Tishrei 7, 5776
UPDATES
5:00 am Israel time, Sunday, September 20 2015
Breaking News:
10:32 pm Saturday: Incoming missiles fired by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza for Sha’ar Hanegev region.
8:58 pm Saturday: IDF forces hit by Molotov cocktails and 3 IEDs at Fajar in the Gush Etzion area. No further information.
4:47 am Saturday: Three missiles fired by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza explode just south of our position here in Ashdod. No sirens, no further information.
11:31 pm Friday: Incoming missiles fired by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza for Ashkelon–Zone 247. At least 3 missiles fired; one intercepted over the city by the Iron Dome.
8:41 pm Friday: Incoming missiles fired by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza for Zone 220 of southern Israel. Warning sirens sound after Sderot hit by at least one missile. Home and bus hit by shrapnel. No one physically wounded but numerous people treated for shock.
**The daily Palestinian terror report from yesterday . . .
Whatever the government is doing to quell the situation in eastern Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria is most assuredly not working.
Just look at the riots that took place on Friday in the Jabal Mukaber area of Jerusalem, in Aboud, Jalazun, Hebron, Abu Tor, Qalandiya, Bethany, Kedumim, and at the Chain and Lion’s Gates in Jerusalem–riots involving hundreds of “rock” and Molotov cocktail throwing terrorists.
Numerous Israelis were wounded in these riots, including 3 Border Policemen who were burned by Molotov cocktails in Jabal Mukaber and another who was shot. Two of them had to be evacuated to Ein Kerem Medical Center and another was taken to Sha’are Zedek.
And numerous other Israelis had to be treated for shock after being attacked while driving by Palestinians throwing “rocks” at Azzun, Wadi Joz, Kiryat Arba, Halhul, Ephraim, and in Gush Etzion. And what about the Molotov cocktails that hit a bus near Maale Adumim? and the IDF post at Beit Hadassah in Hebron? and policemen at the Damascus Gate?
As we have been writing here on israelstreet for months (and even years), nothing short of a wholesale change in government policy in which Israel asserts sovereignty over the above areas once and for all will cause the situation to stop spiraling out of control.
**One of the main reasons that it is spiraling out of control is . . .
. . . Israel’s ultra-leftist Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein. It is amazing how Weinstein has been allowed over the course of the last few years to subsume powers into his office which no Israel Attorney General has ever had before.
It has gotten to the point that nothing can happen without Weinstein’s approval–no matter how small or how large. For example, it is Weinstein who will decide whether to prosecute Sarah Netanyahu because of recycled bottle money, and it is Weinstein who now seems to have the power to decide whether Gal Hirsch will be the new head of the Israeli police or not.
And it is Weinstein who is now running roughshod over Israel’s security forces–dictating everything from where they can be deployed to the type of weapons they can use. Unbelievably, Weinstein ruled yesterday that the only gun that can be used by the police against “rock” and Molotov cocktail throwers in Jerusalem (and only “selected rock throwers” at that) is the so-called “Ruger American rifle.”
Why the Ruger? Supposedly because it is less lethal.
Whatever the characteristics of the Ruger are, the point is that Yehuda Weinstein should not be determining how Israel fights its ongoing war against Palestinian terrorism.
**In a little reported event this week . . .
. . . the Egyptian Army began flooding the huge “moat” it has dug along the Egyptian-Gaza border with seawater, and immediately, the project began paying dividends as numerous tunnels collapsed.
Hamas has vowed to seek international intervention because it claims that the seawater will “devastate the water aquifer” that supplies much of the terrorist state’s drinking water.
Somehow, we doubt that the Egyptians care. What is more, the Egyptian Army, as previously reported, is looking forward to making money from the creation of fish farms.
**A moment of humor on an otherwise violent Saturday . . .
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Spanish, self-proclaimed “human rights” activists were in eastern Jerusalem a couple of days ago to show their solidarity with “the poor Palestinians.” They specifically wanted to demonstrate their disapproval of the separation barrier that has saved so many Israeli lives by stopping “suicide/murder” attacks.
To draw attention to their pro-Palestinian, anti-separation fence positions, they stripped naked in front of the fence wearing only a red clown nose.
The Spanish show of “solidarity” with the Palestinians.
They issued this message with the picture: “When you stand before this shameful fence, all of humanity is naked. The decision to be photographed as naked clowns was meant to remind us that all of humanity has lost its respect by allowing such barriers to exist.”
Unfortunately for the Spaniards, the Palestinians did not appreciate the gesture. One Palestinian spoke for others when he said: “They’re standing like animals. They’re pigs, nothing more.”
For once, your humble servant agrees with the Palestinians.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Your humble servant is still trying to piece together what has happened here in southern Israel over the last 12 hours. We know for certain that there have been three barrages of missiles, but as usual we cannot rely on the IDF to reveal accurate details about any of them.
Let’s take them in order:
1. At 8:41 pm, Sderot was hit by 1 or 2 missiles fired from Beit Hanoun in Gaza. One missile exploded in a residential area parking lot; shrapnel hit a nearby apartment and a bus that was parked.
Shortly thereafter and obviously belatedly, the siren for incoming missiles went off for Sderot and the rest of Zone 220 (the missile warning apps on our phones started buzzing). The irony of the siren sounding after the missiles is that the IDF has been touting its new alarm system which is supposed to give residents more advance warning about missile strikes.
Clearly, it doesn’t work.
2. A little less than three hours later at 11:31 pm, our telephone apps went off again, and seconds later we were jolted here in far south Ashdod by three launches of the Iron Dome system which is positioned just north of Ashkelon, though this morning it is unclear whether 3 or 4 missiles were fired at the city (the IDF is claiming that only 1 missile targeted the city). These launches were followed by three explosions.
Apparently one missile was shot down over the city; one hit in the Mediterranean, and one hit an “open area.”
Interestingly, a Palestinian blogger in Gaza reported the launch of 4 missiles a few minutes before the missiles struck at Ashkelon.
About two hours later at 1:30 am, we were awakened when our home was buzzed by IAF jets roaring toward Gaza to bomb the usual empty buildings and sand dunes that they always “attack.”
3. At 4:47 am, we were snapped awake again by three more explosions in the 6 km area between Ashdod and Ashkelon. There were no warning sirens, and there has been no reportage of the strikes by the IDF.
So how many missiles were fired at the children, women, and men of southern Israel last night and early this morning? Between 7 and 9–with your humble servant believing that the latter number is correct.
Who is claiming responsibility for the attacks? Every terror group from Islamic Jihad to IS/DAAS.
What is our Israeli government doing to stop the attacks? Absolutely nothing.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.