Hamas is targeting Israel every which way it can.

Hamas targets the border crossings, thus making sure that Israel keeps them closed—because it’s been proven time and time again that Palestinians don’t care if civilians die as a result of their actions.

Only nine days ago, the government declared the Gaza Strip “hostile territory” in an attempt to up the pressure on Hamas to end the rocket attacks. But Hamas’ response has been the opposite; the shooting has only intensified.

Terrorist groups in Gaza, including Hamas’ military wing, have also increased efforts to carry out attacks inside Israel.

Most of the 54 mortars fired Wednesday landed near the Sufa crossing terminal. The mortars fired Thursday by Hamas militants targeted crossing points at Eretz and Kerem Shalom. There has also been a great deal of intelligence on Hamas’ plans to target the crossing points into Gaza.

As such, a paradox has emerged in which the Israeli government, the U.S. and Fatah believe that by exerting greater pressure on the Gaza Strip’s residents, the people will overthrow the Hamas regime there, while the Islamic group is doing its best to shut down the crossings - perhaps assuming that if the civilians suffer more, they will side with Hamas.

Senior Hamas officials deny that they intend this. Ismail Haniyeh says Hamas is interested in opening the crossings, but he was hard-pressed to explain the obvious attempt by Hamas militants to destroy the crossings.

“The military wing decides its targets in an effort to bring an end to the siege over the Strip,” he told Haaretz.

Hamas is also trying to conduct mass murder via suicide bomber as well, and only the intensity and luck of the IDF is stopping them. And oh yeah—those “humiliating” checkpoints:

IDF soldiers arrested two Palestinians at the Bir Zayit checkpoint on Thursday night after finding two explosive devices in their car during a routine check.

These are the same checkpoints the world demands Israel dismantle.

And of course, the near-daily rocket barrages continue.

A Qassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit a house in the Shaar Hanegev Kibbutz on Wednesday, causing no injuries.

In light of all these events, every Arab nation is demanding that Israel make “good-will gestures” by releasing prisoners and easing checkpoints. Not a single one of them has demanded that the Palestinians stop trying to murder Israelis. The conclusion is obvious: They don’t want the violence to end.

This upcoming peace conference is a bigger sham than Michael Jackson’s marriages.

The Jerusalem Post says the IDF received intel on the subject of the Syrian raid from the Iranian minister who defected earlier this year.

Iranian former deputy defense minister Ali Rheze Asgari supplied intelligence sources in the West with information regarding the sites that Israeli jets allegedly attacked on September 6, the Kuweiti Al Jareeda reported Friday.

Asgari defected from Iran several months ago and moved to an undisclosed location in the West.

And here’s the even bigger news: USAF jets shadowed the IAF on the Syrian border, to help if there was a need.

In related news, the Saudi paper Al Watan reported Friday that American jets were hovering in Iraqi airspace close to the Syrian border during the raid. Reportedly, the USAF jets were meant to give aerial backup to Israel in case IAF warplanes would come to any harm.

Now, I’m still of the opinion that there’s a lot more smoke than fire in many of these stories. So take the above information with another helping of salt. Especially since the raid came after Israel launched a newer, better spy satellite early this summer.

But if both these facts are true, that raid was a major, major coup.

Check out this statement by AFP:

GAZA CITY (AFP) — The Israeli military killed three Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, bringing to 12 the death toll in one of the bloodiest 24 hours in the Hamas-run territory in recent months.

The rest of the article is an example of the constant anti-Israel bias of the French version of the AP. But they seem to have forgotten that a very short time ago—June, in fact—even more Palestinians were killed in a single day.

By Palestinians.

Hamas officials reported that a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the house of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, causing damage but no injuries. That attack came just hours after Monday’s brutal infighting that killed 17 Palestinians.

Which makes their lead a bit, well, inaccurate. And the killings? They’d be called atrocities if the IDF did them.

After sundown Monday, gunmen, apparently from Hamas, laid siege to the house of Jamal Abu al-Jediyan, the senior Fatah official in northern Gaza. They then dragged him outside and killed him, security officials said. Medics said he was hit by 45 bullets.

[...] The bloodiest clashes of the day took place in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. Fatah and Hamas gunmen exchanged fire near Beit Hanoun Hospital, killing a Hamas supporter. The battle then moved to the hospital, where three men from a Fatah-allied clan were shot dead.

At Gaza’s largest hospital, Shifa, combatants fired mortars, grenades and assault rifles.

But by all means, AFP, fire up those anti-Israel engines and forget about the death toll of the summer’s “infighting” between Hamas and Fatah. How many died? Dozens? Hundreds? Does it really matter, when they weren’t killed by Israelis?

Huh. I just thought of the new Israeli Double Standard Time koan: If a Palestinian isn’t killed by the IDF, did he really die?

A sukkah may have saved a baby’s life.

A 14-month-old baby from Bnei Brak was lightly injured Thursday when he fell from a third floor apartment window onto a sukkah, Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

The sukkah that broke the baby’s fall was located in the building’s courtyard and was empty at the time of the incident. At around 5 pm the baby’s parents heard screaming and rushed downstairs after realizing that their infant son was not in the apartment.

After finding their baby lying inside the sukkah, fully conscious with only a slight bruise on his head, the parents summoned a Magen David Adom emergency team, which transferred the baby to the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer for further treatment.

The mother said the baby had apparently climbed onto a small bench located near the window and then fell.

Mind you, the parents shouldn’t have had an open window in that situation, but still—the baby’s just fine today, thanks to the command to build a sukkah on Sukkot.

A positive story for a change. Delightful.