A rocket hit a school in Ashkelon on Saturday. Only the fact that it’s the Jewish Sabbath kept any children from dying—because the rocket penetrated the fortified areas and landed in the school.
Palestinian fire on the Negev continued Saturday, with terrorist groups making use of more advanced weaponry. Experts say the two Grad rockets that landed in Ashkelon Saturday morning were new and improved models, capable of greater destruction than those usually fired from Gaza.
One of the rockets hit a school in the southern city, and succeeded in penetrating the fortification used to protect it from projectiles.
Let that sink in for a moment. Hamas has improved the rockets it fires to the point where Israel’s fortifications are no longer working. Iran is sending bigger and better weaponry for Hamas to use to murder Israelis. When does Iran start paying for all of its misdeeds? They’re supplying deadly missiles to the Taliban, too.
More than 100 rockets and mortars have been fired since the “cease-fire,” and they’ve been basically unanswered by Israel. A few more bombing runs on the tunnels isn’t doing anything. And the IDF is concerned.
Palestinian gunmen fired a Grad rocket towards Ashkelon on Saturday night, following two rockets that hit the area in the morning hours. According to the official, the IDF is on high alert and waiting for the political echelon’s “green light” to launch a significant response to the ceasefire violations.
The source claimed that as time goes by, not only does the IDF not receive the approval to respond forcibly, but a “vacuum” is being created and used by the terror organizations.
Senior officials who took part in the Gaza operation have reported of feelings of frustration and fear that the achievements made during the offensive would lose their value.
“A failure to respond in an appropriate manner plays into Hamas’ hands,” the military source said. “The organization suffered a heavy blow like it never suffered before, and is doing all it can in order to cover up the damage. As part of these attempts, it continues firing all kinds of rockets, and on the surface it appears that nothing has changed after the operation.”
This is partly due to the elections, of course—which is why I’m starting to really despise Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak for refusing to create a unity government.
Meantime, six more kassam rockets hit Israel on Sunday.
A Qassam rocket landed Sunday evening in the yard of a Sderot home. Luckily, because of the recent rain the rocket became lodged in mud, causing only minor damage to the house.
We’ll give the IDF the last word:
Military officials have refrained from directly criticizing the political echelon, but say that the feelings that the IDF would be allowed to respond forcibly to any attempt to target Israel is nonexistent.
“In practice, this doesn’t happen,” a military source said. “We have a basket of tools, not just one or two, in order to make the other side understand that it should not be doing what it’s doing, but this requires orders from above.”