Ceasefire Continues to Hold

The ceasefire has continued to hold since the morning of Sunday 14th May despite another rocket being fired into Israel on Sunday evening. Palestinian terrorists claim that rocket was fired due to a technical malfunction.

The ceasefire came into effect following a shaky start shortly after 10pm Saturday evening, when the day had seen more salvoes of rockets fired at different areas of Israel and more Israeli air strikes against terrorist targets in Gaza. That fighting brought the total number of rockets fired towards Israel to more than 1200 and saw the death of a second person in Israel. But ironically, it was a man from Gaza who died while working in Israel under permit – as do thousands of Gazans.

That incident highlights the indiscriminate nature of the terrorists’ rocket fire which can hit anyone in Israel. It is one of the gross errors of our time that the United Nations and world leaders call upon Israel to stop firing first, rather than putting pressure on the terrorists to stop launching rockets. It seems that firing rockets into Israel is acceptable to many people in the world.

Here is Monday’s report by ILTV News:

On Thursday and Friday the Israelis continued their strategy of targeting terrorist leaders, in the morning of Thursday killing Ali Ghassan Ghali, the commander of Islamic Jihad’s rocket forces, and then in the afternoon his deputy, Ahmad Abu Deka. In response, the terrorists achieved one major strike during Thursday evening when a rocket hit an apartment in Rehovot, killing an elderly woman and injuring several others.

It was Wednesday afternoon, 10th May, that saw the main surge in the latest round of fighting, following Israeli air strikes before dawn on Tuesday 9th May, which launched a surprise operation named ‘Shield and Arrow’ as a response to the barrage of more than 100 rockets fired at Israel during the previous week.

That operation targeted Islamic Jihad terrorist leaders in Gaza as well as some weapons-manufacturing facilities. Three terrorist leaders killed in the strikes were Khalil Bahitini, commander of the Al-Quds Brigade in Northern Gaza, Tarek Az Aldin, director of Islamic Jihad operations in Judea and Samaria, and Jahed Ahnam, who coordinated money flow and weapons transfers with Hamas. Palestinian sources said a total of 13 people were killed and 20 injured in the strikes.

After a tense wait for any retaliation by the terrorists, some rockets were fired at communities in the south of Israel early on Wednesday afternoon and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) struck back at the rocket launchers. Those early volleys were followed by many more, so that by 4pm a total of 270 rockets and mortars had been launched at Israel.

The IDF said that only 205 of those projectiles crossed the border, with 65 falling short. 62 of the 205 were intercepted by the Iron Dome defence system, 3 landed in urban areas and the rest landed in open areas.