Let’s see what I missed while celebrating the Jewish festival of Shavuot…..looks like it was a relatively quiet day on the rocket front. One Qassam landed near Sderot this morning, while many Sderot residents were attending Shavuot prayer services at the local synagogues. Then fast forward to earlier this evening, when 4 Qassams hit Israel. 2 landed in the Sderot area, leading to a woman suffering from shock, while another 2 landed south of Ashkelon, with one of them killing a mare.This is not counting the 13 or so Qassams that were fired at Israel yesterday evening.
IDF operations have also continued since my last update. Overnight, IDF troops launched a rare raid into the southern Gaza Strip, briefly detaining 7 Palestinians, but later releasing them. Last night, the IAF hit a rocket launch site in Gaza with machine-gun fire, while today, the IAF launched more air strikes against suspected terrorists, including some buildings used to store weapons and munitions.
In other news, palestinian “President” Mahmoud Abbas and palestinian “Prime Minister” Ismail Haniyeh failed to reach agreement on a truce with Israel, and Iran continues on its path towards making good on its promise to wipe Israel off the map.
Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)
Latest updates here.11:15PM: Charlie’s Mahmoud’s Angels:
Palestinian female militants of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, linked with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’ secular Fatah party, pose for journalists at Rafah refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called for a halt to rocket fire and a truce with Israel on Thursday after the army seized 33 senior Hamas figures in the latest crackdown aimed at stopping the Gaza salvos.(AFP/Said Khatib)
This is the same Mahmoud Abbas our government officials laud as our “peace partner”, and for whose Presidential Guard we have agreed to facilitate training.
11:02PM: The IAF has struck a Hamas post in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis.
9:55PM: I really don’t understand the US State Department:
“The US government is concerned with the IDF’s operation in the West Bank, and the arrest of Palestinian legislators,” US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Thursday.”Hamas is a terror organization, but we have made it clear before that arresting elected Palestinian officials is a cause for concern,” Casey added.
In other words, if a terror organization is elected to government, they should be immune from any response to their terrorism.
9:30PM: 4 more Qassams, bringing today’s tally to 15.
8:45PM: The palestinian Ma’an News Agency has this little gem of a breaking news item:
I guess that message is “We don’t think twice about murdering people” (not to mention “we have no concept of what fireworks are.”)
8:15PM: 2 Qassams have struck the western Negev. Once again, the early warning siren did not sound.
8:00PM: Ha’aretz headline: UN envoy: Israel, PA should weigh int’l peacekeepers in Gaza
No thanks. No matter where you weigh them, they do a fat lot of good.
7:40PM: Last time we checked up on that Hamas-Fatah ceasefire, things were not looking so good. Let’s check back on them:
Two escorts of the Fatah spokesperson in the Gaza Strip, Maher Miqdad, were injured on Wednesday night when Miqdad’s office came under fire, Palestinian security sources reported on Thursday.Separately, a Fatah-affiliated electronic website said that an Islamic Jihad member was also injured when gunmen opened fire at Miqdad’s escorts near the Maqousi towers in north Gaza City.
Sources in Fatah accused Hamas gunmen of involvement in the attack against Miqdad’s escorts. The sources also said that the Islamic Jihad member was accidentally passing by.
Not surprising. Although I must say I am surprised they openly travel around with escorts. I wonder if they look anything like this.
6:16PM: Another Qassam has been fired into Israel, bring today’s tally to 5.
5:30PM: PA President and “peace partner” Mahmoud Abbas has called on Hamas and other terrorist organizations to stop firing rockets into Israel because they are “pointless and needless.”
Not because they are morally reprehensible and lead to the deaths of innocent civilians.
3:15PM: Hamas is threatening new attacks after we arrested 33 of their senior officials.
I don’t really see that this makes a difference. They need no excuse to launch new attacks on us beyond achieving their stated aims of destroying Israel.
1:30PM: Today’s Qassam tally so far is 4.
7:55AM: IDF troops have arrested 33 Hamas members in a large-scale arrest operation in the West Bank early this morning.
7:45AM:“We pray that Israel will come back and rule us again.” Via LGF comes this UK news report about the chaos in Gaza, and in which a palestinian man says something what the mainstream media normally would never report – the truth.
Of course, organizations like the ISM – which claim to be humanitarians interested in the welfare of the palestinians – have not one bad word to say about Fatah and Hamas (they even support them), and continue to demonize Israel.
12:02AM: The IAF has reportedly targeted a Hamas building in Gaza City.
Thursday May 24th
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10:46PM: 2 IDF soldiers have been lightly injured by gunshots in the northern Gaza Strip.
10:10PM: The Arab League has denounced the Fatah Islam group of the palestinian Nahr el-Bared refugee camp, and which is currently fighting the Lebanese army, as a terrorist organization. No doubt that if this same group was fighting Israel, the Arab League would offer the group its unconditional support.
