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Oh, look. A news source even more anti-Israel than the AP: The AFP thinks that a truce is holding–but shaky–when one side fires rockets at the other.

Gaza militants on Monday said they were committed to a truce with Israel but the day-old ceasefire appeared shaky as four rockets hit the Jewish state.

Because the truce is only broken when Israeli jets fire missiles at Palestinian terrorists launching rockets.

The discovery raised to 13 the total number of people killed in 36 hours of clashes in and around Gaza, including three militants who died in two air strikes which occurred after the truce was put in place.

Gee, why did those three “militants” die in air strikes?

The rocket fire tailed off early on Sunday after the Egyptian-brokered truce took effect, but overnight five projectiles hit southern Israel, police said, landing in open areas without causing any harm.

Oh. They were firing rockets into Israel. Say, AFP? If one side is firing rockets at the other, THERE IS NO FUCKING TRUCE!

God, I hate the anti-Israel media. AFP, of course, is French–the nation that gave us the al-Dura hoax. They keep on trying to surpass it.

Since last Wednesday, Palestinian terrorists have been sending rockets into Israel, then pretending that they’ll honor a cease-fire, then sending more rockets into Israel, then pretending that it’s all Israel’s fault for killing terrorists who were just–you guessed it, sending rockets into Israel. The goal is to try to murder Israeli civilians.

So of course, Israel’s leadership is talking about the consequences of terrorists launching rockets into Israel, particularly since they no longer have to worry about Gilad Shalit’s kidnappers displaying his dead body and saying “We told you we’d kill him if you came into Gaza.” There is no reason for Israel to hold back–and yet, Israel is holding back. And not only is Israel holding back, but the only Palestinians killed or wounded in the last week are the terrorists who are launching, trying to launch, or just launched rockets into Israel.

So when the Israeli Prime Minister talks tough, what is the headline?

Israeli leader threatens Gaza militants

Really? I mean, AP headline writers, really? What exactly is the threat?

In his speech, Netanyahu vowed to act with “strength and determination” against the militants. “Whoever attacks Israel is risking his life,” he said.

Wait, what? Netanyahu said that Israel is going to fight back against the terrorists? That terrorists who are trying to murder Israelis risk being killed themselves? Say, that doesn’t sound like a threat to me. It sounds more like a warning. Which would have been the perfect verb to use in the headline, don’t you think?

Israeli leader warns Gaza militants

It’s much less ominous. But then, the anti-Israel editors at the Associated Press aren’t interested in presenting the Israeli side fairly. Israel threatens. Israel kills. Active, ominous verbs for the Israeli side of the story, passive, whitewashed voice for the Palestinian side. Worse still, the AP is carrying Hamas’ water on this one. Look at this unbelievable excerpt:

In Gaza, Hamas officials condemned the Israeli threats.

“These remarks reflect the brutal attitude and mentality of the enemy leadership, which does not respect the calm and all the efforts that have been made in this regard,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum.

He urged the international community to pressure Israel not to launch “any crazy adventure” in Gaza.

What calm? What efforts? Nobody sends a rocket out of Hamas without express permission from the Hamas rulers. I know this, Israel knows this, and frankly, the AP writers and editors know this, too.

Take another look at those three paragraphs. The AP is quoting a Hamas condemnation of tough talk by Israel’s prime minister. And yet, when Hamas leaders constantly talk of destroying Israel, the AP seems to miss these very public statements:

“Palestinians mark the occasion this year with great hope of bringing to an end the Zionist project in Palestine,” Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, told about 10,000 people at a Gaza City mosque.

Some of my readers may think I’m being too hard on the AP this week. Let me think about that for a second…

Nah. They are carrying some major anti-Israel bias this week. They deserve it.

Seriously, could the AP spin this any more? Unbelievable.

Israel aircraft hit Gaza, 2 found dead

It’s like they died from a meteor strike or a plague or something. “2 found dead.” Sure, it’s accurate. But it’s misleading. Also, note that they don’t identify the terrorists in the headline. Two what were found dead? Two civilians? Two doctors? Two children? The headline implies that Israel struck Gaza just because it felt like dropping bombs on that poor, imprisoned, starving populace. Who just happened to be launching rockets designed to murder civilians, preferably schoolchildren. One of the things you rarely read in the anti-Israel media is that terrorists deliberately launch rockets during the hours when children are going to and returning from school in the hopes of killing children.

By the way, AP, you need a comma after “Strip” below.

Israeli aircraft struck the southern Gaza Strip targeting rocket-launching militants, the military said Monday, and Palestinian officials reported that two men were found dead in the area.

Now, the background: Watch how the real reason for the Israeli strikes on terrorists is obfuscated. Only the last few days are noted, not the rocket attack last week that started it all. Also note the tired, old “cycle of violence” phrase is being brushed off and given a new shine.

The strike came after two days of rocket attacks and airstrikes that risked escalating into a more serious cycle of violence, although Israel’s defense minister downplayed the chances that a large-scale ground offensive into Gaza would be launched.

And here’s the important part that should have been the initial paragraph. The men who were killed were launching a rocket into Israel. The cause and effect could not be any more clear. Unless you’re the mainstream media.

The Israeli military said its aircraft attacked a squad that had just fired a rocket into Israel. The military said it had “confirmed a hit” but provided no further details.

The strike wasn’t a result of two days of attacks. It was a strike on a terrorist cell launching rockets into Israel at that very moment. The news media does not properly assign the cause and effect. Cause: Rockets being launched by terrorists into Israel. Effect: Israel firing missiles are rocket launching terrorists. To make it seem, in the previous paragrapha, that Israel is the one initiating the action here is, well, that’s the anti-Israel narrative in plain sight.

But wait, there’s more: Here comes the obligatory “a previously unknown group”, spun a slightly different way:

Palestinian security officials said two bodies were discovered around dawn wearing the uniform of al-Ahrar, or “The Free People”, a little-known group with ties to Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers that previously had no history of violence against Israel.

In other words, they were members of Hamas who wore different uniforms so that Israel can’t blame Hamas. Israel can and does but the media won’t. They’ve been buying the Hamas lies for years. Witness the “political arm” and “military arm” of Hamas, which has no such differentiation between terrorists. It’s a fiction used for cover. Ynet managed to find out what al-Ahrar is:

Al-Ahrar consists of ex-Fatah men and is partly sponsored by Hamas.

Right. Members of Hamas.

And now, the fifth paragraph, generally the last one that shows up in your local paper’s World News section:

The men were unarmed and no rocket launchers were found in the area, the officials said.

And there we go. Israel just killed two men who happened to be standing around doing nothing. Or did they?

The Palestinians reported that medical teams found the bodies of two terrorists on Monday morning. “They did not die in vain, the national consensus on the lull won’t prevent us from taking revenge and retaliating for these ongoing crimes,” the movement said.

Instead of uncritically repeating Palestinian spokesliars accounts, perhaps the AP should cultivate the kind of sources that Ynet has, where the terrorists proudly admit their dead members’ actions. But then, they couldn’t continue the anti-Israel narrative. Then where would they be?

Oh, look. The AP finally includes in the lead the reason that Israel started bombing Palestinian rocket squads, even though they’re sticking to the tit-for-tat angle. Or at least, that was this morning’s article.

Israel, militants continue attacks for second day
Israel and Gaza-based Palestinian militants launched retaliatory attacks on each other early Sunday, but the militant group spearheading the attacks said it was prepared to cease fire if Israel would.

Nine militants and an Israeli civilian were killed on Saturday in a round of violence set off by a rocket attack earlier in the week. The exchange of fire continued overnight, with Palestinians firing 10 rockets fired into Israel in the early hours of the morning, and Israeli aircraft targeting six militant sites in Gaza, the military said.

Of course, as the AP updates its stories, it pushes the reason for the attacks further and further down the article. It’s the seventh paragraph in this update.

The latest round of violence was set off by a rocket attack earlier in the week.

On the other hand, this is one of the more balanced leads in months, once you get past the “retaliatory” label:

A Gaza Strip militant group spearheading a recent campaign of rocket barrages into Israel offered on Sunday to cease fire if the Israeli military would do so as well. Israel said it did not want the violence to escalate but warned it would not hesitate to defend itself.

The rocket fire has provoked retaliatory Israeli airstrikes, and on Saturday, nine militants and an Israeli civilian were killed in some of the worst violence in the area in months. The exchange of fire continued overnight, with Palestinians firing 10 rockets into Israel in the early hours of the morning, and Israeli aircraft targeting six militant sites in Gaza, the military said. No casualties were reported by either side.

But then you have to read the headline, which implies that it is Israel doing the attacking, and terrorists offering the cease-fire.

Gaza militants offer ceasefire as attacks continue

Subtle, isn’t it? Yeah, that’s how they do it. Time and time again, they push the blame on Israel directly and indirectly. When Israel kills terrorists, the word “Palestinian” is usually the one used in the headline. When Israelis are killed, the phrase is often, “two die” instead of “two civilians killed in militant attack”.

And here, in the latest update, Israel is blamed completely for the breaking of the cease-fire.

After a weekend of violence, Sunday had been largely quiet following a cease-fire offer from Palestinian militants. The airstrike raised the likelihood that fresh fighting would erupt.

Not mentioned in the AP update: The terrorist was killed in the act of launching more rockets at Israel–breaking the cease-fire.

Also not mentioned in the AP article: Before the cease-fire took effect, terrorists did as they always do–fired a last salvo of rockets. Eleven rockets were fired overnight. Only luck prevented more fatalities.

Beersheba residents woke up at 3:30 am Sunday as an alarm sounded throughout the city followed by sounds of explosions. Two rockets landed in open territory outside the city. Around 4:30 am, a rocket exploded in an open field north of Ashkelon.

Around 6 am, two more rockets were fired at Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council while another landed in the region of Lehavim and Rahat.

It’s going to be another day of rockets in Israel. Stay safe out there.

Last week, terrorists launched a rocket into Israel, the first one since Gilad Shalit was released. It fell in an unpopulated area, but the IDF struck back when it saw an Islamic Jihad cell getting ready to fire more rockets. And the IDF scored, big-time. Five terrorists, including a senior PIJ bomb maker, were killed. So the terrorists sent more rockets into Israel. There’s even a video of the rockets being launched from the back of a pick-up truck. So the IDF killed more terrorists.

And oh yeah–an Israeli man died of wounds sustained in today’s rocket attack in Ashkelon.

So when does the AP get involved? Today. After the terrorists have been killed. Now, suddenly, it’s a “back-and-forth” issue. The rocket last week? Who cares, no one got hurt, right? The fact that it was heading for civilians for no reason? Doesn’t matter. So the AP stuck that information in the next-to-last paragraph, perfect for being cut by the editor of your local paper. All that matters now is that Israel and the Palestinians are “exchanging fire.” Because killing terrorists who are trying to murder civilians is just like sending rockets to deliberately murder civilians.

Israel and Gaza militants exchange fire, 10 killed

Israeli aircraft struck at Palestinian militants in Gaza on Saturday who responded with a volley of rockets which rained on southern Israeli towns, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. Palestinian officials said nine militants were killed, while on the Israeli side one civilian was killed and four others were wounded.

Exchanges of fire are common between southern Israel and the Gaza strip controlled by the militant Hamas group, but this is the worst in months.

I suppose we should be happy that they aren’t pushing the “innocent farmer” line, but even the Palestinian spokesliars can’t pull that off when there’s video of a truck launching multiple rockets from Gaza.

Which is not as bad as the BBC headline for the AP article.

Israeli killed in retaliatory rocket attack from Gaza

Right. It’s all about retaliation, not about protecting Israeli civilians from being murdered in their homes.

At least Reuters is identifying the terrorists in the headline, unlike the AP, in which you just read that there were “10 killed”. The best headline I’ve found so far is in the WaPo, on the AP piece:

Israeli airstrikes kill 9 militants in Gaza, Palestinian rockets kill 1 Israeli, wound 4

Of course, it’s still all about the Israeli airstrikes, not the defense set off by the PIJ rocket attacks.

CNN gets the worst headline award:

Officials: 10 killed in Gaza, Israel in back-and-forth violence

Right. It’s just that old cycle of violence, tit-for-tat, back and forth. And watch CNN get the facts dead wrong:

At least 10 people are dead in Gaza and southern Israel, in a wave of back-and-forth attacks between the Israeli military and Palestinian militants, according to medical and military officials.

The violence began when two Islamic Jihad commanders were among seven militants killed Saturday by Israeli strikes targeting a training camp in Rafah, Gaza, a spokesman for the militant group and medical sources reported.

No, the violence began on Wednesday, with the Grad rocket landing in Ashkelon. The longer CNN story still does not have that fact, but it does have a picture of a grieving Palestinian man crying over one of the dead terrorists. A PIJ training camp was hit. Good shot, IDF! May you have many more of them in the future.

And the overarching question: Where was Iron Dome? Apparently, being serviced. Damn it.

Take a look at the picture at this link to see the damage the Grad rockets can do. Unfortunately, a lot of missiles and rockets went missing from Libya. Thanks a lot, Obama, for making sure that terrorists have yet another source of weapons to rain down on Israelis.

Israel is cancelling classes tomorrow for schools that are within range of the rockets from Gaza. Think we’re going to hear from the UN about Israeli children’s rights being violated?

Of course not. But we will hear from the UN Human Rights Commission about Gaza children any minute now.