From All Sides

Hamas and Fatah continue fighting with each other and Hamas thinks that it also has time to continue its war with Israel. Israel is obliging by destroying Hamas targets as it finds them.

The death toll continues to climb in Gaza as the fighting continues unabated.

The rockets continue to be fired into Israel from Gaza, and Israelis continue to get wounded by those terrorist attacks. Sderot is especially hard hit by these attacks, and the Israeli government is not doing enough to safeguard its citizens there. In the latest barrage of rockets, one hit a gas station. Prior rockets have hit a school and multiple residences.

Israel responds to these attacks by going after Hamas targets, killing Hamas thugs and destroying Hamas facilities:

Earlier Friday, the IDF struck a Kassam crew that had fired rockets at the western Negev earlier in the day, and killed at least one of its members, bringing the day's total casualties to five.

Before dawn, the army also hit a building that covered an arms-smuggling tunnel, killing several operatives.

At least 11 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF operation to take over Kassam launch sites began on Thursday, when tanks and infantry joined the air force in hammering away at Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.

Some eight Palestinians died in the Thursday attacks, including a Hamas operative who was killed when the IAF dropped a bomb on a two-story building belonging to Hamas's Executive Force. 45 others were wounded in the bombing, which leveled the building and several next to it.

Israel vows to continue until Hamas surrenders. That's not going to happen. You're going to need to wipe out Hamas in order to get someone whose ideological and religious views are tied to Israel's destruction. There is no compromise on those points.

What may end up happening is that Hamas realizes that it is badly hurt and calls for a hudna. The media will report this as a ceasefire, but it is a strategic pause that will give Hamas the ability to regroup and rearm for the next wave of attacks.

Part of the problem is that the media has been underreporting the level of violence Hamas, Fatah and PIJ has been engaged in. The media dutifully reports the Israeli responses without noting what Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist groups have been doing for weeks and months. By focusing on the Israeli reprisals, the media spin and public opinion will tend to hold Israel responsible for what happens - including escalations. The same thing happened with Hizbullah and Lebanon last year during the August war.

UPDATE:
Hamas is using the Islamic University in Gaza City as a firebase from which to fire rockets at Fatah positions.

The two main Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, fought in Gaza City, where witnesses said that three rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the Islamic University campus, Reuters reported.

A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Presidential Guard accused Hamas of using the university as a fire base for attacks on nearby police stations, according to the news service. The university is pro-Hamas, while the Palestinian police force is under Fatah control.

The factional fighting continued today despite a cease-fire agreement between the two factions earlier this week.

So much for that cease-fire agreement. Neither Fatah nor Hamas are abiding by it, and both are putting civilians in harms' way with their ongoing firefights throughout Gaza. Yet, the casualties do not get nearly as much coverage as when Israel engages in defending itself from the ongoing terrorist attacks and civilians are injured in attacks against the terrorists responsible for firing at Israel.

Meryl Yourish concurs with my analysis above that Hamas isn't going to cry uncle unless Israel eliminates every last member. If Israel falls short by even one member, that member will claim victory for Hamas - simply by outlasting any Israeli action. Defending yourself under these conditions calls for ruthlessness and Israel and the West simply lack that trait. Restraint and hedging bets on diplomacy are the name of the game, and the Islamists have a completely different playbook.

UPDATE:
Just so folks don't forget what has led Hamas, Fatah, and Israel to this point, consider that the rocket attacks against Israel have been going on for months. Elder of Ziyon has been keeping track of the rockets that have hit Israel (I've been noting them, but not counting them on a daily basis). For February, it was 80+ rockets; March, 50+; and April, 80+. The numbers have been accelerating in May, as more than 70 have fallen in just the past few days. All those rockets have been fired with one reason in mind (HT ben hur at LGF) - to injure and kill Israelis. I'd add that there is a demoralizing effect as well - one that wears down Israeli resolve.

UPDATE:
The media continues to get things backwards. MSNBC, for example, headlines that Israel airstrikes have killed eight Hamas and that Israeli forces are moving deeper into the Gaza conflict, and that Hamas is firing rockets into Israel.

Here is the order of those events in reality. Hamas and Fatah start multiple gunfights and are causing casualties throughout Gaza. Hamas and other terrorist groups have been firing rockets into Israel for months.

Hamas then increases the number of rockets fired into Israel in recent days. Israel finally responds to the rocket fire after showing tremendous restraint over the past few months. They launch airstrikes after the city of Sderot is hammered by multiple kassam rocket barrages. Israel goes after the Hamas terrorists responsible for the attacks.

The onus of the latest conflict is on the very bloody hands of Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorists. Israel is doing what it must to defend itself from the ongoing terrorist threat. Reporting the conflict in the fashion MSNBC does is only aiding and abetting a whitewashing and deemphasis of Hamas complicity in this conflict.

UPDATE:
Pajamas Media has more on the situation in Sderot. Sitting ducks indeed.

UPDATE:
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