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.”

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.

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.)

24-Oct-16: Gazan rocket and tunnel attacks on Israelis: Monday update

The vast investment of manpower and cash being made by
Hamas in tunnels is often concealed by media reporting that emphasizes
how cows and goats are moved around via those tunnels. In reality, as this image
shows, they exist to serve an attack-focused terror strategy [Image Source: BBC]

The annual High Holydays season - including Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah - has just ended with sundown. The traditional greeting exchanged by observant Jews tonight is "Have a healthy winter!" We extend that to all our readers.

At least some of the challenges of the year ahead are not so hard to divine. From this morning (Monday) and Times of Israel:

Sirens warning of an impending rocket attack blared early Monday morning in communities in the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council in southern Israel. The projectile reportedly landed inside the Gaza Strip. The Code Red alarm sounded just before 7:00 a.m. on Monday. The IDF said in a statement shortly thereafter that they didn’t identify any rocket impacts in Israeli territory...

Yet another Gazan "fell short" rocket (there's a long history of those, though the fact they fall onto Arab heads is rarely remarked) with no indication of the Arab-on-Arab damage that almost certainly followed in the tightly-packed Gaza Strip.

Reuters reported this morning ["Israeli aircraft strikes Gaza after militants fire rocket - military"] not on the rocket attack but on Israel firing back at Hamas targets:

No casualties were reported following the air strike, Gaza residents said. The rocket fired towards southern Israel set off sirens after tracking systems monitored the launch but it landed inside the Gaza Strip, a military statement said. Small jihadist cells in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Islamist group Hamas, sometimes launch rockets into Israel.
Hamas has observed a de facto ceasefire with Israel since 2014, when 2,100 Palestinians and 73 Israelis were killed in a war. But Israel says it holds the groups responsible for all rocket launches from the territory. [Reuters, today]

Responsibility for another Arab-on-Israeli rocket attack earlier this month ["05-Oct-16: A Gazan rocket crashes into a residential street in southern Israel"] was claimed by one of the non-Hamas terror organizations operating under the aegis of Hamas:

The Islamic State-affiliated Ahfad al-Sahaba-Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis terrorist group took responsibility for that attack. In a statement, the group said the attack on Sderot was a response to Hamas arresting several members of the organization...  A Hamas official said [today] the group told Israel it would not allow other terrorist groups within Gaza to further inflame the situation, according to Israel Radio... [Times of Israel today]

The Turkish news agency Anadolu inadvertently insults its Hamas friends with a brief news report today that includes this whopper:

Though Hamas fighters rarely launch the rockets, Israel strikes their locations in response, arguing the Palestinian group is responsible for controlling other armed groups because it governs the coastal enclave. In July and August of 2014, Israel waged a weeks-long military offensive against the Gaza Strip with the ostensible aim of staunching rocket fire from the coastal enclave. [Anadolu Agency, today]

A pity the editors at Anadolu pretend to be unaware of the intense rocket war - which Amnesty (of all people) called "war crimes" - waged by Hamas against Israelis in 2014, and since:

Rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian militant groups during last summer's conflict in Gaza amounted to war crimes, Amnesty International says. Militants displayed a "flagrant disregard" for the lives of civilians during the 50-day war, a report found. Six civilians in Israel and 13 Palestinians are believed to have been killed as a result of such attacks. Hamas, which dominates Gaza, said Amnesty's report contained many inaccuracies and false allegations... According to UN data, more than 4,800 rockets and 1,700 mortars were fired from Gaza towards Israel between 8 July and 26 August. Around 224 projectiles are believed to have struck Israeli residential areas... ["Amnesty: Hamas rocket attacks amounted to war crimes", BBC, March 26, 2015]

How seriously should Hamas declaring its opposition to inflame the situation (see that Times of Israel reprt above) be taken? Not very. Here's another dimension of current Hamas realities:

A Hamas operative died while working in a tunnel in the Gaza Strip Monday, the second death reported in recent days in the Palestinian terror group’s ranks. Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, announced that Ameir Jaber Abu Tuaima, 22, died during construction of a tunnel beneath the Palestinian coastal enclave. The announcement posted on the group’s website didn’t mention the cause of death, merely stating the Tuaima died in an “accident” near the southern city of Khan Younis. It wasn’t clear whether Tuaima died in a tunnel collapse, as another member of Hamas did on Saturday. The collapse on Saturday was the latest in a series of cave-ins to claim Palestinian lives. Over a dozen Palestinians, most of them reportedly members of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, have been killed in collapses since the beginning of the year. The official Palestinian news agency WAFA identified the man killed over the weekend as Anas Abu Lashin, 22, and said he was a member of Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. He was reportedly working in a tunnel in the al-Maghazi area in central Gaza when it caved in. The Brigades in a statement said Abu Lashin was killed “during preparation” of a tunnel, but did not provide further details. The [Hamas] Islamist terror movement which controls the coastal enclave has a network of tunnels in the territory, both for smuggling and attack purposes. It was not clear which type of tunnel Abu Lashin was killed in. ["Second Hamas man dies in tunnel ‘accident’ since Saturday", Times of Israel, October 24, 2016]

Ma'an News Agency says the Hamas person killed in the tunnel today was

...a member of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement... According to a statement released by the Brigades, one of their fighters died during a “mission” when the tunnel collapsed on him. The statement identified the fighter as Amir Jaber Abu Tuima from the town of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip.

On a mission. Right.

Just two days ago, Yediot/Ynet published an interview with one of the IDF's key people in the war against those Gazan attack tunnels ["The colonel's tunnel war", Ynet, October 22, 2016]. Some points lifted from the article:

• [Hamas are] "investing thousands of man hours into this. It's taking over a large portion of the Gaza Strip's economy, and pulling Gaza downward—literally. They've developed a high level of expertise in the field over the past 20 years. That takes almost every resource that has entered the strip from its residents: Wood, concrete, tools. It leads to high taxes on residents, who are already greatly suffering... We've been investing great resources to locate them, particularly over the past year. We are becoming smarter on the topic of tunnels every day, due to the friction. We manage to understand the idea, and identify the weakpoints and find solutions. That's the most I can say."
• The State of Israel is investing NIS 2.5 billion in what's called the "Barrier project," meant to block Hamas tunnels. It includes an underground wall that goes dozens of meters deep into the earth, a smart fence along the border, and advanced means of detection. 
• "The project is meant to be a pretty decisive answer, and will change the situation when it comes to all types of threats, especially the tunnel threat. It will ensure security at a very high level. This is a complex system, which handles threats above and below ground, watches the enemy's possible actions, and responds as needed. However, I cannot say that the barrier we're building will provide 100 percent protection, because there is no 100 percent."

All those news photos [Google] showing goats, cows, brides, fast-food and cigarettes being conveyed via those Hamas tunnels essentially conceal from news-consumer minds the reality that Hamas' tunnel empire is a capital-intensive and highly dangerous way of attacking Israelis. The people at World Vision probably know this better today than they did in the past.

05-Oct-16: A Gazan rocket crashes into a residential street in southern Israel

The scene in Sderot earlier today [Image Source]

There has been another rocket attack on southern Israel today with damage to property and cars but thankfully no physical harm to people.

Being the day after Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year), the explosive device is a reminder that the insatiable appetites of the Palestinian Arab terrorist ranks for more mayhem and more Jewish victims produce largely unpredictable outbursts of violence directed at generally unpredictable targets and with unknowable outcomes.

What we can say with confidence is that ordinary people living peaceful lives on our side of the fence are again being terrorized.

Times of Israel published this at 10:40 am today (Wednesday):

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck a street in the city of Sderot in southern Israel on Wednesday morning, police said. Two people who suffered anxiety attacks were treated by medical teams, but no one was physically hurt by the attack, according to the Magen David Adom medical service. The two — a 15-year-old girl and 60-year-old man — were taken to Ashkelon’s Barzilai Medical Center for further care, MDA paramedic Oren Benita said. Israel Defense Forces tanks responded to the rocket attack with strikes against Hamas sites in the northern Gaza Strip, the army said. The rocket alert siren was activated at approximately 10:20 a.m. and was heard in Sderot, Nir Am, Ivim and Gevim. A few minutes later, Israel Police officers located the rocket in Sderot. The road was slightly damaged in the attack, as were several nearby cars and homes. Police sappers were called to the scene, and the area was closed off to pedestrians and traffic, police said...

No physical injuries to Israelis but that, emphatically, was not the intention of the people doing the firing.

The terrorists of Gaza have a deep arsenal of rockets - thousands of them (this source estimates at least 12,000). The rocket men and their backers can pick their time, and they can afford to miss and then try again. Life, as measured by their own out-in-the-open value system, is extraordinarily cheap. Rockets are even cheaper. During the seven weeks of battle between Hamas terrorist forces and the IDF during the summer of 2014, Hamas managed to fire some 4,500 rockets and mortars in the general direction of Israel's cities and towns [source]. Israel's defensive Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted 735 rockets. The system first ascertains that the inbound missiles are headed toward densely-populated areas and strategic facilities before launching against them. Thus Hamas fired many more rockets than Israel fired against.

The terrorists of Gaza evidently chose to fire today rather than, say, yesterday or the day before because, on those other days, all the Israeli schools and all the Israeli kindergartens were closed. In fact, the whole country was on holiday to mark Jewish New Year.

So they fired today and during the morning hours when those schools and those kindergartens are filled with children. That's one of the reasons they are terrorists.

The photo at the top of this post does a better job than the text above of explaining how just how maddeningly random the outcomes of these terror eruptions are and how miraculous that the losses were not catastrophic.

How far from the homes of ordinary Sderot civilians did today's rocket crash? It's not hard to see; take a look. The answer is: mere meters. (A video clip on the Israel National News site [here] makes this reality even clearer.)

Did the rocket-men care? Of course they cared; they sought, as they always seek, to inflict the maximum possible pain and fear that their life-threatening efforts could produce.

Here's a security-camera view (via Times of Israel and YouTube) of what the in-bound rocket looked like and felt like to the people on Sderot's streets. Those are city employees who stopped their truck on hearing the Tzeva Adom siren and then scattered as the explosion took place just meters from where they parked:

From experience, it's likely to be suggested now in parts of the media that those firing the rockets are not actually Hamas - the Islamist terrorists who rule the tiny Gaza enclave with an iron fist - but this or that so-called splinter group. And that by implication Hamas is against these random outbursts of violence and would prefer quiet and peaceful relations with their Israeli cousins.

We think that's unfounded wishful thinking and fails to take account of the ruthlessness with which terror regimes operate.

03-Jul-16: Friday night rocket attacks from Gaza

Two rockets were fired into southern Israel during Friday night causing serious anxiety to thousands of families across the region, most of them in their homes for the Sabbath.

One, according to Times of Israel, exploded just outside a preschool in Sderot, the Israeli city that has borne the brunt of the unfettered terror emanating from the rocket-infested Gazan vipers' nest. Fortunately, though this was certainly not the rocket men's intention, no serious injuries were caused to humans.

But there are slightly conflicting testimonies. Ynet, evidently working from different witnesses, says a Sderot kindergarten building was in fact hit and damage caused to the building, but that no one was physically hurt. It does say one person suffered from panic and was taken for treatment. Note that the Jerusalem Post has a photo of the damage, which does not appear to be insignificant, and it reports that two persons needed medical care.

Anyone out there among our readers with connections at Associated Press? Its syndicated report, carried at the Christian Science Monitor for example, is headline "Israeli airstrikes on Hamas after rocket hits empty Sderot kindergarten", as if to suggest that the terrorists decided to go after an empty building. Is this a sign of editorial silliness, or malevolence? (Ask yourself how relevant to the attack the nature of the building that was struck is.)

Another rocket exploded in an open area of the Sha’ar HaNegev region a little earlier in the evening, also fortunately causing no damage.

At the BBC, neither rocket attack was mentioned in any of its news bulletins, consistent with a pattern being tracked by the indispensable BBC Watch which notes that 

"Audiences continue to be systematically deprived of information vital to their understanding of this particular “international issue”, in clear breach of the pledges to its funding public laid out in the BBC’s public purposes." 

13-Mar-16: Friday night rockets and a drive-by shooting

Friday night on Route 443 after a shooting attack [Image Source]

The respite which the Sabbath provides from the rush of news is behind us. While we were engaged in very pleasant family-focused matters, the Arab-on-Israeli violence continued apace.

On Friday night, two attacks occurred at about 10:30 pm, though no one seems to be connecting them. One was directed at the IDF, the other at anyone or anything they could hit. In the jihadist strategy, the two amount to the same thing.

In the Negev region of southern Israel, Tzeva Adom (Color Red) sirens pierced the air in and around Sha’ar Hanegev (population: about 6,000) and Sderot (population: 24,000) warning residents to take immediate cover. Several rockets crashed into open fields a few moments later. It's now known (says Ynet) that the IDF detected four in-bound rockets. There are no reports of injuries or damage, but it's self-evident that, for those doing the firing in the Gaza Strip, this was not the intended outcome.

A little earlier on Friday evening, according to Times of Israel, Hamas hacked into the private satellite feed of Israel’s Channel 2 television channel, interrupting broadcasts with a video promising its “terror will never end.” (According to Israel National News, this is the second time in recent years that Hamas has broken in to Channel Two broadcasts by broadcasting a very strong signal over the same frequency.) The rockets were fired soon after.

Israeli forces shot back at four Hamas targets in northern Gaza. This, according to "senior official Ismael Radwan" of Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip with an iron fist, amounted to “an escalation”. Quoted by Times of Israel, the Hamas man placed “full responsibility” on Israel.

The EU-funded Ma'an News Agency, reporting Israel's response in the Arabic version of its news report (but not in its English edition) terms this "Israeli aggression". The terrorists of Hamas - in every language - warned the following day, also according to Times of Israel, that their patience is "wearing thin".

No other Gaza Strip organization - home to numerous terror-focused factions and splinter groups - has claimed to be behind Friday night's rockets.

At about the same time as the Friday night, rockets, IDF soldiers manning a security checkpoint on busy Route 443, Jerusalem's major northern intercity artery, near Beit Horon came under drive-by gunfire attack . Two soldiers are injured. Both were taken to Shaarei Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem for hospital care. One has a bullet wound to the leg, the other has bruising injuries. Both are reported to be in satisfactory condition. Jerusalem Post says: "The gunman escaped back into Palestinian Authority territory, security forces said, and IDF units launched a search for him."

02-Jan-16: Friday night rocket volley on southern Israel: little-reported and most of the damage is inside Gaza

Since they are so rarely reported, Friday night's rocket volley on southern Israel is something we feel the need to mention here:

Two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip exploded in Israel on Friday night, in the south's Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council. No one was injured and there were no reports of damage. A further two rockets at least were thought to have fallen short and landed inside the Gaza Strip. The number of rockets fired in one volley is unusual in the relative quiet that has persisted since the end of Operation Protective Edge. Several explosions were heard after a rocket alert sounded at 11:07pm in Sderot and communities in Sha'ar HaNegev... [Ynet, Friday January 01, 2016]

Other Friday night reports indicated that the volley consisted of five rockets. Two crashed into Israel, as Ynet reported, and three are "Fell Shorts", meaning they failed to get as far as Israel and fell and exploded onto the heads and homes of Palestinian Arabs living in the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip.

The outcomes of these Fell Shorts, which represent a large proportion of all the Israel-bound rockets despatched by Gaza's rocket-rich terrorists, are almost always shrouded in Hamas-imposed secrecy. It's a very rare thing for news reporters to challenge that news ban. So there's very little understanding outside of Israel and Gaza about the death, injuries and damage caused to Gazans by the flourishing rocket-firing industry based there.

In Haaretz, Jack Khoury says he knows who is seeking "credit" for last night's explosions:

Israeli detection systems picked up the launches and identified two projectiles that crossed the border, the other three exploded on the Gaza side of the border... The "Aj'nad Beit al-Maqdis" (Soldiers of the Holy Temple) organization, ideologically affiliated with Al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the five rockets fired from Gaza toward southern Israel on Friday... According to Gaza residents, it is possible that minority factions operating on the ground took advantage of the stormy weather to carry out the rocket fire... There is often tension among Hamas and organizations affiliated with ISIS and Al-Qaida regarding operations on the ground in Gaza. Disputes over power struggles between commanders in the field are often expressed through rocket fire toward Israel. Israel's defense establishment therefore responds proportionately, in order not to provoke an additional response from Hamas.

Was it Aj'nad Beit al-Maqdis? Times of Israel says terrorists

affiliated with the Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility Saturday for firing rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip late on Friday night. The Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis Islamist group issued a statement hailing its attacks on “occupied Palestine” and gloating that it had “turned night into day” for residents in the Sderot area. Nonetheless, Israel has said it holds Gaza’s Hamas rulers responsible for any attacks out of the Hamas-run Strip.

If the jihadists of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis are the shooters, they come with a long record of mayhem [see here]. We have posted about them here at least a dozen times, most recently when they launched a rocket at Israel on a day when school-children were on the roads and could easily be hit ["01-Sep-15: Inbound rocket from Gaza announces new school year"]; that assault, like three of Friday's rockets, was also a Fell Short.

Designated as terrorists by Egypt, United Kingdom and the United States among others, the Ansar people have claimed to be part of ISIS since November 2014.

19-Sep-15: Gaza rockets: Another Friday night attack

Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted a rocket heading for the southern coastal city of Ashkelon around midnight on Friday night, the Jewish Sabbath. Another rocket attack - thought to comprise two separate rockets - at about 8:45 pm Friday night produced explosions in a residential area of Sderot where some property damage - including to a bus - resulted. Jerusalem Post says a house was also hit.

One report says Sderot's public bomb shelters, which are programmed to open automatically when Tzeva Adom (Color Red) incoming-rocket sirens sound, failed to unlock during the Friday night attack. Several people had to be medically treated for shock.

Times of Israel says the intercept in the skies above Ashkelon

was the first since last summer’s war between Israel and armed Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip last summer.

"Credit" was rapidly claimed by one of the proliferating Gaza Strip terror industry groups, the so-called Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade, also known as Ahfad Ashaba, which first emerged (and was probably created) in the last few months.

28-Jul-14: Some things change, some stay the same

Well-used bomb/rocket shelter in Sderot [Image Source: Wikipedia]

So how ought Israel to deal with those jihadism-obsessed, armed-to-the-teeth, child-sacrificing neighbours we have just over the fence in Gaza? Here's one ordinary man's view:

I don't think any country would find it acceptable to have missiles raining down on the heads of their citizens. The first job of any nation state is to protect its citizens. And so I can assure you that if -- I don't even care if I was a politician. If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.

In terms of negotiations with Hamas, it is very hard to negotiate with a group that is not representative of a nation state, does not recognize your right to exist, has consistently used terror as a weapon, and is deeply influenced by other countries. I think that Hamas leadership will have to make a decision at some point as to whether it is a serious political party seeking to represent the aspirations of the Palestinian people. And, as a consequence, willing to recognize Israel's right to exist and renounce violence as a tool to achieve its aims. Or whether it wants to continue to operate as a terrorist organization. 

Until that point, it's hard for Israel, I think, to negotiate with a country that -- or with a group that doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist at a country...

That's the voice of Senator Barack Obama, speaking in the long-beleagured Israeli city of Sderot on July 23, 2008, as quoted by the New York Times here (and on video here).

Some things keep changing. Some just remain the same
as they were. Aspiring US politician inspecting jihadist
rockets in Sderot, six years ago [Image Source]

Generally speaking, Israelis don't need foreign visitors to teach us how we need to do

everything to protect our frightened daughters and sons: A mother in Sderot

comforts her daughter after yet another rocket attack [Image Source: Wikipedia]

14-Jul-14: Searching for a way to make a positive, concrete, meaningful contribution?

If you are among the ranks of Israel's many friends who want to do something concrete that positively helps the people living under terrorist rocket-fire, here's a suggestion. 

Keren Malki, the foundation we created in memory of the life of our daughter Malki (you can see her photo on the right of this page), has a unique and effective program called Therapists on Wheels that sends highly-qualified therapists - physical, occupational and speech - into the homes of Israelis living in communities far from Israel's center. 

There, in those homes, they deliver vital para-medical therapy sessions to children challenged by often-severe special needs. 

Currently we send therapists to Be'er Sheva, Sderot, Ashkelon and other places in Israel's southern periphery that right now are in the cross-hairs of the Hamas terror-rocketeers. 

In these difficult days, the professional team who run Keren Malki's operations are doing everything possible so that the special-needs children in those places don't miss out on therapies that are so vital to their well-being. 

You can learn more and possibly also give your support to Keren Malki's Zlata Hersch Memorial Therapists on Wheels Program, by clicking here.

7-Jul-14: And now a night in the life...

We will be updating this post as Monday evening wears on.

• Around 8:30 pm, Tzeva Adom siren warnings are heard in a huge swathe of the country including (in no particular order) Ashdod, Nes Ziona, Rehovot, Kiryat Malachi, Beer Tuvia, Kibbutz Brenner, Gederot, Beit Shemesh, Kibbutz Gezer, Gan Raveh, the Yavneh region, Har Hevron area, Hof Ashkelon, Lachish, Nahal Sorek and Emek Hefer. That list includes places that can legitimately be thought of as the Tel Aviv metropolitan area.
• In the Ashdod attacks, we know of one person lightly injured by shrapnel. 
• Haaretz's rocket/mortar count for the day has reached 70. Not much expectation that it is going to taper off without something decisive from the Israeli side.
• A Haaretz report around 9:00 pm makes the astounding statement that the Iron Dome system has just made seven mid-flight rocket intercepts over Ashdod and five over Netivot. This is serious fire. 
• 9:00 pm: An estimated 60 rockets were fired into Israel during the past hour alone. Hamas takes credit (source: Times of Israel). 
• Seven people are treated for shock in the wake of this latest rocket barrage, according to Israel's Channel 2 TV news which also reports Israeli air activity in southern Israel's skies.
• The US State Department says "the US condemns rocket fire from Gaza and supports Israel's right to defend itself". Astonishingly, this does not slow down the incoming rockets.
• 9:20 pm: Incoming-rocket warnings again, this time Hof Ashkelon and Eshkol regions.
• From the BBC, background on Israel's version of what ended the careers of several Hamas terrorists today: "Israeli military spokesman Lt Col Peter Lerner said the tunnel where the men died had been bombarded on Thursday. He said the militants were killed as they went into the tunnel on Sunday to assess the damage and meddled with some explosives, which were apparently detonated accidentally. The Israeli military believes the militants planned to use the tunnels to infiltrate Israel, kill or abduct residents of nearby communities and troops."
• A Tweet just now from NGO Monitor's Prof. Gerald Steinberg (@GeraldNGOM) reminds @HRW @amnesty @btselem @EUinIsrael @kenroth that 65 rockets from Gaza, directed at Israeli civilians, amount to 65 war crimes. The silence from the highly-politicized, self-appointed guardians of human rights is considerably more eloquent than their carefully framed occasional crocodile-tear expressions of regret and sympathy when Israeli victims unavoidably need to be addressed. And in case they want to hide behind professed doubt as to who is doing the rocket firings, Haaretz's Jack Khoury reports that Hamas is proud to take full credit tonight.

• And newsagency reports say the same.
• Train travel throughout Israel's south is severely impacted by today's fighting. Many train services are cancelled (Ynet).
• A guest at an outdoor wedding in Netivot tonight (outdoor weddings suit our climate well) captured a video clip of a Hamas rocket being destroyed in mid-flight. Check it out even if Hebrew's not your first language.
• 9:45 pm Another incoming rocket report from Sderot and Sha'ar Hanegev regions, followed a few minutes later by reports from the same two places plus Hof Ashkelon. No reports yet of results on the ground.
• 10:00 pm: In Ashdod, all school classes for tomorrow are canceled. And at Be'er Sheva's Ben Gurion University of the Negev, they have just announced that exams set for tomorrow are postponed until further notice. Same goes for Sapir Academic College in Sderot.
• 10:20 pm Physical damage in the wake of an incoming Gazan rocket that crashed into the Yoav region.
• Around 10:30 pm, says Times of Israel, the Iron Dome system brings down another in-flight Gazan rocket. This one was pointed at Sderot. Three others land crashed and exploded in open areas in Sha'ar HaNegev region and near Sderot.
• A Grad rocket crashed and exploded somewhere close to Kiryat Malachi. There's damage.
• The national ambulance service, Magen David Adom, is now officially on high alert in central and southern Israel. Further Gazan attacks are expected overnight and they need to be ready.
• At Soroka Medical Center, the Be'er Sheva hospital that serves a huge area in Israel's south including (naturally) a very high percentage of Arabs, and is reputed to have more births each year than any other Israeli hospital, they announced in the last hour [Hebrew report] that all preemie babies and newborns have been moved urgently to rocket-protected parts of the hospital buildings. There's no statistical breakdown of the respective number of Moslem, Christian and Jewish mothers/babies because, being Israel, that has no relevance to anything worth talking about.
• Rock-throwing Arabs from Beit Safafa, a generally quiet West Jerusalem neighbourhood, have been causing serious problems ronight for drivers and for the police [Hebrew report]. 
• Acknowledging the way the social media and the Internet can mould people's perceptions, and sometimes manipulate them, a BBC article tonight points out that many of the most-widely circulating images purporting to show Gaza in flames are fakes. "A #BBCtrending investigation has found that many of these images are not from the latest conflict and not even from Gaza. Some date as far back as 2009 and others are from conflicts in Syria and Iraq."
• 11:00 pm Another round of incoming-missile siren warnings from the IDF's Tzeva Adom system. Awaiting details from the areas impacted, principally Sderot and Sha'ar Hanegev. 
• 11:25 pm Yet another rocket attack on Sderot (perhaps on other places too). This one must have been on-course to do real harm because the Iron Dome system was deployed again, and intercepted one of those rockets in mid-flight. The bad news is that the thugs with the rockets have far, far more rockets than Israel has anti-rockets. At Times of Israel they quote Yaakov Amidror, former national security adviser: Hamas has “about 10,000 rockets” in its arsenal (he tells Channel 2) and “we may be in for many more nights” of rocket attacks. And the "good" news? Hamas “does not have any kind of game-changing Doomsday weapon” so we can breathe... easier?
• 11:50 pm Tzeva Adom sirens sounding in Hof Ashkelon region.
• 12:30 am More Jerusalem area clashes tonight involving Arab neighbourhoods - this time Beit Hanina on Jerusalem's north side where some of the locals are hurling firebombs at police.
• 12:30 am Tzeva Adom siren warnings again, and they're unlikely to be the last of the night, being heard now in Hof Ashkelon region again.
• 12:35 am Initial and unconfirmed report [Hebrew] of a shooting attack in a Jewish neighbourhood of East Jerusalem.

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.

4-Jul-14: The rockets and where they're taking us

It's a hot Friday morning, and incoming-rocket sirens have been wailing right across the south of Israel all night and into the morning, after days of the same. Sderot, and the Eshkol, Sdot Negev and Sha'ar Hanegev regions have taken the brunt of the indiscriminate Palestinian Arab fire, and the authorities are warning of the certainty of more.

According to a Times of Israel tally, 15 rockets were fired at Israel by the terrorists of Gaza during last (Thursday) evening. There was one injury, and considerable property damage, and a great deal of fear and apprehension on the part of the ordinary people who live in those southern communities with the misfortune of being closest to the border with the terror-infested Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Residents are being advised to stay within 15 seconds sprint of bomb shelters.

Times of Israel says the Israeli government issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the Hamas regime in Gaza during Thursday. They are warned to halt their fire - or face a massive Israeli strike. This was conveyed to Hamas leaders via Egyptian intelligence. The response was not long in coming: Israel, a Hamas spokesperson said, will “be surprised” by its rocket arsenal and range.

“We promise that one stupid move your leaders make will constitute sufficient ground to turn all of your towns, even those you wouldn’t expect, into targets and burning cinders,” said Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing. Israel may initiate the escalation, “but it doesn’t know how it will continue and how it will end... The threats the occupiers issue, and the allusions to war against Gaza, are threats that have no meaning in our dictionaries, other than drawing the hour of vengeance and difficult lesson-learning closer,” Ubaida added. [Times of Israel]

Updates to come.

29-Jun-14: More Saturday night rocket attacks on southern Israel

Sderot, southern Israel, Saturday afternoon:
Gaza's embedded rocket arsenal has
huge potential for lethality [Image Source]

The Sderot factory about which we reported earlier tonight has burned to the ground.

The photos at right and below are something to keep in mind when those who misleadingly soft-talk what the Palestinian Arab terrorists do ("home-made rockets" and the like) attempt to peddle their preferred image of pathetic, oppressed, helpless and ill-equipped freedom-loving Gazans.

The reality is Gaza is armed to the teeth, with deep reserves of rockets concealed inside mosques, the basements of hospitals, and indoor caches close to schools. It's a fiendish strategy, and tonight's conflagration is a small taste of what can be expected in the future.

Soon after tonight's direct hit on the Sderot factory, the incoming-rocket alarms sounded again across a broad swathe of southern Israel. Times of Israel reports that residents of the Sdot Negev region were forced to take cover around 10 o'clock Saturday night as another barrage of rockets was launched from the Gaza Strip. It says those rockets are now thought to have landed in open territory, without causing injury to people or significant property damage.

A little later, just after 11:00 pm local time on Saturday night, additional incoming rocket sirens were heard [Hebrew report] in Sderot and the Sha'ar Hanegev region. We do not know the outcome at this stage.

Sderot: The outcome of Saturday afternoon's rocket attack

Sderot: The factory that was destroyed by Gazan rockets

Sderot: The damage that the terrorists' rockets can do is
consistently under-stated by the news media [Image Source: AP]