02-Nov-19: Again: Friday night rocket barrages from Gaza

As the Sabbath ends here in Jerusalem, we - like many of the families living around us - go as soon as we can to our Internet devices to see what we didn't hear about during the past 25 hours. And it turns out to have been an especially violent weekend.

Palestinian terror groups in the Gaza Strip fired 10 rockets into Israel in two separate barrages on Friday night, the army said... Warning sirens had gone off in the town of Sderot and in other Israeli communities along the Gaza border as many families were eating Friday night Shabbat dinner... One projectile slammed into a house in the town of Sderot, while the Iron Dome system intercepted eight and the tenth fell in open ground. The army responded several hours later with strikes on several terror targets in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
Palestinian media reported that several airstrikes targeted training sites and outposts affiliated with Hamas and other groups. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said three men sustained moderate or serious shrapnel wounds from one of the airstrikes.
In the early hours of Saturday, sirens again sounded in Sderot and the village of Ibim. The IDF later attributed the sirens to “non-rocket fire” from Gaza into Israel.
During the earlier barrage, a 65-year-old woman was lightly hurt when she fell while running toward a shelter, medics said. Five people were treated for anxiety.
The attack was one of the largest in recent months...
The rocket barrages came a day after a rocket fired from Gaza landed in an open field. There were no reports of injuries or damage in Thursday’s attack. ["Rocket fired from Gaza hits home in Sderot as Iron Dome intercepts 8 others", Times of Israel, November 1, 2019]

Deploying the Iron Dome anti-missile system is expensive, as the news media here frequently remind us. As a general matter, the system rapidly informs its operators if a specific Israel-bound attack is on a trajectory likely to cause damage or injury. Then and (usually) only then, the IDF shoots to intercept.

There were eight intercepts on Friday night.

Here's how a crash-landing Gazan rocket, fired off in the general direction of anything Israeli, looks when it strikes your home. The security cam video clip in the Tweet below is from around 9:00 pm Friday night, via an Israeli news program:

תיעוד נוסף ממצלמת אבטחה של פגיעת הרקטה בבית בשדרות @bokeralmog

(צילום: אלברט אבוחצירא) pic.twitter.com/X3GVQDtpvI

— חדשות 13 (@newsisrael13) November 1, 2019

The family living in the house, according to a paramedic quoted by Ynet,

"a couple in their 40s and their children, were in an adjacent building," he said. "They told us that as soon as the sirens sounded, they entered the protected area and left a few minutes later. They were not injured and did not need medical attention."

Spokesthugs for Hamas are quoted tonight [here] saying the Israeli airstrikes that followed shortly after the Gazan rocket barrages are a “dangerous escalation” and that the “Zionist enemy bears responsibility for its consequences and ramifications.”

05-Oct-19: Paying the price of Gazan terror again, two more Gazan Fell Shorts crash into Gaza

Remember our post about Fell Shorts from just a couple of weeks ago? 

In "19-Sep-19 Gazan victims of a cognitive war: Who cares?", we wrote about the almost entirely unreported phenomenon of rockets fired from the rocket-infested, Hamas-occupied Gaza Strip in the general direction of Israel but which fall short, crashing onto the heads of homes of hapless Gazans.

It happened again in the early hours of this morning, Saturday.

Two projectiles fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip on Friday fell short of the border fence, landing inside the Hamas-held territory, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. The launches triggered incoming rocket sirens in the Gaza border community of Kissufim in southern Israel shortly before midnight.
The incident came hours after a Palestinian man was killed during riots along the Gaza-Israel border fence on Friday, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, as thousands took part in weekly protests.
Alaa Hamdan, 28, was shot in the chest by IDF soldiers in a clash near Jabalia in northern Gaza, the ministry’s spokesman said. The IDF had no immediate comment on the death.
Israel’s Channel 12 said the death may have been caused by a Palestinian grenade.
[Times of Israel, October 5, 2019]

Haaretz adds that

A statement from the Eshkol Regional Council on the Gaza border said that although phone apps sent out an alert of a rocket siren in the area, no such siren was activated, and no explosions were heard. The Israel Defense Forces clarified that it identified two launches [from Gaza], which did not cross into Israeli territory. 

Who was injured in Gaza by the Gazan rocket? What damage was caused? We'll likely never know. Media coverage of Gaza from within Gaza is strictly controlled by Hamas, the Islamist terrorist organization that has ruled it since violently wresting control from Fatah in 2006. Unless the news can inflict harm on Israel, it will never be reported.

19-Sep-19 Gazan victims of a cognitive war: Who cares?

Nurses in a Gaza hospital [Image Source: Aljazeera]

Associated Press reported last night on something that happens often - much more often than even attentive followers of events in the Arab vs Israel conflict know - but that rarely gets reported even though it involves Palestinian Arab victims.

Because they're the victims of extreme Palestinian Arab malevolence, such events and their often lethal consequences go unnoticed.

We have reported on many dozens of them in this blog.We call them Fell Shorts.

Rockets fired from Gaza fall short, wound 7 Palestinians
By Associated Press
September 18 at 2:57 PM
JERUSALEM — Seven Palestinians have been wounded after a rocket barrage from the Gaza Strip exploded near a house inside the coastal enclave. Palestinian eyewitnesses said Wednesday that two of the three rockets struck outside a home in the southern city of Rafah, and a third fell near the fence separating Israel and the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military said it had identified “a failed launch attempt” from the Gaza Strip, but that no projectiles entered Israel. Gaza’s health ministry said seven people were wounded, but didn’t elaborate on their condition. It wasn’t clear which Palestinian militant group in Gaza was behind the rocket fire.

The AP dateline is Jerusalem. It's worth recalling that almost everything that is reported from the Hamas-occupied Gaza Strip is based on what the Hamas regime chooses to announce. Reporters, to say it mildly, do not operate freely there.

Times of Israel bases its report of the same Fell Shorts on AP. But there are differences and they're also worth noting:

• The rocket barrage from the Gaza Strip was aimed at Israel.
• It points out that Gaza’s health ministry is Hamas-run. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Everything it does and says is meaningfully colored by that reality. The same goes for what it doesn't say.
• It provided some context not found in the AP report: "Rockets have been fired at Israeli cities and communities multiple times this month — with most intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system or landing in open areas — drawing retaliatory Israeli airstrikes."
• But while the AP version doesn't seem to know about the context and those ongoing rocket attacks directed from Gaza against any Israeli communities within firing range, the AP editors choose to inject this sanguine note which their Israeli counterparts wisely did not: "Israel and Hamas reached an informal cease-fire in May, following the worst bout of fighting since a 2014 war between them, which has largely held." Right, except when it hasn't.

What happened in the end to those "wounded" Palestinian Gazan Arabs next to whose home the  Palestinian Arabs rockets crashed? 

Hamas certainly knows. Its ministry of "health" knows too but isn't saying; that's not its job. The unfortunate family itself knows. But since they can only blame the heroes of the anti-Zionist revolution for what was done to them, their voices count literally for nothing in that blighted society. There are many such silenced voices in Gaza.

In blunt terms, without intending to sound offensive or insensitive - when it comes to Palestinian Arab victims of Palestinian Arab terrorist violence, who cares?

02-May-19: Multiple events coming up so the Gazans crank up their rockets

10 am The silence of siren time - Yom Hashoah [Image Source]

The Hamas-run Gaza Strip, known for possessing one of the world's largest rocket arsenals, has been making its lethal presence felt again today as the general climate in our neighourhood for trouble and violence edges upwards.

It's Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) but the pragmatic concerns of most Israelis aren't limited (if they ever were) to looking back at the blood-soaked recent history of our people. There are daily murderous attacks on Jews by powerful, absurdly-well-armed enemies right here and now and even if most of the media attention fails to deal with the threats on our borders, Israelis and the security establishment must.

Haaretz says two rockets were fired by Gaza-based terrorist forces into the southern region of Israel early this morning (Thursday). A barrage of explosive-laden balloons was launched in the same general direction during Wednesday:

Alarms sounded in Israeli communities along the Gaza border, including Sha'ar Hanegev and Sdot Negev Regional Councils, before the rocket fire, but there were no reports of damage and no one was hurt. Palestinian media reported that a Hamas training facility in Gaza was target by the Israeli air force. It was heavily damaged, reports say, but no casualties were reported.

According to Aljazeera, those Israel-bound rockets have a known origin:

Hamas, the group that governs the Gaza Strip, reportedly launched two rockets towards Israel on Thursday morning in response to Israeli rocket fire.

Threats were issued ahead of the rockets:

Palestinian groups in Gaza have threatened over the past week to resume certain activities at the border that were recently frozen, including the use of incendiary balloons. Sources in the committee that organizes weekly protests at the border said this week that Israeli failure to implement recently agreed-upon understandings is leading to anger in Gaza and could lead to violent escalation [Haaretz]

The balloons caused serious damage and loss:

Fire and rescue services were called [Wednesday] to put out two fires near Israeli border communities, which authorities say were caused by firebombs from Gaza [Haaretz]

And on Monday, as we tweeted, another Gazan rocket landed in Israeli waters. Haaretz says

The Israeli army said the rocket launched by Islamic Jihad on Monday was aimed at hitting one of Israeli communities along the border. It named Islamic Jihad officials directly, publishing their photos, and laid responsibility for the attack on the organization, an unusual move as it normally holds Hamas accountable for aggression coming out of the Strip.

Aljazeera adds that on Tuesday

Israel reduced Gaza's fishing limit from 15 nautical miles (27.8km) to six nautical miles (11.1km) after it alleged a rocket was fired from the territory by Islamic Jihad - an allegation the Palestinian group denied. Rights group call Israel's ever-changing limit of Gaza's fishing zone as "illegal collective punishment".

PIJ forces on Israel's Gaza border [Image Source]
@MargieinTelAviv points out that you only see them in uniforms on
videos and handouts. When it comes to actual fighting they
wear civilian clothes and refuse to admit that they are Hamas/PIJ
terrorists so that Hamas can claim civilian deaths.
But their FBook pomp betrays them

About that rocket, Anna Aronheim, writing in the Jerusalem Post, quotes the IDF Spokesperson Brig-Gen Ronen Manelis, saying Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) launched it from the al-Attra neighborhood of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza Strip. And naming names:

“It was intentionally fired by the group,” Manelis said, adding that the PIJ operative who gave the order for the launch is Baha’a Abu al-Ata, the PIJ commander of the northern Strip. According to Manelis, al-Ata received his orders directly from the group’s leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah in Damascus. PIJ, the military said, is trying to carry out low-level attacks and maintain a low profile so that Hamas doesn’t figure out that they are trying to undermine ceasefire efforts between the ruling group in the coastal enclave and Israel.
“There are dozens of countries around the world which are trying to improve the humanitarian situation in the Strip but and at the same time there is one man inside Gaza and one man outside the Strip which is trying to torpedo that,” he said... On a call with reporters, Manelis noted that the rocket launch came shortly before a potentially tense month, with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Nakba Day, Israel’s Memorial Day and Independence Day, and the one year anniversary of the opening of the American Embassy in Jerusalem... Manelis also noted that the IDF is also preparing for violence ahead of Eurovision, which will take place in Tel Aviv in May with thousands of tourists expected to visit. Due to a fear of escalation in the south over the coming weeks, Israel’s military deployed several Iron Dome missile defense batteries across the country. ["IDF reduces Gaza fishing zone after rocket fromm PIJ", Jerusalem Post, April 30, 2019]

Palestinian Islamic Jihad, substantially backed by Iran and considered its proxy force in the area, is the second-largest of the terrorist groups active in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip but takes care to act independently of it. Ynet says today that its leadership was "summoned" by Egyptian intelligence officials to Cairo today

in an effort to prevent a further escalation of violence between Israel, Hamas and Islamic Jihad forces in Gaza.

While they were doing that this morning, Israelis were standing still for two minutes of silence, remembering lives lost to a fathomless hatred that the PIJ and Hamas people can easily identify with.

04-Mar-19: Pre-dawn vehicle ramming attack on Israelis north of Ramallah

There has been yet another vehicle-ramming attack on Israelis this morning (Monday). According to a breaking Times of Israel report [here], a vehicle in which three persons were traveling was the weapon by which an attack was launched on Israeli security personnel before dawn today near an Arab village it names as N'ima.

Two injured Israelis were evacuated from the scene by helicopter and ambulance for emergency medical care at, we believe, Tel Hashomer Medical Center. One is said to be an IDF soldier whom it describes as being seriously inured. A member of the Border Guard (Mishmar Hagvul in Hebrew) is said to be lightly hurt.

Two of the attack-vehicle's three occupants are said to have been killing and a third wounded. The report quotes an IDF statement “from an initial investigation it appears to be a (terror) attack.”

A Hebrew-language social media report says the overnight attack at about 3:30 this morning in the Binyamin region was at Talmon/Dolev Junction which is about half way between the Israeli community of Dolev and an Arab village (of some 3,500 people) called Kafr Ni'ma (ניעמה) located about 13 km north-west of Ramallah. The less-injured service member is reported by first responders to be about 19. The more seriously-injured soldier is said, in an IDF statement [here], to be an officer. Haaretz says he's in his early twenties and in critical condition after being run-over. No names yet.

A Ynet report adds:

"The troops had stopped their vehicle at the roadside at night—Israeli media reported it had broken down—and were deliberately struck, the military said."

From the Palestinian Arab side, an Arabic language tweet at about 9:00 am Monday from the SAFA Palestinian Press Agency [here] quotes the PA's Ministry of Health about what it calls

"the martyrdom of two citizens and the wounding of a third after the occupation shot them near the village of Kafr Nehmeh west of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, and no information until the moment about the identity of the martyrs and the injured."

("Occupied" Ramallah is where the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority has its capital. Fatah and Hamas are deadly rivals. SAFA, based in the Gaza Strip, used to operate a Facebook page but this was shut down by Facebook about a year ago.)

14-Feb-19: A prince, a princess, four Tamimis - and murderous violence

Image Source | February 6, 2019: Jordan Media Institute in Amman
Ahed Tamimi is the speaker. Princess Rym Ali,
the JMI's founder, is seated in the front row

Ahed Tamimi, a young Palestinian Arab woman from Nabi Saleh, a hamlet a few kilometers from our Jerusalem home ["17-Mar-13: A little village in the hills, and the monsters it spawns"] has been busy traveling and speaking to attentive crowds these past few months.

Ahed Tamimi

Just before she started an eight month sentence in an Israeli prison a year ago, the result of a plea bargain her handlers made with the authorities, we noted here ["24-Dec-17: Nabi Saleh, the media and a Tamimi child's journey"] that she is

the young woman many call Shirley Temper, a photogenic performer who for at least eight years now has been the central figure in a long-running propaganda performance orchestrated by her father Bassem Tamimi and his publicity business, Tamimi Press.

Bassem Tamimi, Ahed's manager/father and long-time producer/director, asserted some months back ["Palestinian Ahed Tamimi 'banned from travelling abroad'"] that Israel was in some unspecified manner standing in the way of the post-prison globetrotting/meet-and-greets he had in mind for her.

Somehow overcoming the Israeli opposition (if indeed it existed), the young woman, frequently referred to via overblown noms-de-guerre ("Palestine's Joan of Arc", "Ahed Tamimi, Palestinian protest icon", "I know I am a symbol of Palestinian resistance"), managed to pull-off a run of well-publicized visits to Spain, France, Tunisia, Greece and Jordan in September and October 2018. She also became the subject of a photo spread in the October 2018 Arabic version of Vogue magazine along the way.

She's been busy. And the drum-beating and orchestrating have paid dividends.

After years of wildly zig-zagging media estimates of her age [outlined here: "28-Dec-17: So how old is the Tamimi girl?"], there's little doubt she's now come of age and is an adult for all legal purposes (her 18th birthday was two weeks ago). This may become relevant if she repeats or enlarges on calls for more Arab-on-Israeli thuggery like those she made in front of her mother's Tamimi Press video camera ["04-Feb-18: The embarrassing violence of Ahed Tamimi and its fig-leafers"] a year ago. Mother took care to have the video very widely distributed. But surprisingly (alright, not so surprisingly as this excellent Forward piece by Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll points out), the fact that not-quite-adult Ahed Tamimi quite plainly called for real, physical violence has somehow become a point of controversy and doubt.

It shouldn't have. She did it and it's on the record.

Notwithstanding, she's turned up again in Jordan where she gave a speech a few days ago, asserting in some little publicized comments

that the Palestinian people’s struggle is to obtain their freedom, and not to gain the world’s sympathy or compassion. During a meeting with the Jordan Media Institute’s (JMI) students, in the presence of JMI founder HRH Princess Rym, Tamimi added that she works to convey a message for the need to support Palestinian prisoners in their struggle for freedom and national unity. She also explained that she was subjected to various psychological and physical pressures both during the 16 days of investigations, and after being transferred to prison. She said she underwent deprivation of sleep and food, as well as threats to arrest or kill her relatives... ["Ahed Tamimi addresses students at Jordan Media Institute", Jordan Times, February 6, 2019]

There's similar coverage in Jordan's Arabic media here and here as well as on the website of her hosts, the Jordan Media Institute. About that last entity, we have some experience (keep reading).

The Nabi Saleh Tamimis

The JMI's English language report mentions only in passing Nariman Tamimi, Bassem's wife and Ahed's mother, who was in attendance. The Arabic language version (but not the English) adds this somewhat repulsive piece of Tamimi self-promotion:

As for the anti-public campaign against Ahed, her mother Nariman al-Tamimi pointed out that the great support for Ahed came because of the spread of the video [Nariman's video] slapping the Israeli soldier and Ahed Tamimi's ability to resist in spite of all circumstances... adding that her constant contact with media professionals over the past ten years to contribute to the promotion of justice in the Palestinian cause has helped increase support for Ahed... [Jordan Media Institute - Arabic language report of the Tamimi event on their premises, February 6, 2019]

Think about that. The mother seems to be boasting about the fact (and it is a fact) that she and husband Bassem Tamimi began grooming their daughter to be a fist-thrusting, slogan-spouting, angry-on-demand shrieking street activist and provocateur from when the child, already blonde and still somewhat Western looking, was a very vulnerable 8 years old.

In most places, this would be justifiably viewed as child abuse and the parents as derelict and likely culpable criminally. Noot, of course, in those netherworlds ruled by the appalling Palestinian Authority and the no-less-horrific Hamas.

But Nariman Tamimi's ethics descend to greater depths. She has no qualms, for instance, supporting the murderous violence of her cousin, the bomber Ahlam Tamimi. Quote the opposite. In her own words

...What she [Ahlam Tamimi, the smiling mass-murderer of Jewish children] did was an integral part of the struggle. Everyone fights in the manner in which he believes. There is armed uprising, and there is popular uprising. I support every form of uprising... ["11-Sep-15: How devoted to non-violence are the villagers of Nabi Saleh really?"]

The Sbarro massacre mastermind

Ahlam Tamimi returned the favour a year ago ["05-Jan-18: In Jordan, the FBI fugitive Ahlam Tamimi pays tribute to her slapping/taunting/kicking Tamimi cousin"].

Standing before a Jordanian audience, flanked by Jordanian dignitaries including a former Jordanian prime minister, she praised Nariman's daughter Ahed Tamimi who had been detained by Israeli authorities (as was Nariman) some days before. Both were facing charges and an Israeli prison sentence. Somewhat vaguely (based on the reports we saw), Ahlam Tamimi congratulated Ahed Tamimi for "breathing new life" into the cause of female prisoners and children prisoners.

We remarked on how disturbing it was to see

...very prominent Jordanians, members of the country's political elite, [who] have no problem sharing a public platform with a confessed killer of Israeli children who is also an FBI fugitive and the subject of American efforts to have her extradited to the US to face serious federal charges. Can you imagine this happening anywhere else? She's a wanted criminal but not in Jordan where she's a hero. [Source]

Most readers of this blog know Ahlam Tamimi ["17-Nov-11: A monster walks the streets and she has many accomplices"] confesses repeatedly, publicly and with evident pride to being the mastermind of the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria massacre where 16 innocent Jews, among them our daughter Malki, were killed. Ahlam Tamimi was serving a prison sentence of 16 consecutive life terms right up until the catastrophic Shalit Deal that Israel transacted with Hamas in 2011.

That's when she was freed and returned to the land of her birth, the place where most of her family lives and where she was raised.

We have written hundreds of blog posts and op eds about Ahlam Tamimi, born in Jordan and living there today, not in hiding but out in the open.

She has become a genuine celebrity ["24-Nov-18: How Jordan's mainstream media showcase a couple of role-model jihadist murderers"] who speaks often in public forums and on Jordan's media. But (or perhaps and) she is a fugitive from the FBI, charged by the US Department of Justice with Federal crimes and with a State Department $5 million reward for her capture and conviction.

She is the subject of an extradition request which the Jordanian government, for narrow and technical reasons, has rejected ["20-Mar-17: The Hashemite Kingdom's courts have spoken: The murdering FBI fugitive will not be handed over"]. The US and Jordan have a valid extradition treaty that has been in effect between the two countries since 1995. Several Jordanian felons were extradited to the US before the Tamimi case.

It's interesting to us that of all the possible Jordanian venue options, Ahed Tamimi was a guest last week at the Jordan Media Institute.

It's also striking that Princess Rym Ali, the JMI's founder and a former CNN on-camera reporter before she married into the Hashemite royal family, was present to hear her speak, seated in the front row (see the photo above).

This brought to mind how the princess' husband, Prince Ali bin Hussein who is the half brother of Jordan's current ruler, posted a Tweet emotionally urging support for... Ahed Tamimi in December 2017 just before she went to prison. (Posted here; archived here.)

To us, this seems odd. Ahed is no Jordanian. And most other Jordanian royals seem to have wisely taken care not to get entangled with the outstandingly problematic Tamimi clan. Perhaps some enterprising journalist will take the trouble to look into what about the Nabi Saleh Tamimis' violent bigotry that so attracts this royal attention.

Jordan Media Institute

At this point, allow us to mention that we have had seriously disturbing experiences with the JMI and the unique interplay of professional aspiration and tolerance for extreme violence that we believe the school represents.

We're referring to how we discovered four years ago, and then did our best to publicize, that the very privileged students of this prestigious and hugely-needed institution had publicly declared Ahlam Tamimi - the boastful Hamas agent who set out to kill as many Jewish children as possible and succeeded - as their "success model". 

We ended up persuading several of the school's international funders, including a number of governments, to terminate their support. But we never succeeded in (a) getting the school's management to respond to us other than rude and pointless response from a manager there, or (b) to be open about what we had reported. Their preference was to engage in a rather shabby and pathetic cover-up.

We wrote about this in the posts below:

• 10-Dec-14: In the Arab world's most promising new journalism school, a passion for murder and hatred
• 11-Dec-14: Is it newsworthy when journalists make a terror-addicted murdering colleague their role-model?
• 16-Jan-15: Incubating terror-minded journalists in Jordan but they have an answer to the criticisms
• 19-Jan-15: The dilemmas of funding and enabling terror

What happened at the Jordan Media Institute and the scandalous way it was hushed up by management ought to be factored into people's thinking when they wonder about the state of democracy, human rights and terrorism in the Arab world.

The terrors of Arab journalism

Given the strange role played by an ambitious school like JMI, this seems a good time to be thinking about how very badly journalism serves the Palestinian Arabs (the vast majority of Jordanians self-identify as Palestinian Arabs). And the difficulties their reporters and their editors encounter under the thumb of the powers that be.

Screen capture from the Gatehouse site

A typically incisive article today by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Gatestone Institute gives some exposure to the plight of a young woman working as a reporter in the Hamas-afflicted Gaza Strip:

Hajer Harb... is currently standing trial before a court in the Gaza Strip for exposing corruption in Hamas-run ministries and institutions. Harb, a cancer survivor, has been repeatedly summoned for interrogation by Hamas security forces for her role in reporting on corruption in medical and housing institutions... She is accused of "failing to display objectivity, fairness and accuracy" in her reporting... Instead of interrogating and prosecuting the corrupt officials whose identities were mentioned in her reporting, Harb is the one who is now standing trial for telling the truth. Her lawyer, Baker al-Turkumani, described the charges against her as "flimsy." The charges, he said, are an "assault on the freedom of the media and expression, which are protected by the law. The law and justice are the journalist's weapon against corruption. The law cannot be used to limit the work of a journalist or freedom of expression." ["Palestinians: "Journalism" Hamas Style", Gatestone Institute website, February 14, 2019]

Abu Toameh unpacks the Hamas charges against the reporter and calls them disingenuous and laughable:

It is disingenuous because it is coming from Hamas -- a group for whom the terms objectivity and accuracy are wholly inimical. It is laughable because it allows Hamas to set the standards for objectivity and accuracy... For Hamas, objectivity in the media means that journalists shut their mouths about their leaders and government officials. For Hamas, "accuracy" means that a journalist working in the Gaza Strip will show Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the worst possible light -- regardless of the facts.

He's no less blunt about Hamas' rivals, the Abbas-controlled Fatah/PA:

Since the beginning of this year, the Palestinian Authority security forces have arrested 10 Palestinian journalists in the West Bank for their "negative" reporting and alleged criticism of Abbas and other senior Palestinian figures... The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate regularly chooses totally to ignore the plight of the journalists arrested by the Palestinian Authority security forces. The only evils the Syndicate sees are those that can be linked to Hamas or Israel. That is because its heads and senior staff are affiliated with Abbas's Fatah faction... Like Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, with the help of its associates in the syndicate, is apparently seeking to control the news and narrative to make sure that journalists direct their criticism only against Israel. Like Hamas, the Palestinian Authority has been relatively successful in its effort to limit the flow of information from areas under its control. A Palestinian journalist living in Ramallah will think at least a dozen times before he or she writes or says a word that could rile Abbas or one of his senior officials.

Ahlam Tamimi boasting about her life as a Hamas terrorist
[Image Source: Video capture from Kuwaiti TV]

A great shame that all those 'activists' agitating for 'Free Palestine', for BDS and for "Palestinian rights" don't direct their energies, criticisms and fury at the two ham-fisted Palestinian Arab regimes that bear almost all the responsibility for what's wrong with the lives of the people living under their boots.

And also for the extreme violence that many people think about when the word "Palestinian" enters the discussion. (Ahlam Tamimi, our child's murderer, boasts that she was a journalist at the time of the massacre, and is still called one today.)

Also a great shame that the Ahed Tamimi phenomenon continues to get so much unjustified backing in parts of the Arab world where a little more inward-focused retrospection would do so much more for the problems that beset their lives.

And ours too.

UPDATE February 15, 2019

We just came across the Jordan Media Institute's two tweets of last week's Ahed Tamimi event currently here and here and here with a half-hour video of Joan-of-Arc's customary flat/monotone speech (and archived here and here and here in case... you know).

(There don't seem to be any English-language tweets of the momentous occasion, indicating - who knows - that they don't want their foreign supporters seeing this, but perhaps we just missed them.)

The JMI photos make apparent that Nariman Tamimi, mother of Ahed, cousin and outspoken fan of Ahlam Tamimi and her hideous deeds, is seated at the head table.

Also apparent: (a) that Jordanian journalism's best and brightest don't at all mind being associated with the terror-loving Tamimi clan's messaging - which if you pause to think about it is staggering; (b) the scandal of 2015 which cost the school some substantial foreign funding is dead and forgotten; (c) the illustrious Jordan Media Institute is mighty proud that the Tamimis allowed them to give a platform to Ahed.

04-Feb-19: Intruders

Image Source

As Israel announces, belatedly, the start of establishing a major barrier to protect the southern parts of the state ["Israel starts construction on 20-foot-high fence surrounding Gaza", Times of Israel, February 3, 2019], we're seeing a spate of news reports reminding Israelis why security of that sort is indispensable.

Two Jordanians cross into Israel, are arrested by army | Unarmed pair taken for questioning to determine why they crossed border, military says
Times of Israel | 3 February 2019, 2:01 pm | Two Jordanian nationals were arrested early Sunday after they crossed illegally into the country, the Israel Defense Forces said. According to a statement from the military, IDF soldiers identified the two suspects overnight, after they crossed the border fence. The troops stopped and arrested the pair near the border, the statement said, adding that they were carrying no weapons. They have been taken for questioning to determine why they crossed the border. The statement did not specify where along the border the incident took place.

Then this

Palestinian with knife nabbed among Hebron tourists | Armed suspect tries to enter Tomb of the Patriarchs shrine, is separated by police from group of visitors
Times of Israel | 3 February 2019, 2:09 pm
A young Palestinian man trying to gain access to a West Bank holy site on Sunday aroused the attention of police when they spotted him in the middle of a group of tourists entering the Tomb of the Patriarchs, police said. Border Police officers arrested the suspect, a man in his twenties, after noticing he didn’t belong with the group and was acting suspiciously in an apparent bid to gain entry to the site, in the West Bank city of Hebron, police said. Police officers called him aside for a more thorough inspection before realizing he was carrying the blade. “When the suspicion grew stronger, the soldiers aimed their weapons and at that point the suspect drew the knife that had been concealed in his clothes, threw it to the ground and raised his hands,” a police statement said. Police said the suspect, a resident of Hebron, admitted during his initial questioning that he intended to carry out a stabbing attack.

And these

Palestinian crosses into Israel from Gaza, is arrested | Incident follows previous day’s 3 attempts to jump border fence on 3 borders — from Gaza, Lebanon and Jordan — and day after Israel begins final stage of barrier construction
Times of Israel | February 4, 2019, 9:04 am | IDF troops on the Gaza border apprehended a Palestinian man who crossed the border fence into Israel from the southern Strip, the military said in a statement Monday morning. The man was searched by soldiers and taken into custody. The IDF said that a knife was found near the point where the man crossed the fence, and “apparently belonged to the suspect.”  [...] Monday’s incident is the fourth in a 24-hour period in which individuals were caught attempting to cross into Israel on various borders. Five youths who crossed from northern Gaza into Israel on Sunday night remain in custody and are being questioned. On Sunday, IDF troops arrested two Lebanese men who crossed the border into Israel near the divided border village of Ghajar and were discovered to be carrying 11 kilograms (25 pounds) of hashish. Earlier Sunday, two Jordanian nationals were arrested after they crossed illegally from Jordan, the army said. They were carrying no weapons. Their reasons for attempting to jump over the border fence are not known.

Israelis tend to be cautious about how effective defensive security measures are. The latest sabre-rattling from Iran reminds us of why:

Iran said to put ‘guided warheads’ on missiles that can reach Israel | State media says the new Khoramshahr 2 is highly accurate and can carry two-ton payloads up to 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles)
Times of Israel | February 4, 2019
Iran has equipped its most advanced, longest-range missiles, which can hit Israel and US bases in the Gulf, with new precision guided warheads, state media reported Sunday. According to the unsourced report in the Fars news agency, the new home-made guided warheads have now been attached to the Khoramshahr, a missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles.) “The new generation of missiles with guided warheads has been named Khoramshahr 2 and they can be controlled until hitting the target and are able to carry warheads weighing nearly 2 tons,” the report said. It said that the new warheads had previously been mounted on the shorter range Emad, Qadr and Qiam missiles. The first generation of Khoramshahr was unveiled in 2017.  Iran says all of its missiles are designed to carry conventional warheads only and has limited their range to a maximum of 2,000 kilometers, although commanders say they have the technology to go further. That makes them only medium-range but still sufficient to reach Israel or US bases in the Gulf. The report comes a day after Iran said it had successful fired a new long-range cruise missile, amid events marking 40 years since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The missile, dubbed Hoveyzeh, was described as a high-precision weapon capable of flying at low altitudes and able to carry a significant payload up to a distance of 1,200 kilometers (840 miles.)

These news reports tend to get somewhat overlooked outside Israel.

07-Jan-19: Pre-dawn Gazan rocket attack on Ashkelon is thwarted

The marina at Ashkelon [Image Source]

It's a little after seven in the morning on a chilly January Monday and the sleep-deprived citizens of Ashdod are, not for the first time, counting their blessings.

Around three this morning, incoming-rocket warnings were sounded in the coastal city that has the misfortune of being within easy firing range of the rocket-rich Gaza Strip and its mayhem-minded terrorist hordes:

...[W]arning sirens blared in the southern city of Ashkelon and the nearby Ashkelon beach region after 3 am. The IDF said it identified a single launch from Gaza that was intercepted by Iron Dome. Residents reported hearing loud explosions, apparently from the interceptor. The launch came hours after the Israeli Air Force struck two Hamas positions in the eastern Gaza Strip in response to an explosive device that was flown into southern Israel earlier in the day, the army said. On Sunday morning, a bomb was flown into Israel using a large cluster of balloons and a drone-like glider device, landing in a carrot field in the Sdot Negev region of southern Israel shortly before noon... ["Air force hits Gaza targets after rocket fired into Israel", Times of Israel, January 7, 2019]

Following the now-familiar playbook, the in-bound rocket was aimed at civilian targets (Ashkelon is not a military base but a bustling city of about 140,000 civilian residents). The fact that it was intercepted mid-flight indicates it was on-target for causing the very sort of damage and destruction that it was intended to. The Iron Dome system calculates the trajectory of enemy rocket attacks before telling its operators whether or not to commit to firing off one of its counter-measure rockets.

No less familiar, Israel's response was to fire from the air against "several terror targets at a Hamas training camp in the northern Gaza Strip" according to Times of Israel quoting the IDF. Since this happened in the dark of the early morning, it's likely no one was injured on the ground.

Yesterday's balloon attack: The payload exploded while
being examined by Israeli police [Image Source: IDF]

Yesterday (Sunday), a brightly-colored, large cluster of balloons carrying an explosive payload as well as (bizarrely) a non-functioning drone-looking device floated across Gaza's frontier with Israel and exploded in a carrot field in one of southern Israel's Gaza containment communities:

The balloons were attached to a drone, which was labeled with a logo from the Gaza engineering college. The balloons sat in a field near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip for most of the day before security personnel could raise the drone using heavy machinery. When that occurred, the device detonated, but the incident did not cause any damage or injuries. Palestinians frequently send balloons, kites and other items laced with incendiary devices over the border fence in attempts to harm Israeli territory, since the "Great March of Return" riots along the fence began in March 2018. The devices have burned more than half the forested land in the area, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) data showed in October... ["Israel hits Hamas posts after incendiary balloons, drone, fall near border", Jerusalem Post, January 6, 2019]

Given the very different kind of media coverage terrorism gets here versus outside Israel, the capacity of Hamas' rocket-equipped forces to deliver serious and deadly harm to Israelis is well-recognized by Israelis; much less so by people far from the scene. Less than a month ago, some 300 Israel-bound rockets were fired from Gaza [Ynet, December 11, 2018] during a single, very violent 5-hour time span on a Monday evening.

No one expects attacks of that sort to end soon.

29-Dec-18: A quiet weekend

Dutch police action [Image Source]

A handful of terror-centric reports that arrived in our news filter this quiet weekend and that, for the most part, have gotten very little media attention.

Friday night Arab-on-Israel rocket attack

A rocket was fired Friday from the Gaza Strip into Israel, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said, the first such incident in over six weeks. The Red Alert alarm warning system was not activated as the projectile landed in an open area, the spokesperson added. No injuries or damage were reported. [Times of Israel]

Five men arrested in Rotterdam on terrorism charges 

Five men have been arrested in Rotterdam on charges of preparing a terrorist attack, broadcaster NOS said on Saturday. Four were arrested early on Saturday morning at homes in the centre and east of the port city and the fifth man was picked up later in the day. The first four are aged 20 to 30 and have a ‘non-western’ background, broadcaster NOS said. One is said to be a Syrian refugee with residency status named as Saleh H. A second man is said to be an Egyptian national... [DutchNews.nl]

Egypt security forces kill 40 suspected terrorists in raids - report 

Egyptian security forces killed 40 alleged terrorists in raids in the Giza and North Sinai regions early Saturday, state media reported, a day after four people were killed when a roadside bomb struck a tourist bus in Giza. Egypt's Interior Ministry said the raids, conducted at dawn Saturday, targeted three suspected hideouts of terrorists who were planning hostile acts during the Christmas holidays, according to the state-run Al-Ahram online newspaper. Ammunition, firearms and improvised explosive devices were recovered in significant numbers... Three Vietnamese tourists and an Egyptian tour guide were killed and at least 11 people were injured in the attack Friday in a central tourist area of Giza, near Cairo, where the pyramids are located... [CNN]

...meanwhile from the Palestinian Authority's media mouthpiece:

"...Spokesman Yousef al-Mahmoud said in a statement that the Palestinian people and its leadership stand with Egypt in fighting “this cowardly terrorism aimed at innocent people and the security and stability of the Egyptian people.” He expressed belief that Egypt is capable of fighting terrorism and those who stand behind it, calling on Arab countries to stand together in fighting terrorism and extremism targeting the Arab world in particular and the world in general.

Three charged with planning terror attack in Sweden

Sweden's prosecution authority said on Thursday it had charged three men with planning a terror attack in Sweden, warning the plot could have caused serious damage had it not been prevented... The men, aged between 30 and 46, originally hail from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Their residency status in Sweden could not immediately be verified... The three are suspected of "obtaining and storing large amounts of chemicals and other equipment with the aim of killing and wounding other people," the prosecution authority said in a statement. "If the terrorist crime had been carried out, it could have seriously hurt Sweden." The trio were also charged, along with three other people, with financing terrorism. Prosecutors accuse them of sending money abroad to fund the so-called Islamic State's operations... According to Dagens Nyheter, at least one of the suspects had been in contact with Rakhmat Akilov, a radicalized Uzbek asylum seeker who mowed down pedestrians in Stockholm with a stolen truck in April 2017, killing five people. Akilov was sentenced to life in prison in June 2018... [TheLocal (Sweden)]

13-Sep-18: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?

The Oslo Accords are signed at the White House exactly 25 years ago today, on September 13, 1993 | Shimon Peres, Israel's foreign minister, signs  as Israel's prime minister Yitzhak Rabin; President Bill Clinton and the PLO's Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas look on. [Image Credit: J David AKE/AFP]

One of the most interesting things we do here is look at what the Palestinian Arabs think. As we explained in our most recent attempt to do this ["16-Jul-18: What do the Palestinian Arabs want? What do they believe? What do they think?"], looking at accurate, well-collected and intelligently analyzed opinion poll data is

invariably more valuable by far than media guesses about what the Palestinian Arabs think and want. Claims are made freely and often about Palestinian Arab aspirations. Very often, though, the data tell a story that's at total variance from what's being claimed about them... [source] 

Bluntly, much of what the mainstream media claim about Palestinian Arab public opinion is just plain wrong. We make that statement on the basis of carefully reviewing the work of a Palestinian Arab organization called The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR). It's headed by a respected professional, Dr. Khalil Shikaki. We have no personal connection with him or his work. His reputation for objectivity is why we pay attention. Here are some of our previous analyses:

• 10-Dec-14: What else do Palestinian Arabs want, beyond the 80% who say killing of ordinary Israelis is a good thing?
• 22-Sep-15: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 03-Nov-15: What do they mean when the Palestinian Arabs say they oppose terror?
• 14-Dec-15: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 16-May-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 15-Jun-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 26-Sep-17: What do the Palestinian Arabs think now?
• 16-Jul-18: What do the Palestinian Arabs want? What do they believe? What do they think?
• (Click here for the full list.)

Here are some insights we found PSR Public Opinion Poll Number 69, published yesterday (Wednesday September 12, 2018). It's based on survey data collected face-to-face in the previous week from a total sample size of 1,270 Palestinian Arab adults.

Political leaders?

From our perspective and with Arab-on-Israeli terrorism very much on our minds, the most clear-cut insights have to do with Mahmoud Abbas, the fading president-for-life of the Palestinian Authority:

• More than six out of ten Palestinian Arabs want him to resign. This is very slightly higher than the last poll showed. Broken down, the rejection stands at 52% in the West Bank; 78% in the Gaza Strip.
• An overwhelming majority disagree with his most important domestic policies. Overall about half of the Palestinian Arabs now see Abbas' PA as a burden rather than an asset.
• So where do they want power to reside? Well, fully two-thirds are against his decision (incapable at this stage of being implemented) to disarm the terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip.
• Furthermore, most reject his demand that Hamas hand control over the Gaza Strip to the so-called reconciliation government controlled by his PA. 
• Related to this, most Palestinian Arabs say they support Hamas’ efforts to reach a long-term Tahdia agreement with Israel even if the reconciliation government cannot be created. (Tahdia or Tahdiya is an Arabic word that is usually translated cease-fire or calming-down. It does not mean truce or peace.)
• These data points show that Hamas gets more overall trust and backing now than Abbas and his Fatah/PA/PLO factions. But both get less support than they had when the last survey was published three months ago.
• In party-political terms, if elections (which were last held since 2006) took place for the Palestinian Legislative Council and its 132 seats, 27% say they would support Hamas (down on the summer poll results); 36% would vote for Fatah (also down on the summer results); all the other parties combined would get 10%. The 28% who say they are undecided would be more numerous than Hamas' voters. By comparison, Hamas defeated the long-dominant Fatah in those 2006 elections, ending up with 76 seats out of the 132. Chaos ensued, followed, in June 2007, by the eruption of open fighting between the armed forces of Fatah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The winners of the blood-bath (the physical one, not the electoral one) were Hamas who have held on tightly to control until today. No parliamentary elections have happened in the ensuing 12 years, and none are realistically in prospect.
• But leaving aside the factions and focusing on the personalities, the picture gets confusing. If a two-horse election race had been held last week: 
• If it were Mahmoud Abbas up against Ismail Haniyeh (of Hamas), Abbas wins 47% to 45%. 
• If instead of Abbas, the Fatah candidate were the imprisoned murderer Marwan Barghouti, he would steamroller Haniyeh by the substantial margin of 58% against 37%.

The role of the United States?

It's no secret that the Palestinian Arab leadership is having a hard time with the Trump Administration. How have such moves by the US as ending most of its cash aid to the PA, cancelling its contributions to UNRWA, moving its Tel Aviv embassy to Jerusalem affected Palestinian Arab opinion?

• An overwhelming 90% now view the US as biased towards Israel.
• Half want their leaders to absolutely reject what the pollsters call the US “Deal of the Century” - the terms of which no one has actually seen yet - because "it will certainly be bad for Palestinians"
• Moreover, most oppose the resumption of any dialogue with the US.
• Most also are against going back to negotiations with Israel. 

How bad are things?

The poll looks at how ordinary people feell about the overall condition of where they live. The results are bleak. What proportion think their conditions are "positive"?

• In the Gaza Strip, a whopping 5%
• In the West Bank, just 19%.
• Overall, 77% worry that reductions in foreign aid from the US and others will generate more unemployment growth, more poverty and still further deterioration in daily living conditions.
• Who's to blame for all this awfulness? 43% say it's the PA and its head, Mahmoud Abbas - and note that Gazans are twice as likely to say this as West Bankers. 24% blame Hamas. 8% say it's Egypt that caused the problems. 17% say it's "others". 
• Presumably making matters even worse, 59% of Palestinian Arabs - not surprisingly, given the nature of the two regimes in question - say they cannot criticize the Palestinian Authority (except to the pollsters) without fear. And 77% say there is corruption in the PA's organs 
• A third of all Palestinian Arabs say they want to emigrate if they can. This trend is much stronger in Gaza (about 50%) than in the West Bank (22%). 

Violence?

• Two-thirds - and this holds equally true in Gaza and in the West Bank - favour allowing the "armed battalions", meaning terrorist factions and their weapons, where they currently are.
• 68% support (and 25% oppose) the PA decision to cease security coordination with Israel. At the same time, 69% think the Palestinian Arab leadership will never actually implement that decision.

Peace?

Has life gotten better or worse since the Oslo Accords were signed between Arafat's PA and the government of Israel in 1993? And how will peace look when it arrives?

• 73% say "conditions today are worse" than before Oslo.
• 36% blame this on Israel for "refusing to end its occupation"
• 35% say its the failure of the "international community" to press Israel harder
• 65% believe the Oslo Accords "damaged the national interest".
• Support for the two-state solution has risen slightly compared with three months ago: 47%.
• When asked to choose among (a) the two-state solution, (b) the one-state solution and (c) any other third solution, the two-state solution wins with 53%.
• At the same time, 56% say the two-state solution is no longer practical because of Israeli settlement. 
• Do they agree that the chances for the creation of a Palestinian Arab state side-by-side with the State of Israel in the next five years are slim or nonexistent? Yes, say 72% of Palestinian Arabs.
• And for 30%, the preferred next stage entails waging armed struggle against "the Israeli occupation”. 39% say "negotiation is the most effective means of establishing a Palestinian state next to the state of Israel".
• Don't expect or look for coherence or consistency.
• 80% think the Arab world doesn't see Palestine as "its primary cause", which sounds right to us.
• Depressingly, 57% "believe that Israel’s long-term aspiration is to expand the state of Israel to stretch from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea and to expel the Palestinian population". 

The biggest challenge?

What do Palestinian Arabs see as the most serious problem facing their society today? They're facing in numerous different directions.

• 27% say poverty and unemployment 
• 25% say the "occupation" and "settlement" activities (they mean by Israel)
• 22% say corruption in Palestinian Arab public institutions
• 20% say the "siege" (they mean by Israel) of the Gaza Strip
• 3% say the absence of national unity.

All in all, it's hard not to feel a sense of despair when confronted with views like those on which the PSR reports each 90 days. So much effort, so much news-reporting, so much foreign aid, so much waste... so little of anything constructive to show for it - except that a plurality of them now agrees that it's poverty that tops their list of challenges. 

But they're hopelessly divided on that too. 

And catastrophically ill-served by venal political operatives and self-serving insiders who have never shown the smallest interest or ability in addressing that vital issue among the many on their people's agenda.

This post, like a number of others before it, has been translated to Polish ("Co myślą palestyńscy Arabowie?") by courtesy of Malgorzata Koraszewska over on the Listy z naszego sadu website. Our sincere thanks to her, and great appreciation to readers of this blog in Poland.

08-May-18: War crimes, incendiary neighbors

Image Source

People who have suffered the usually-minor indignity of having passers-by or neighbors flick a still-lit cigarette into their homes or gardens will have an advantage in relating to the latest technological 'breakthrough' to emerge from Gaza.

As Ynet reported on Monday evening ["Incendiary balloons from Gaza cause damage to Israeli fields", May 07, 2018]

Several incendiary balloons flown from the Gaza Strip on Monday afternoon caused fires in seven different locations on the Israeli side of the border. No one was hurt, but great damage was caused... The incendiary balloons, like incendiary kites, are affixed with an already-lit Molotov cocktail [fire bomb]... The westerly winds push the balloons, which are filled with helium gas, towards Israel. After a short while in the air, the fire from the Molotov cocktail causes the balloon to explode in midair, with the incendiary contraption dropping to the ground. The IDF has been working on a solution to thwart these contraptions by intercepting them using drones before they can land in Israel and cause damage.

[Video source: YouTube] 

At this point, we know of one such incendiary device igniting wheat fields on the land of Kibbutz Mefalsim in the Shaar HaNegev Regional Council. Another landed in the Eshkol region's Be'eri Forest, setting off a blaze. With spring turning to summer and harvest time, the economic losses are significant to the agricultural communities attacked by the Palestinian Arabs.

From another report last week ["Incendiary kite from Gaza causes massive fire in Be'eri Forest", Ynet, May 02, 2018] 

An incendiary kite flown Wednesday from the Gaza Strip by Palestinian terrorists caused a huge fire in the Be'eri Forest in southern Israel that continued to rage into the evening. No casualties were reported. The conflagration is the biggest to have erupted since Palestinians in the strip began flying the incendiary kites across the border. By 7:30pm, the fire continued to slowly reduce hundreds of dunams of woodland to ash, as ten firefighter teams scrambled to contain it, battling high temperatures, dry weather and strong easterly winds that fanned the flames. Incendiary kites are the latest improvised weapon to have been added to the Palestinian rioters' arsenal as part of the weekly "March of Return" protests on the Gaza Border, enabling Palestinian rioters to wreak havoc on Israel's southern towns without approaching the border fence and risking their lives.  Around three to four of the kites are sent across the Gaza-Israel border each day, and have so far incinerated agricultural lands in Israel's southern region, with wheat fields being set aflame and ecological damage caused to the country. 

Shedding some dim light on the state of mind of the pyromaniacs, images of Gazan kites (like the one below) festooned with Nazi swastikas accompany many of the reports.

Image Source: AP

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court - the treaty that established it and entered into force on 1 July 2002 - defines destroying the environment, even if no one is killed, as a war crime. In September 2016, the ICC prosecution issued a policy directive stating that it would place a special priority on prosecuting war crimes against the environment, something it had never done until then.

Hard not to notice the tone of pride and enthusiasm as certain media outlets report on the incendiary attacks by Gazan Palestinian Arabs. "Palestinian ‘Fire Kites’ Spark Huge Blaze in Zionist Settlements near Gaza Border" [Al Manar, May 02, 2018] for instance, and "Flaming kites mark fifth Friday of Gaza protests" [Mondoweiss, April 29, 2018].

Almost as if burning down the neighhbours' crops - or setting mountains of rubber tires ablaze and generating carcinogenic smoke and fumes - will get the attackers a better life. 

06-May-18: Explosive weekend in Gaza

Shortly after Saturday's explosion [Image Source]

The terrorists of Hamas are expressing fury over two fatal Gaza events involving their agents in the past 24 hours.

Just before 3 this afternoon (Sunday), reports emerged of another infiltration attempt by armed and hostile Gazan Arabs into Israel. An IDF statement issued shortly afterwards, quoted by Times of Israel, said:

“A short while ago an IDF unit opened fire at three terrorists who tried to cross the security barrier from the southern Strip toward [Israeli] territory, and to damage security infrastructure in the area of the fence... Two of the terrorists were killed.”

There is confirmation from Hamas' Ministry of Health in Gaza - the highly problematic sole source of all reports about Palestinian Arab casualties in the course of the current Gaza Riots battles - that two Palestinians had been killed. At this stage, there does not seem to be any public information about the fate of the third thwarted infiltrator.

UPDATE 5:30 pm Sunday May 6, 2018: An updated Times of Israel report, quoting an updated IDF statement now says three Palestinian Arab infiltrators, part of a group of four, were killed in today's thwarted attack. There's no clear word yet on what happened to the fourth. It says: "The Israel Defense Forces said the men were found to be in possession of an ax, two bottles of lighter fluid, a lighter, a bolt cutter and a GoPro camera... From an initial investigation it appears the four-man cell arrived at the security fence in order to infiltrate into Israeli territory in an attempt to carry out a terror attack...” It appears the attack was an attempt "to damage the security infrastructure along the Gaza border or potentially attack IDF soldiers."

Yesterday (Saturday), there was a powerful explosion - whose cause is still the subject of back-and-forth contention - in the central Gaza Strip area:

Gaza's health ministry confirmed six people were killed on Saturday's explosion, with three others wounded in what residents said appeared to be an accidental explosion in the Zawayda area of the central Gaza Strip. The health ministry said the explosion may have been caused by the handling of explosives. In the past some explosions in the Gaza Strip have resulted from the accidental detonation of explosive materials belonging to militant groups. However a statement from the Palestinian Islamist group's armed wing insisted that the incident was a "deplorable Zionist crime". The Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Gaza's rulers, said the fatalities were members of their group and blamed Israel for the explosion but did not provide details or proof. The incident occurred during a "complex security and intelligence operation", the group said in a statement, calling it "serious and large security incident" and blaming the "Zionist enemy". The statement added that it was a "serious crime against our fighters". ["Six members of Hamas military wing killed in Gaza explosion", The National, May 6, 2018]

The video clip below, embedded in a Tweet [here]. captures some of the drama: 

The first moments of the explosion in the center of the #Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/b7fiWyQrsg

— Abdulwahed AbuAbed (@Conteaic) May 5, 2018

---

A BBC report ["Gaza explosion leaves six Palestinians dead", BBC, May 5, 2018] said

The Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, military wing of the Hamas militant group, blamed Israel, but the Israeli military said it was not involved. A Palestinian source quoted by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said that the victims appeared to be members of Hamas... It is not clear what caused the blast in Deir al-Balah... The explosion could have been caused by the handling of explosives inside a building, the source added... Following Saturday's explosion, TV images showed a pillar of smoke rising near the coast. "The IDF (Israel Defence Force) is not involved in this incident in any way," an Israeli military spokesman said. Correspondents say explosions in Gaza in the past have been caused by Israeli air strikes, by feuding between Palestinian factions or by the mishandling of explosives by militant groups.

Whatever the cause, the dead have been claimed with certainty by Hamas. All six are said - by the terrorist organization - to be from its Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the so-called armed wing of Hamas. 

But to judge from how their images are being marketed in Palestinian Arab society today, there's some difference of opinion whether to have them viewed as (in our words) peaceful, rights-seeking ordinary protesters, as Palestine Chronicle appeared to be presenting them in this image posted a few hours ago [here]

Image Source
The accompanying text gives their untimely demise this context: "Saturday’s blast follows
weeks of protests along the Israeli-Gaza border as part of the Great March of Return movement."

Or instead - the very same six as fierce warriors, heroes of their people and, as the Palestinian Information Center website terms them, "martyrs" of the notorious al-Qassam Brigades terrorist section of Hamas. 

Image Source: Palestinian Information Center website

The PIC report has this to say in support of its version:

Hundreds of Palestinians marched on Sunday in Gaza provinces for the funerals of six martyrs of al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas movement. Al-Qassam Brigades said in a brief statement on Saturday evening that six of its fighters were killed during a "complex security operation" in al-Zawaideh town in the central Gaza Strip. Further details on the incident will be revealed later, the statement noted.

It gives the names of the dead terrorists as Mahmoud al-Ostaz, Wesam Abu Mahrouk, Taher Shahin, Mousa Salman, Mahmoud al-Tawashi, and Mahmoud al-Qishawi.

Times of Israel says Hamas, naturally enough, 

blamed Israel for the explosion, without providing details or proof. Palestinian media, by contrast, said it was a “work accident” — that is, that the terrorists were killed by their own explosives.

As we often do, we will go with the Palestinian Arab version - the one quoted in that last paragraph. Keep in mind that generally we don't get to see news reports in which Hamas owns up to its freshly deceased martyrs having been interrupted with extreme prejudice by the Israelis while they, the "resistance" fighters, were busy preparing themselves to do terrorism. Mostly we need to figure that out between the lines.