80 Rockets, Shells Fired From Gaza And The World Is Silent On The Barrage!

Why not?  After all the victims are Jews not Arabs.  After all to the UN, the Lame Stream Media, the State Department, only Arabs can be victims.  Jews are never to be considered victims no matter how many rockets are fired, how many babies are murdered.

New salvos hit the south Wednesday afternoon; school canceled for the day; residents ordered to stay close to ‘secure rooms’; three foreign workers hurt in morning hit on chicken coop.

Palestinian terrorists in Gaza continued their rocket assault on Israel Wednesday afternoon after a three-hour pause in the attacks, which have seen dozens of missiles target the south in the past two days. More than 80 rockets and shells had been fired into Israel Wednesday by late afternoon.

Israeli leaders warned of a much intensified military response if the attacks continued. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of “a more extensive” response. Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the army was ready for “a far, far greater and wider response.” Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said Israel would not maintain its restraint for many more days, and that Israel was “facing a serious escalation.”

A salvo of eight rockets fell on Hof Ashkelon just after midday, shattering the quiet that had descended for a few hours after a series of rocket attacks in the morning. Another two projectiles were fired at the Hevel Eshkol area. In late afternoon, another missile strike was recorded. There were no reports of injury or damage in the latest attacks.

Three foreign workers were injured, two of them seriously, in Wednesday morning attacks when a rocket hit the chicken coop they were working in, and several houses were damaged by other missiles. At least two other people were reported lightly injured in the strikes. Some of those hurt in the attacks were flown by helicopter to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba.

School was cancelled in areas close to Gaza on Wednesday, and residents were told to remain within 15 seconds of “secure rooms” in case of further attacks.

Netanyahu, on a tour of the Iron Dome missile defense facility near the coastal town of Ashkelon, said, “It was not Israel that initiated this escalation, but if it goes on we are prepared to take far more extensive action.” Those who fire on Israel, he said, should know that “they have sealed their own fate.”

He also promised to fortify every building in communities 4.5 to 7 kilometers from the Strip, where until now only educational facilities had been protected.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, speaking to Army Radio, said, “There are about 1,700 households that need fortification, but that said, the situation was a lot more difficult in the past because there was no Iron Dome.”

On Wednesday morning, Iron Dome intercepted seven Grads fired at Ashkelon. In the afternoon the system stopped another missile fired at the city.

France sharply condemned the rocket fire on Israel, urging restraint from both sides.

Since Tuesday afternoon Palestinian terror groups in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip have fired dozens of rockets and mortar shells at southern Israel. The incoming missiles were a mix of Gaza-produced Kassam missiles and military-grade Grad rockets that have a longer range and larger warhead.

The IDF has responded to the barrages by targeting terror cells and Hamas installations in the Gaza Strip. Three Palestinians were killed in overnight airstrikes.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz called a meeting Tuesday to assess the situation and toured some of the sites that were hit in attacks.

Barak said he could not rule out a ground invasion if fire continued. “If we need a ground operation there will be a ground operation. We will do whatever necessary to stop this wave” of violence, he told Army Radio on Wednesday.

“It’s important for the government to think before it decides. This move will bring escalation and not peace — there is no way to reconcile with the terror from Gaza. We are considering everything we need and examining everything. If there will be no choice and the fire continues, they will be struck hard, nothing is impossible,” he said.

Liberman said Israel was facing “a serious escalation” in the south. Speaking before a meeting with visiting EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, he said the situation was “unacceptable” and that Israel would “not suffer” the ongoing rocket fire for much longer.

Source

I wonder if France would be as accommodating if it were their cities being bombed, their people being killed.  Oops, I forgot, they were when Germans were doing it.

I also wonder how long will Israel go until they send in ground troops to finish the job they started in Operation Cast Lead.  An operation they stopped to be nice to Barack Hussein Obama and not have riots at his inauguration.  Bad move.

Pray for the people of Israel under constant barrage from Gaza.  And if you can, throw a few dollars, Euros, etc... to the people of the Sderot Media Center.  Serving the people of Sderot and Southern Israel for over a decade.  Just click here.

Silence

Silence is golden whether it is a parent trying to get the children to sleep, a librarian trying to quiet down a bunch of rowdy teenagers, or a Prime Minister keeping the details of negotiations a secret.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sat in front of the Israeli press for 45 minutes here on Wednesday, just a few hours after meeting US envoy George Mitchell in London and deflected with great acumen the journalists' repeated attempts to pry out of him any real piece of information about what happened during their four-hour meeting.

One journalist after the next asked the prime minister the same question, but from a slightly different angle: What was agreed upon regarding a settlements freeze?

But try as the journalists may, Netanyahu would say nothing - nothing - about the agreement that is apparently being stitched together.

Much has been written about the purported agreement, with one paper saying that the settlement freeze was linked to a tougher American position on Iran, and another paper saying Netanyahu agreed to a nine-month freeze.

But these reports were largely based on speculation, or on third- and fourth-hand information, because the principles are simply not talking.

The reason for the silence, sources in the Prime Minister's Office explain, is because the negotiations are at such a delicate and sensitive stage that one leak could bring the whole agreement down.

And while there is undoubtedly something to this, there is certainly much more to the prolonged silence - the veritable drought of information on the US-Israeli discussions - and it has to do with Israeli domestic politics.

Netanyahu, a former commando in Sayeret Matkal, wants to capture the hill without those defending it knowing that he has even arrived.

The less that comes out about the duration of a settlement freeze, or what exactly it will entail, the better it is for Netanyahu from a tactical political standpoint.

There is American phrase that comes to mind: Holding one's cards close to the chest.

Netanyahu is a shrewd man. He can't give Obama and the Arabs what they want, but doesn't want to appear wanting to destroy the "Peace Process". He has to keep the hardliners in his party happy, while preparing an ambush for his political enemies.

Is he bluffing with a pair of deuces, or is he holding a Royal Flush? His opponents can only wonder and guess, while he just sits with his silence.

At a certain point, however, Netanyahu will have to unveil the agreement, and when he does he will certainly face blistering criticism from the Right both in his party, the coalition, and outside of it.

But he will unveil the plan when he sees fit, highlighting what he sees fit, and couching it in terms that will certainly win over much of the public.

And by that time he will be standing squarely on the hill, and his detractors will be able to do little but scream - noise that he will easily deflect.

Netanyahu and his team spoke with Mitchell and his team for four hours on Wednesday. Major diplomatic moves are afoot, with the public knowing little about the details.

And this suits Netanyahu just fine. His hope is that when the details emerge, and his political opponents begin to organize, it will by then be too late: the hill will already be in his hands.

When the smoke clears we can hope and pray that Netanyahu will pull off the Royal Flush or will have capitulated under the pressure from Obama.

Or he just might pull off the greatest bluff of all time.