Update on Sderot - a medley

Here are a few posts on the daily deluge of steel rain on Sderot. 23% of students are attending school.

Always start with Aussie Dave's liveblogging at Israellycool:

Updated throughout the day. Scroll down for updates and new posts.

(Saturday Jan 19): It seems like it has been a relatively quiet day today, with only a handful of rockets being fired into Israel so far. Yeah, I know, that sounded ridiculous, but I’m talking after around 150+ rockets hit Israel the past 4 days.

Menawhile, an IAF strike turned at least 2 Hamas terrorists into worm food, while our troops killed a Tanzim terrorist and captured 4 more after a long gunfight.

On the palestinian side, talks of a Fatah-Hamas lovefest following the expressions of condolences heaped on Mahmoud “the Wart” al-Zahar may have been about as premature as a “work accident.” Hamas accused Fatah of plotting to assassinate Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, while Fatah/palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Hamas of “destroying the dreams and trying to destroy the future and our national aspirations.”

In other news, Ban Ki and Coy implored Israel to reverse its decision to protect itself, there were more stone-throwing antics, and Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah claimed his group had the “heads” and “body parts” of Israeli soldiers, as well as “a nearly intact cadaver”.
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11:00PM: IDF response to Nasrallah’s speech: he’s “trampling the basic ethical code of human respect”, “Hizbullah’s actions are against basic codes held dearly by various religions, including Islam,” and speech was an indication of the pressure he was under to complete a prisoner swap with Israel.
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Sunday Jan 20th

8:45AM: Since my last update, IDF soldiers have come under fire in the Kabatiya refugee camp, south of Jenin, and senior military officials have confirmed that Hezbollah does have the remains of IDF soldiers who died in last year’s Second Lebanon War.

9:30AM: And let the Qassam’s begin. That’s another 2 for the tally.

12:50PM: A number of cabinet ministers have called for the assassination of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah. I vote in favor.

1:45PM: A Qassam rocket fired at Israel landed on the palestinian side of the Erez Crossing. No doubt if it killed one of their own, the palestinians would claim Israel was responsible for their death.

From Yael at Aliyah!:

3 days in Sderot –210 qassams and mortars

If you checked out the news in non-Israeli newspapers last week, you will be quite aware that the EU called “For Israel to dismantle all checkpoints in the West Bank” and that the EU called for “Israel to lift the closure of Gaza.” If you read the BBC, at the end of an article about the (poor things) 23 militants that were killed in Gaza last week you also learned that “an agricultural worker was killed in Israel by sniper fire from Gaza.” At least get it right, people, he was a tourist from Ecuador who was spending a couple of weeks volunteering on a kibbutz to learn about kibbutz life. The U.N. with a bare mention of the rockets and mortars falling as thick as rain forcefully condemned Israel for attacks on militants in Gaza and urged Israel in strong language to “avoid creating a humanitarian crisis” in Gaza. A lot of newspapers carried as headlines, Abbas’ claim that Israel was conducting a “massacre.”

Nowhere did you read during the three days that such headlines listed above were appearing that, during those same three days more than 130 Qassam rockets hit the Israeli city of Sderot. Also during those same three days, more than 80 mortars were fired from Gaza into Israeli civilian communities along the Gaza border. Nowhere did you read that, in addition to the 19 year old Ecuadoran tourist who was killed by sniper-fire, snipers fired repeatedly at civilian targets or that Hamas issued a statement calling for constant sniper attacks against Israeli farmers and farm workers. Nowhere did you read that, in just the past year alone, Palestinian militants have launched considerably more than 1,000 rockets targeting the civilian population of Sderot.

Nor, if you tot up the number of all those injured from flying shrapnel and debris in Sderot over those three days, do you read that 60 civilians were injured and required medical treatment, including several children hospitalized with serious injuries.

Yes and lacking this context, if you read the newspapers in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Australia or anywhere else, you might agree with the U.N. assessment that Israel is imposing an “arbitrary” closure on Gaza and doing it for pure mean pleasure. You might well agree with both the U.N. and Abbas that Israel should stop this “massacre” of the armed Palestinian terrorists who were among the very ones shooting these 210 rockets and mortars at Israeli civilian targets and who murdered an innocent tourist.

From Carl at Israel Matzav:

The night the lights went out in Gaza?

Will tonight be the night the lights went out in Gaza? That's what the 'Palestinians' are telling everyone today. Of course, the world is in an uproar despite the fact that all the savages have to do to keep the lights on is to stop shooting rockets at Israeli civilians in the Negev. But they refuse to stop, Israel has stopped fuel deliveries and now it's just a matter of hours - claim the 'Palestinians' - before the lights go out in Gaza.

One of two turbines producing electricity has already stopped working, and another will stop later Sunday, due to a lack of diesel fuel.

The fuel shortage was a result of Defense Minister Ehud Barak's decision on Thursday to halt all shipments to the Strip.

Barak's decision came after Hamas renewed Kassam rocket fire last week, resulting in unusually heavy barrages on Sderot. The defense minister decided then to tighten the blockade on the Strip, saying that only humanitarian cases of an extreme nature would be considered.

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The UN organization in charge of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, warned the move would drastically affect hospitals, sewage treatment plants and water facilities.

"The logic of this defies basic humanitarian standards," said Christopher Gunness, spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency.

But there's something strange here. The 'Palestinians' get two thirds of their electricity from Israel, and that supply is unaffected. So why would the lights go out in Gaza?

In addition to the fuel it receives from Israel to power its electrical plant, Gaza gets about two-thirds of its electricity directly from Israel. Israeli officials said that supply would not be affected.

Unless, the 'Palestinians' are lying and are going to shut the lights purposely so as to arouse the sympathy of the UN and it's various agencies.... Ya' think?

If Israel is condemned for this, it will truly be "the night they hung an innocent man."