The Democratically-elected government of Hamas just killed one, and injured five Israelis in another mortar attack.
A 52-year old man was killed Thursday morning when a mortar shell fired from northern Gaza landed in Kibbutz Nir Oz, located within Eshkol Regional Council limits in the Negev. Hamas’ Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades have claimed responsibility for the fire.
[..] Head of the trauma center at Soroka, Dr. Gadi Shaked added the hospital was caring for “four patients, one suffering serious wounds to his back, another suffering moderate shrapnel-induced chest wounds and two men suffering superficial injuries.”
The mortar, a 120mm shell, hit a Nirlat Groups facility, located in Nir Oz. the council’s security director and security forces swept the area, but no further injuries were reported.
That makes one dead and ten wounded so far this week, by the daily missile fire that the wire services like to point out “rarely” harms Israelis.
On Tuesday five people, including two foreign workers, sustained shrapnel injuries during a rocket attack on an Eshkol Regional Council community. The IDF later hit a Palestinian terrorist as he was attempting to fire another Qassam toward the western Negev region.
Let’s check out the AP spin:
Hamas militants fired a barrage of mortar shells into southern Israel on Thursday, killing one person and wounding three others on a communal farm near the border with the Gaza Strip, Israeli officials said.
The attack dealt a new setback to Egyptian efforts to mediate a truce between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers and raised the likelihood of a tough Israeli military reprisal.
Israeli government spokesman David Baker said Hamas “will be held accountable.”
Hamas, the Islamic militant group that has ruled Gaza for the past year, said in a statement it had fired three mortar shells but did not confirm the deaths.
You see? Dead and wounded Israelis are “setbacks” to the “truce.” But how ludicrous is it to try to get Hamas to confirm the deaths? Excuse me? Are the fabled Palestinian “medics,” who infamously lie about how Palestinians die, now part of the Israeli health system?
One noticeable item to point out: This Hamas statement.
The attack is “part of our continuous confrontation and response to the Zionist invasions along the eastern borders of the Gaza Strip,” Hamas said. “We will continue to strike the Zionist military locations and settlement colonies around the Gaza Strip as a response to the nonstop aggression against our people.”
Hamas is calling Israeli towns—towns that have been inside the 1949 Armistice Lines that even the United Nations agree are Israeli—”settlement colonies.” These are the words that the Jimmy Carters of the world pretend aren’t being uttered by Hamas when they say that Hamas is willing to leave in peace with Israel, if only Israel stops oppressing the Palestinians. These words are the words of a rejectionist philosophy that assures us there is no room for Jews in “Palestine.” But then, those of us who have been listening to Hamas all along know that.
However—watch for the lead to change in upcoming versions. It’s far too truthful about the Hamas attack at the moment. Watch it change especially after the IDF goes after terrorists. It will be along the lines of “Palestinians killed by IDF in retaliation for attack.
And just in time: The latest AP report on “the cycle of violence,” complete with reports from Palestinian spokesliars.
Palestinian doctors reported Thursday that a 4-year-old girl has been killed and her mother wounded in an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip.
Hamas security said that an Israeli aircraft targeted a group of militants in the southern Gaza Strip but missed them. Relatives of the girl said that she and her mother were in the yard of a house that was hit by the errant missile.
Thursday’s airstrike came shortly after Palestinian mortar fire on a southern Israeli community killed one person. The violence dealt a new setback to Egyptian efforts to mediate a truce between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
I think the Gaza offensive is nearing. And it’s about damned time.