorists fired two rockets towards southern Israel. One of the rockets was intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system. A second may have exploded in an open area. There were no physical injuries or damages in either attack.

Providing some background, Times of Israel adds that

Hamas, an Islamist terror group which seeks to destroy Israel, has called for a new intifada in response to US President Donald Trump’s recognition on Wednesday of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Hamas’s leader Ismail Haniyeh on Friday evening praised as a “blessed intifada” the violent protests held by thousands of Palestinians across the West Bank and in Gaza throughout the afternoon. Two Gazans were reported killed in what Israel said were violent protests at the Gaza border fence and a third was badly injured. Israel holds Hamas responsible for all rocket fire and other attacks emanating from the Strip, which the terror group still overwhelmingly controls despite handing over some power back to the Palestinian Authority.

And over at JewishPress.com, this:

Studied and deliberate editorial disinterest about Israeli victimhood ensures
most people have no idea what the terror directed at Israelis does
[Image Source]

Southern Israeli residents were warned to remain near their shelters and safe spaces after the first Red Alert incoming rocket warning siren shattered the calm of a Sabbath evening at around 6:11 pm, sending families racing to safety in Sha’ar HaNegev, Sdot Negev, Eshkol and the Ashkelon Coastal Regional Council districts. That was followed up shortly after by another at around 7:07 pm, sending families back to the shelters in Sdot Negev and the Bnei Shimon Regional Council districts. A third warning siren activated at around 10 pm, again in the Sdot Negev and Bnei Shimon Regional Council districts. “Due to alarms activating recently in the communities in our area, we are asking residents as a precaution to remain near shelters or protected spaces,” said the announcement from the Sdot Negev Regional Council... ["Sabbath Quiet Shattered Friday Night by Rocket Fire on Southern Israel", December 8, 2017]

Other than by parts of the Israeli news media, Friday night's multiple rocket attacks on southern Israel are ignored by most of the global news-reporting industry. Most people in most places have no idea they happened. (Israeli counterattacks, if and when, are bound to get far wider coverage.)

07-Dec-17: Gazan rockets fired at southern Israel this evening may have crashed into Gaza

The whipping up of furies among Palestinian Arabs and those who stand with them continues apace in the wake of the decision by the White House to finally take formal notice of Jerusalem being the capital city of Israel these past seventy years.

It's still early evening and the reports are somewhat contradictory. Israel National News says this about the rocket attack that happened around 6:15 this evening (Thursday):

Two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed in Israel Thursday evening. Warning sirens [Tzeva Adom] were sounded in the Shaar Hanegev and Hof Ashkelon (Ashkelon Coast) regional councils in the western Negev Thursday evening. Shortly after the sirens were sounded, an IDF spokesperson reported that two rockets had been fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel. Both of the rockets landed in open spaces. There are have been no reports of injuries or of damage. The rocket fire comes after the Hamas terror organization which rules the Gaza Strip warned that the “gates of hell” would be opened in the region following President Trump’s announcement Wednesday that the US recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

But other sources, including the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz and this Australian source quoting the IDF say the two rockets fell short - meaning they crashed ob the Gaza side of the border. This happens frequently and the injuries to Gazan Arabs along with the property damage are often hushed up. We will adjust this report once we know for sure.

Reuters says of Gaza that

dozens of protesters gathered near the border fence with Israel and threw rocks at soldiers on the other side. Seven protesters were wounded by live fire, one was in a critical condition, the [Hamas-controlled] health ministry said... Member of armed groups including from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, appeared at a news conference in Gaza, their faces hidden by masks and called for a resumption of armed resistance in the West Bank.

Xinhua, reporting from Gaza, said around 7:15 pm that not two but six Gazan rockets were fired at Israel in the previous hour. It also focused on the public statements of the Islamists:

The Islamic Hamas movement called on Thursday for a Palestinian "popular uprising" against U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital... "Tomorrow [Friday] will be a day of public anger and the launching of an uprising under the name of Intifada of Jerusalem Freedom," said Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh during a public speech. He reaffirmed that Friday would be "the beginning of a new movement" to fight Israel's plan of occupation of West Bank and Jerusalem. "Trump will regret this decision," said Haniyeh... Describing Trump's recognition as "a turning point in the history of the Palestinian cause," the Hamas leader stressed that Jerusalem "has always been the source of victory, the beginning of revolutions and the starting point of uprisings."

Most people with whom we talk here think we're likely to experience less calm in the hours and days ahead.

UPDATE Saturday night, December 9, 2017: Times of Israel reported late last night (Friday) that "the Tawhid al-Jihad group claimed responsibility for the attack on social media. The small, radical group is affiliated with al-Qaeda." The Wikipedia entry for the the group claiming to have fired the rockets says

Jahafil Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad fi Filastin (Arabic: جحافل التوحيد والجهاد في فلسطين‎, "The Armies of Monotheism and Jihad in Palestine") is a Sunni Islamist Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai peninsula, and is the branch of al-Qaeda in Gaza. The establishment of the group was publicly announced on 6 November 2008, with communiqués vowing loyalty to al-Qaeda, after having "received the messages of Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri." Various forms of the "Tawhid al-Jihad" label have appeared in relation to developments in the Gaza Strip. The size of the group is not publicly known.

A group of the same name claimed to be behind the kidnapping and murder in 2011 of Vittorio Arrigoni, a high-profile foe of Israel described in various sources as a pacifist supporter of the Palestinian cause, a member of the Palestinian-aligned International Solidarity Movement, and a blogger reporting from the Gaza Strip. He had been living there after sailing in on one of the flotillas to Gaza in 2008. The terrorist regime of Hamas blamed his murder on Israel, unsurprisingly. Some time later, it became evident that this same offshoot of Al Qaeda - or a group using the same name - were actually responsible. We wrote about the tragic affair in three past posts: "14-Apr-11: Gazan jihadists grab Italian journalist, threaten to murder him in name of glorious revolution"; "15-Apr-11: For the record, Hamas is blaming Israel for the murder of the Italian hostage" and "20-Feb-13: Following up a 2011 Gaza murder".

15-Oct-17: Rockets strike southern Israel from Sinai

Incoming hostile rockets were detected at about 10:15 tonight (Sunday) in southern Israel, and as a result the Tzeva Adom (Color Red) warning system was activated in multiple communities.

The IDF says there were two rockets and unlike the recent spate of inbound missiles from Gaza where Hamas runs everything, these originated in Sinai. The last time we saw Sinai rockets here was during the inaugural Trump visit five months ago: "23-May-17: In the midst of US presidential visit, ISIS plays its hand".

No indication yet of whether there has been any damage to property or worse. Israel National News says explosions were heard in the Eshkol region. Times of Israel quotes the IDF:

A military spokesperson said they were still looking for the rockets, indicating that they likely struck an open field, rather than a populated area. The army did not immediately identify who launched the rockets, but it was likely a Sinai affiliate of the Islamic State terrorist group.

Some background via Ynet:

Earlier in the day [Sunday], suspected Islamic State militants attacked six checkpoints in the turbulent north of the Sinai Peninsula, killing six [Egyptian] soldiers and wounding 37, according to [Egyptian] security and hospital officials. The officials said the near-simultaneous attacks took place at and around the town of Sheikh Zweid, with dozens of militants using heavy machine guns and mortars... Egyptian security forces have for years battled militants in northern Sinai, which borders the Gaza Strip and Israel. But the insurgency there has gained momentum after the Egyptian military ousted an elected Islamist president [Morsi] in 2013.

Sheikh Zuweid (using the more common spelling) is a Sinai town of some 60,000 Bedouin that has been under the control of ISIS since 2015. Reuters adds this evening to what we know from Ynet when it says

At least 24 militants and six soldiers were killed on Sunday in attacks on military outposts in North Sinai, the Egyptian military said in a statement. The statement did not give details, but security and medical sources said about 20 members of the security forces had also been injured when more than 100 militants repeatedly attacked security outposts south of the border town of Sheikh Zuweid. The attackers used car bombs and rocket propelled grenades (RPG), the sources said.

Egypt's Sinai has been in a state of almost complete chaos for the past six years. This Jerusalem Post
backgrounder ["Lawlessness and terror: The Beduin kingdom of Sinai"] from March 2012 traces the spiraling downwards.

09-Oct-17: Behind those incoming rocket alerts

We originally published this November 2012 Cameron Cardow cartoon here 3 years ago [Image Source: The Cagle Post]

It's a rainy, sweet-smelling Monday morning here in Jerusalem.

But last night and the night before, both of them balmy and conducive to relaxation during a holiday week (Tabernacles, or Sukkot in Hebrew), in-bound missile alerts (emanating from Israel's advanced Tzeva Adom or Color Red warning system) were sounded across large swathes of southern Israel what we call here the Gaza Envelope. These were barely reported outside Israel.

The Saturday night alarm was soon explained by the IDF as a technical error. So, for a while, was Sunday night's. But about an hour after families rushed to their shelters with sleeping children in their arms, the IDF provided a fuller explanation. Here's how Times of Israel conveyed it:

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip failed to reach Israeli territory, the IDF said Sunday night, upending its earlier statement on the incident and confirming retaliatory Israeli artillery fire on a border post... [The] rocket aimed at the Jewish state exploded inside the Gaza Strip. Earlier on Sunday night, the military had said a rocket fell in an open area in the Eshkol region of southern Israel... The would-be rocket strike was the first projectile fired from the coastal enclave in two months. While no group immediately claimed Sunday’s rocket attempt, Israel holds Hamas responsible for all fire emanating from the Strip...  Earlier Saturday, Hamas said it had arrested four senior Islamic State members, including the group’s leader in the coastal enclave. The attempted rocket fire comes as Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are engaged in reconciliation negotiations to see the PA resume civil control of the Gaza Strip... ["Backpedaling, IDF says rocket from Gaza failed to hit Israel", Times of Israel, October 8, 2017]

A Gazan terrorist rocket fired at Israelis but which crash-lands in Gazan territory is a "fell short". They fall short often, though this is rarely reported either by the Hamas regime which rules Gaza or by the major news agencies [see "18-Nov-12: Fell short? Not just the Hamas rockets but the ethics of the journalists covering them"].

Click here to see other past posts of ours where "Fell Short" is one of the index terms: there are currently nearly 80 of them.

What's especially interesting and bothersome about Fell Shorts is that these often crash not just onto Gaza's territory but onto Gazan heads and homes. On a visit we made a couple of years ago to an IDF installation close to Gaza, we learned about serious injuries caused to hapless Gazans just a few days earlier. These had been reported nowhere - because political considerations cause Gaza rulers to hush up the Arab-on-Arab fall-out resulting from self-inflicted Fell Short explosions.

Living under the Hamas jackboot has never been easy.

23-May-17: In the midst of US presidential visit, ISIS plays its hand

Manchester Arena, Monday night [Image Source]

Times of Israel reports today (Tuesday) that

a rocket was fired from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula at southern Israel on Tuesday morning, amid a visit to the country by US President Donald Trump, the army said. No injury or damage was caused by the missile, the army said. Israeli troops launched a search for the impact site in the Eshkol region, which abuts the Sinai Peninsula. In some cases, rockets launched toward Israel do not cross the border and end up landing inside Egyptian territory. No organization took immediate responsibility, but previous such incidents have been claimed by the Islamic State terror group’s Sinai affiliate. The incoming rocket alert was not activated during the attack, as the military calculated the projectile was not heading toward a populated area.

Social media reports indicate the rocket was fired into Israel during the morning peak traffic hour, roughly 7:30 am, when large number of Israeli children in the target area are making their way to school.

Claims were made this afternoon that the Islamic State terrorists are also taking credit for last night's horrifying massacre at Manchester Arena:

The attack, which killed at least 22 people, including an 18-year-old college student, and left around 59 injured, was described by British Prime Minister Theresa May as "the worst attack the city has experienced."
The news comes after outlets reported that ISIS supporters were celebrating the bombing on social media, hailing it as a victory against "the crusaders" of the West and framing it as a response to airstrikes in Iraq. According to the Daily Telegraph, one video showed an English-speaking ISIS supporter holding up a sign reading 'Manchester' with the date of the attack. A statement made via ISIS channels on the messaging app Telegram said that "one of the soldiers of the caliphate placed explosive devices in a gathering of crusaders in the middle of the British city of Manchester," hinting that the terrorist incident was not a suicide attack, as it is believed to have been. It said the bombing was a response to Britain’s “transgressions against the lands of the Muslims.” Pro-ISIS accounts had earlier celebrated the attack on social media, framing it as a response to airstrikes in Iraq. [TIME, today]

15-Mar-17: Again tonight: A Gazan rocket in search of Israelis

From a documentary video about Sdot Negev [here]

A rocket from Gaza crashed into southern Israel tonight around 10:15 pm, landing in the Sdot Negev region in what Ynet calls "an empty and uninhabited field". No injuries are reported at this stage, and no property damage. This, it bears repeating, was not the intention of the attackers doing the firing.

In a compact country, Sdot Negev - though relatively remote from the population centers of Israel - is hardly devoid of people. It includes within its boundaries 16 communities made up of two kibbutzim, twelve moshavim and two communal settlements. The population of Sdot Negev is mostly made up of Israelis from the Dati Leumi ("Modern Orthodox") stream.

Despite the depressing frequency of missile attacks from the rocket-rich nearby Gaza Strip, Sdot Negev's population has grown by an estimated 55% ["Even Rockets Can't Keep Israelis Away From Towns Near the Gaza Strip", Haaretz, May 31, 2012] in the five years up to 2012. The explanation seems to be connected to high quality of life of communities in the region.