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.

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. 

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.

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.)

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".

21-Oct-17: Early-morning rocket fire deep into northern Israel today and IDF believes the Syrians meant it this time

Damascus today: Iranians on the left, Syrians on the right, Iran's Maj. Gen.
Mohammad Bagheri in the middle shaking hands with Syria's top military
officer Gen. Ali Ayoub. The military agreement they signed is described
below [Image Source]

Israel's Syria border has been relatively quiet for decades. But the recent and ongoing geo-strategic changes in the Middle East (think: Iran) mean the likelihood of substantial changes there - for the worse - is on the minds of everyone in the Israeli security establishment.

Here's what we know about the events of today (Saturday).

Times of Israel, in a report entitled "Israel believes rocket fire from Syria may have been deliberate" says five rockets were fired across its border from Syria early this morning (Saturday). While earlier incoming rockets (there have been many this year already - most recently this past Thursday) have been called incidental to the ferocious blood-letting in Syria, today's

"may have been deliberately launched at Israel, rather than constituting errant spillover from clashes in Syria, military sources said late Saturday. Israel fired back into Syria, hitting three rocket launchers, in response to the rocket fire, and warned that further fire would prompt a more intensive response... Channel 2 news reported that although the IDF officially referred to “spillover” fire in its statements Saturday, there was “a growing sense” in the army that the Syrian fire was deliberate..." [Times of Israel, today]

Today's rockets were all fired into Israel around 5 am. Four fell relatively deeply inside Israeli territory and according to Times of Israel set off Code Red (Tzeva Adom) alarms in several locations. It's still believed at this stage that all crashed onto open ground without causing injury or damage, though one "landed close to an Israeli residential area."

Israeli suspicions start with the assessment that  no fighting was going on in any relevant part of Syria at the time of the fire. The Syrian army fully controls the specific area from which they were fired. And they landed far from the Syrian frontier.  And this:

Concluding a visit to Syria on Saturday, the commander of Iran’s armed forces signed a memorandum of understanding with Syrian officials in which the two allies announced plans for tighter military cooperation and coordination — notably against Israel. [Times of Israel, today]

More about that below.

All sides - Syria, Israel, Iran - have been making statements.

The Syrian defense ministry says Israel arranged for the rocket attack on its territory:

"The terrorists, acting at the behest of Israel, shelled empty ground to provide a pretext for this aggression..." [Turkish news site Daily Sabah, today]

The IDF doesn't think it attacked itself and issued this blunt warning:

“The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm the sovereignty of the State of Israel and the security of its residents, and considers the Syrian regime responsible for what is happening in its territory... Even if this is just spillover, this is an exceptional incident and the continuance of such events will be met with a more fierce Israeli response... ” [IDF statement quoted by Times of Israel, today]

And Bagheri, the Iranian, said just three days ago from Damascus [source] where he arrived a day earlier that he was there to coordinate

“in order to fight our common enemies — whether they are the Zionists or the terrorists. We discussed ways to strengthen relations in the future and outlined the basic principles of this cooperation... We cannot accept a situation where the Zionist entity attacks Syria from the ground and the air”.

Associated Press today added to what we know about the unusual Syrian junket by Iran's most senior military officer:

The Chief of Staff of Iran's armed forces, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, is on an official visit to Syria. He toured the front lines in the northern province of Aleppo and discussed military cooperation with President Bashar Assad... Syria and its strong backer Iran signed a joint memorandum of understanding for developing cooperation and coordination between the two countries' armies... [The] memo was signed between the two countries' chiefs of staffs [and] provides for exchanging military expertise and intelligence and technology information in a way that can boost the two countries' capability for fight terrorism, according to [Syria's] state news agency SANA. Iran has been one of Syrian President Bashar Assad's strongest supporters since the country's crisis began in 2011 and has sent thousands of Iranian-backed militiamen to boost his troops against opponents.

Meanwhile, Israel National News says the IDF fire in the hours after the Syrian rocketry "destroyed three Syrian artillery cannons".

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.

27-Feb-17: For the fourth time this month, Gazan rockets search for Israeli victims this morning

Israel's northern Negev at this time of year is ablaze with color: red kalaniyot
which are the centrepiece of the Darom Adom ("Scarlet South")
festival [Image Source]

Israel experienced a hostile, inbound-rocket attack on its southern flank for the fourth time in a month early today.

From the Bethlehem-based Arab-controlled, European-funded Ma'an News Agency today:

The Israeli army said that a rocket fired from the besieged Gaza Strip landed in an open area in southern Israel on Monday morning, reporting no injuries or damages as a result of the incident. Israeli news site Ynet said the projectile exploded in open territory in the Shaar HaNegev Regional Council... The Gaza-based al-Mezan Center for Human Rights expressed concern earlier this month in response to Israeli airstrikes that Israel could be leading up to a wide-scale military offensive. The rights group called on the international community to “act promptly against Israel’s military escalation, to fulfill their obligations to protect civilians, and ensure respect for the rules of international law,” stressing that “acting before a full-scale military bombardment is launched is crucial to ensuring the protection of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.”
Israeli officials have also accused Hamas, Gaza's de facto leaders, of "preparing" for another war with Israel and have threatened retaliatory measures against the Gaza Strip as a whole, while Israeli authorities hold Hamas responsible for all attacks against Israeli targets coming from the Gaza Strip...

Haaretz this morning ["Gaza Rocket Hits Southern Israel; None Hurt"] says

A rocket fired from Gaza exploded overnight Sunday in southern Israel. No people were hurt in the attack and no damage was caused as the rocket fell in an open area. At the beginning of the month, a barrage of rockets were fired at the Red Sea resort town of Eilat, but Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system managed to intercept three of them. No Israelis were hurt in the incident, but a number suffered anxiety... Tensions flared up at the time along Israel's border with Gaza after a rocket was fired at southern Israel. Israel’s responded with a series of strikes on Hamas-linked targets. Two members of the security cabinet who spoke with Haaretz hinted on Tuesday at the possibility of a more serious escalation within a few months.

Israel National News says the landing zone was Shaar Hanegev (population about 6,000 civilians), situated midway between Beer Sheva and Ashkelon and bordering on the Gaza Strip. It says that the Tzeva Adom (“Red Alert”) incoming-missile radar-and-siren system was not sounded "due to the fact that the rocket was headed towards an open region".

The Daily Star in Lebanon has a brief report on today's attack, syndicated from the French AFP news agency. Its by-line outrageously starts with the words "Occupied Jerusalem".

Alarabiya's headline writers again score some points today in their constant striving to undermine the credibility of Israeli claims:

"Rocket fired from Gaza hits southern Israel, army claims"

But for those IDF "claims", a reasonable person might have been left wondering whether this was in fact a rocket and not a baseball. Or whether southern Israel was struck as opposed to downtown Haifa. Or if the rocket that once again sought sleeping Israeli victims in their beds around sunrise this morning was fired from Baghdad as opposed to Gaza. Thank you, Alarabiya.

If any other non-Israeli news channels reported on the frightening events of this morning, we have not seen them at this stage. Meaning (without resorting to Zen aphorisms) that for most people, today's attack never happened. Thus, if Israel strikes back at the source of the assault, there will have been no context and it will be Israel that is treated as having started some new round of hostilities.

Meanwhile Israelis and our visitors will go on enjoying the gorgeous flowers now blooming right across the south.

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.

26-May-16: Gazan Arabs fire another rocket at southern Israel: Fail to inflict damage or injury

A rocket fired from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Wednesday night in the general direction of southern Israel is reported [Israel National News] to have exploded harmlessly in an open area of the Sha’ar Hanegev region, fortunately causing neither human injuries nor property damage. The attack occurred around 11:00 pm.

The “Color Red” [Tzeva Adom] incoming rocket warning alert was not sounded prior to explosion since the system correctly (as it appears) computed that it was headed towards an open area.

This, it bears repeating, was not the intention of the terrorists who put their lives in jeopardy by firing missiles at Israel. They will certainly be trying for a more damaging result in the future.

15-Mar-16: A couple of near-invisible blips on the radar

Running for shelter in a southern Israel community
as a Gazan rocket approaches [A 2014 Reuter image]

Take a moment to consider two mostly-unreported events from last night (Monday) in the ongoing Arab-on-Israel terrorism lottery.

A rocket was fired into southern Israel around midnight. It of course came from some rocket launching pad operated by aspirational, terror-minded Gazan Arabs, and was fired in the vague, general direction of Israel in the evident hope of hitting something. Something painful to Israelis, naturally. Through good luck or providence - but not because of any lack of malicious intent - that goal was not achieved, and the inbound rocket

exploded in an open area in the Shaar Hanegev region of southern Israel. There were no physical injuries or damages. [Israel National News, March 14, 2016]

Times of Israel adds a few additional details, quoting the IDF: that it landed in an open area west of Sderot, and that Tzeva Adom, the IDF's alarm siren system for warning of incoming rocket attacks and giving people in the landing area a few seconds advance notice to rush their families to a place of relative shelter, did not go off

suggesting the rocket detection system deployed around Gaza calculated that the rocket would land far from populated areas. [Times of Israel]

Then in Jerusalem, another near-invisible blip on the news radar:

...[P]olice thwarted a stabbing attack planned by two Palestinian women at the HaZeitim Crossing checkpoint in east Jerusalem Monday night. According to police, the suspects – both from Abu Dis, and aged 24 and 29 – hid knives in their bags. When security personnel found the weapons, the women confessed to attempting to travel to the capital to carry out stabbing attacks against Jews. They were immediately placed under arrest... [Jerusalem Post, March 15, 2016]

People who think of these two attacks as insignificant near-misses will miss the point. Each could easily have brought tragedy into the lives of ordinary people on our side, the Israeli aspect of the conflict. That, in fact, was plainly the intention. In the first case, the attackers missed. In the second, they were detected and stopped before carrying out the violence they intended to inflict. In both cases, the assailants had no concrete targets - anything or anyone within Israel would have met their needs. And in both cases, they did essentially everything they needed to do in order to reach their goal.

That they failed says something about vigilance, fortune and/or fate. It certainly says nothing about any reduced appetite for killing on their side. There is no sign of an outbreak of calm or of a passion to co-exist or compromise emanating from their side. If and when good luck or divine intervention somehow fail us, there will be much worse outcomes from the inevitable (and yes, Palestinian Arab incitement to murder and savagery ensures that they are inevitable) attacks to come.

The forces pushing Palestinian Arabs, among them females and children, to throw away their lives and freedom in pursuit of martyrdom or merely attention are also barely understood. Consider what must have been the back-story to the efforts of the fifteen year-old Palestinian Arab girl, a child by any definition, who is the centerpiece of this blog post of ours: "22-Dec-15: A knife-wielding Palestinian Arab child and her two arrests".

It's not surprising that most people don't know about the worrying daily realities of the Arab-on-Israeli war of terror. Such daily "near-misses" and other failed or thwarted attacks are so rarely reported outside our neighborhood. They therefore have close-to-zero impact on public awareness of how people live their lives on a razor's edge in an ongoing war.

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."

24-Jan-16: Sunday night Gazan rocket explodes in southern Israel

Last night's Gazan Fell Short rocket was quickly followed this evening (Sunday) by another Gazan rocket flung in the customary terrorist way in the general direction of anything Israeli.

This evening's missile got as far as southern Israel's Sha'ar HaNegev region, home to some 6,000 long-suffering, rocket-weary residents. There, its approach triggered rocket alert sirens from the Color Red/Tzeva Adom in-bound rocket detection system, sending many residents and their families rushing to bomb shelters.

It appears the rocket exploded harmlessly in an open area, causing neither injuries nor property damage.

This, it is important to remember, was never the intention of the terrorists who fire off such rockets; their goal is to cause pain, death, fear and disruption to Israeli life. Many thousands of such rockets have been despatched into, and in the general direction of, Israel since Hamas grabbed control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. They have no discernible military objective, but serve strictly terrorist goals.

20-Dec-15: Sunday evening rocket volley is fired into northern Israel

Following the demise of a notorious terrorist earlier today, there has just now been a rocket volley fired into northern Israel. Israel National News says:

At least three rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel, the army has confirmed. Air raid sirens sounded in communities throughout the western Galilee in northern Israel, at 17:42 local time Sunday, including in Rosh Hanikra and Nahariya. Locals report hearing at least one explosion; three rockets struck within Israel. There are no reports of injury or damage. IDF forces are scanning the area. The strikes follow Hezbollah vowing revenge for the assassination of its notorious commander Samir Kuntar, in what is believed to have been an Israeli airstrike near Damascus.

There were four incoming rockets, according to Times of Israel. It quotes Lebanon’s Naharnet saying that

two rockets were fired at Israel from the al-Hinniyeh area and two others were fired from Tal al-Maaliyeh. Some reports suggest one rocket landed in the sea. There are also initial reports of IDF artillery fire into Lebanon following the attack. There is no official confirmation of a counterattack...[A]t least one rocket landed in an open area near Nahariya. It’s not clear where the other two landed. “Forces are searching the area,” the IDF says in a statement. There are no reports of injuries or damage.

We noticed at least one Western reporter, tweeting here, who said this morning that Syrian state media had blamed "a hostile terrorist missile strike," and not Israel, for the elimination of Kuntar. In any event, no government, and certainly not Israel, has owned up to any involvement at this stage.

UPDATE - Monday, December 21, 2015: Times of Israel says communal bomb shelters are now operating in several northern Israel communities following the Sunday night multiple-rocket attacks. The Israeli assessment is that three rockets were fired into Israel from Lebanon, with all three landing near Shlomi, a small town near the Lebanese border. Inbound-rocket sirens were heard across a broad swathe of the northern border area. UNIFIL radars detected three rockets being launched and one of them landing in the sea, according to the IDF. Credit for the attack has been claimed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a Syria-based Palestinian terror group. There are so far no reports of injuries or damage from the rocket strikes. A Lebanese source quoted by AFP says the rockets were Katyushas.