The Hubble found where Sauron’s hiding.

And I found the picture at NASA to bring to you. The news articles weren’t polite enough to link back, but I am.

It isn’t like it’s a surprise, or anything, but you’d think Israel would get tired of warning the terrorists when to hide. Of course, there are those of us that think people who insist their greatest wish is to fall in battle with Israel would actually, you know, fight Israel instead of going into hiding when the hostility level rises beyond what Ehud Olmert (and the idiots who think peace with the Palestinians should come before, gee, real peace) can reasonably ignore. You know, like long-range missile strikes on a city that is eleven miles north of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli leaders warned Friday of an approaching conflagration in the Gaza Strip as Israel activated a rocket warning system to protect Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 people, from Palestinian rockets.

Ashkelon was hit by several Grad rockets fired from Gaza on Thursday, a sign of the widening scope of violence between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza. One hit an apartment building and another landed near a school, wounding a 17-year-old girl.

Located 11 miles from Gaza, Ashkelon had been sporadically targeted in the past but never suffered direct hits or significant damage.

“It will be sad, and difficult, but we have no other choice,” Matan Vilnai, Israel’s deputy defense mister, said Friday, referring to the large-scale military operation he said Israel was preparing to bring a halt to the rocket fire.

“We’re getting close to using our full strength. Until now, we’ve used a small percentage of the army’s power because of the nature of the territory,” Vilnai told Army Radio on Friday.

Israel does not intend to launch a major ground offensive in the next week or two, partly because the military prefers to wait for better weather, defense officials said. But the army has now completed its preparations and informed the government it’s ready to move immediately when the order is given, the officials said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

And this is brilliant. Hamas thinks that having a protest rally is going to affect world opinion. Not this time. Their PR guys are off. After yesterday’s propaganda bonus of pictures of a dead six-month-old child—which the wire services sent round the world, while utterly ignoring the cell-phone video of an eight-year-old Israeli girl screaming for her mother while her ten-year-old brother lay bleeding on the floor of a shop. And oh, yeah. An Israeli infant was hit by shrapnel in that attack, too. Didn’t know that, did you? Just like you probably didn’t know that a two-year-old and two four-year-olds were murdered by kassams.

And the IDF missed a high-value target. Probably didn’t want to cause any civilian casualties. Haniyeh came out of hiding.

Thousands took to the streets across Gaza on Friday in funerals for the dead of the past days. Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas government in Gaza, addressed a crowd of around 2,000 Hamas supporters at Friday prayers, his first public address after nearly a month and a half during which he and other Hamas officials have largely remained out of sight because of fears Israel could assassinate them.

“You are mistaken if you thought that targeting buildings, ministries and police stations is going to stop our work,” Haniyeh said, directing his comments at Israel. “We will work under trees, in tents and in the streets.”

And, apparently, while hiding, running, and wearing women’s clothing. Terrorists are good at hiding. Especially among civilians.

Since Wednesday, 32 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli missile strikes, including 15 civilians, among them eight children, according to Palestinian officials. The youngest was a 6-month-old boy, Mohammed al-Borai, whose funeral was held Thursday.

The army said it was targeting rocket squads, and blamed militants for operating in populated areas. AP photos showed rockets being launched from densely populated areas in northern Gaza.

That link won’t last long, but it’ll be there for a few weeks. Look at the AP evidence of Hamas war crimes, and wonder why the AP spins so anti-Israel when it provides such evidence.

The trail of smoke is seen as rockets fired by Palestinian militants head towards Israel from Gaza City, Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008.

And oh, yeah. The Sec-Gen of the UN found a reason to speak again. He was silent last week when an Israeli child nearly lost an arm. He was silent weeks ago when an Israeli child lost a leg. But he spoke up when Israel fought back and launched missiles into Gaza.

The Secretary-General is deeply concerned at the loss of civilian life in Southern Israel and Gaza, and at the escalation of violence that has taken place today.

The Secretary-General condemns rocket fire against Israel by Hamas, which intensified today and killed an Israeli civilian in Sderot. He calls on Hamas and other militant groups to cease such acts of terrorism.

The Secretary-General also condemns the killing of four Palestinian children, including an infant, in Gaza in IDF strikes. He calls on Israel to exercise maximum restraint and ensure respect for international humanitarian law so as not to endanger civilians.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Meet the new war, same as the old war. Except I think the IDF has learned—oh. And I have just figured out why the rockets are raining down. Hamas and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have prepared the battlefield. We’ll find out exactly how much they’ve learned from Iraq and Lebanon if the IDF goes in in force—and how much Israel and America have learned from them.

Expect to see EFPs in Gaza.

And, of course, expect world condemnation no matter what Israel does.

Time to find out who learned more from the Second Lebananon War, Israel or her enemies. Because it looks like the IDF is finally going to go into Gaza in force. Apparently, even Olmert can’t ignore Iranian-made Grad rockets landing in Israeli cities.

Over the past few days the IDF has positioned an artillery battery near Kibbutz Beeri, located about three kilometers (1.8 miles) from the Gaza border, and dozens of tanks have made their way to an assembling area just north of the Strip.

Forces from the Givati Brigade, the Armored Corps’ 9th Battalion and the Engineering Corps have already entered the Strip ahead of a possible large-scale ground incursion.

The reinforcements, while limited, appear to indicate increased readiness on the part of the IDF.

Meanwhile, during his flight back from Japan Friday morning, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was updated on Thursday’s Grad and Qassam rocket attacks on Ashkelon and the western Negev. The political-security cabinet is scheduled to convene Wednesday to discuss the escalation in the south.

Yeah. Even he can’t ignore this:

On Thursday a total of 10 rockets hit the beachside city of Ashkelon leaving growing anxiety in their wake. Two long-range Grad rockets fired from the northern Strip hit the city that was previously considered out-of-range of the rockets. One of the rockets landed near a school in the center of town. A 17-year-old girl suffered light shrapnel wounds in the latest attack and several other people suffered from anxiety.

Meantime, the kassams are hitting—again and again and again. Funny, isn’t it, how after the border breach with Israel, suddenly, the kassams are nearly all hitting something? A house, a factory, a person—it doesn’t matter what, Hamas is happy with any destruction.

Palestinians fired three Qassam rockets Friday morning from northern Gaza into Israel. Two of the projectiles landed in Sderot and caused some damage to a few houses. A woman sustained light injuries during the attack and was evacuated to the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon. Four people suffered from shock.

Three more rockets landed in an open field outside of the rocket-battered town.

The Izz a-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, claimed responsibility for the Qassam rocket fire.

A fifty percent hit rate. Imagine that. Used to be they would launch six, and six would miss, or maybe one would land in the street and damage some cars. I wonder how many Iranian Revolutionary Guards got into Gaza after the border breach. I wonder how many of them are launching the rockets, or spent the last few weeks teaching the jihadis how to aim them better. I’m thinking a lot.

I’m also wondering why the news services, with its layers of editors and experience reporters, don’t seem to be picking up on this angle. Say, AP editors who read my blog: Go for it. You don’t even have to give me credit. You never do.

Griff Witte is quickly becoming my favorite Middle East correspondent. He adds to his impressive debut with an excellent sophomore effort, Strikes in Gaza Kill 18 Palestinians; Hamas Rocket Barrage Injures 2 Israelis. (That’s facetious.)First he writes that Israel is now under attack from Grad missiles.

Seven rockets have landed in the city of Ashkelon in the past two days, prompting accusations from Israeli officials that Hamas is using more formidable rockets than it has in the past. Ashkelon, a coastal city of about 120,000 people, is six miles north of Gaza. Israeli officials said the rockets that landed there have been Iranian-made, Grad-style rockets, which have a longer range and are considered more lethal than the relatively crude Qassam rockets that Hamas has traditionally used.”What we saw today was really an escalation,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel, asserting that the greater range of the Grad rockets means that “a quarter of a million Israeli citizens are in danger.” Mekel indicated that a stronger Israeli response may be in the offing. “Israel left Gaza not in order to return to it. However, the continuation of terror may put Israel in a position where we have no choice,” he said.

Nowhere does he provide the background that the Hamas breach of the border with Egypt is the reason that Hamas has been able to upgrade its capabilities. Then he follows with this.

Israel pulled its settlers out of Gaza in 2005. Last June, Hamas seized control, ending a power-sharing deal with the secular Fatah party, which favors negotiations with Israel. Since then, the volume of rocket fire has increased and pressure has grown on the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to topple Hamas, a radical Islamic movement that has both a military wing and a network of social services and that seeks to eradicate Israel.

(Yes Fatah favors negotiations. What about Abbas’s comments yesterday?)

Why “topple?” Why not defeat? When someone’s trying to destroy you it’s a war not politics. Or is politics just war by other means? But at the end of the paragraph he seems incapable of calling Hamas a terrorist organization. It’s an “Islamic movement” with a “network of social services” that by-the-way “seeks to eradicate Israel.”

Let me try.
“Since then the number of attacks by the terrorist organization Hamas on Israeli civilians has made ti imperative for the Israeli government to defeat Hamas.

Nice direct and to the point.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

I recently commented on the closing arguments of the Enderlin/Karsenty case in France. Based on the information I had, I questioned how France 2 could have alleged that King Hussein visited Jamal al-Dura. After checking back with my source, he figured that he had been mis-informed about the incident. So I shouldn’t have gone ahead with writing what I did, as it was so outlandish, I should have waited for confirmation. My mistake.