Terrorists Continue Rocket Attacks As Israel Retaliates

Dozens of rockets have been fired into Israel over the past 24 hours, and Israel responded for the first time in 24 hours with airstrikes of its own against terrorists firing those weapons. Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system has intercepted several of the rockets and missiles fired into Israel, but casualties are rising and so too is the damage:

According to Palestinian reports, two people were injured in the strike. Shortly before the attack, the Popular Resistance Committees' military wing – the Salah a-Din Brigades – claimed it launched two rockets at Israel.

While Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council bore the brunt of Saturday's barrage, Beersheba seemed to be the terrorists' "favorite" Sunday, suffering rocket fire virtually every hour: One of the rockets hit a high school gym, causing severe damage to the building, which luckily was empty at the time.

The terrorists continue firing rockets, including kassams and the more advanced Grad missiles, but some have fallen into Egypt and open areas within Israel.

The strikes came as rocket fire from the Gaza Strip that killed one man over the weekend continued Sunday morning. At least six Grad rockets were fired at Beersheba, one of which hit an empty school building, and at least one of the other Grads was intercepted by the Iron Dome rocket defense system and two landed in the Egyptian city of Rafah. There were no casualties reported in Sunday morning's attacks.

Earlier Sunday morning, four mortar shells landed in the Eshkol Regional Council area and nine rockets were fired at the Ashkelon Regional Council, one of which damaged a building. No injuries were reported in the attacks.

The Iron Dome rocket defense system also successfully intercepted three rockets fired from Gaza in the direction of Ashkelon.

At least two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed in the Egyptian border town of Rafah on Sunday morning, but there was no damage and no one was hurt, an Egyptian security source said.

The source said it appeared the rockets were fired in error.

Since Thursday, more than 100 rockets have been launched at Israel, and that followed the deadly terrorist attack outside Eilat, which killed 7 Israelis. The onus and responsibility for all the carnage that has followed falls entirely on the Palestinian terrorists in Gaza who sought this latest round of fighting.

And once again, it isn't surprising that media outlets have no problem conflating civilian casualties with those of the terrorists responsible for carrying out attacks. It makes Israel appear to be attacking indiscriminately and without regard for civilian casualties, even though the terrorists are the ones who have no regard for any human lives, whether Israeli or Palestinians. The terrorists purposefully hide behind human shields - their fellow Palestinians - because they know if Israel successfully kills terrorists, civilian casualties may well follow and they further know that the media will focus not on the terrorists who were involved in these attacks, but on the civilians. Moreover, the terrorists know that if media outlets see kids injured that will further incite hatred towards Israel.

Yet, several of the rockets that have slammed into Israel have hit yeshivas, homes, and have injured children, including a 9-year old and an infant.

It's all yet another manifestation of the double standard applied to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

And speaking of double standards, it cute how the Arab League blames Israel for escalating the latest violence, when it was on the receiving end of a terror attack that is attributed back to terrorists in Gaza and the terrorists further responded with more than 100 rockets fired at Israel. None of these Arab League countries would ever tolerate any such terror attacks, and none would accept the level of restraint that Israel has shown. After all, in just the past few weeks, Turkey responded to what it called Kurdish terror attacks inside Turkey with a series of airstrikes both inside Turkey and in northern Iraq (another sovereign country). The world yawned at that breach of international peace. The Arab League was silent.

The Arab League ignores the terror attacks against Israel, but focuses on the Israeli response because that's what the Arab League does.

At the same time, Hamas is talking out of both sides of its mouth. It announced it ended the hudna with Israel following Israel's first round of airstrikes following the Eilat attack, but now it wants the UN to take action to thwart Israel's ongoing measures to defend itself from further attacks.

Now, it is possible that Hamas was caught unawares that the PRC was intent upon carrying out attacks and misjudged the swiftness of Israel's response, but Hamas has never ceased in its preparations for renewed conflict with Israel. Its propaganda refuses to recognize Israel's very existence.