Buried deep within the AP story on Israel stopping yet another attempt to break its blockade of Gaza are these few words about the daily rocket barrages resuming:
Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza after the militant Hamas group seized power in June 2007. Israel slightly loosened its sanctions as part of a truce with Hamas that began nearly six months ago but sealed the territory again after violence resumed in early November. Israel says it will open the crossings after Gaza militants halt their near-daily rocket fire at Israeli towns and at the border crossings where goods enter the territory.
The military says four rockets and three mortar shells hit Israel on Sunday. There were no injuries reported. Militants fired seven rockets and mortars into Israel on Saturday.
They are in paragraphs eight and nine, and so, will not show up in most World News sections of your Sunday paper. There is also no attribution of the breaking of the truce—which calls for the complete halt of rocket fire from Gaza—by Hamas. It’s “violence resumed,” not truce-breaking.
And of course, we have to get the editorializing about how bad, bad Israel is punishing the poor, innocent Gazas for voting in a terrorist group that wants to destroy Israel:
The sanctions have deepened the hardship for Gaza’s largely impoverished population of 1.4 million, though some goods and fuel continue to enter the territory through smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.
Reuters doesn’t deign to include the rocket fire in its reports. This is part of its lead:
Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip has been stepped up in recent weeks amid a surge of violence along its frontier with the Palestinian territory.
Not a word about the rocket that landed mere feet away from a school in Sderot this morning.
Three Qassam rockets were fired at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday afternoon. One rocket exploded at the entrance to Sderot, not far from a school, and caused a panic at the scene.
Six kassam rockets and ten mortars were fired at Israel so far this weekend.
And when the IDF goes into Gaza to try to stop the rocket fire, of course, the world media will decry Israel breaking the “truce.” Cyle of violence, yadda yadda yadda.
I’m really hoping Bibi Netanyahu gets a second chance. I don’t believe Tzipi Livni will do anything different from Olmert. And Olmert has been nothing but disaster.