The lawless border region between Israel and Egypt in the Sinai desert was apparently the location of several rocket launches that struck southern Israel early Saturday morning.
Two major Israeli newspapers are reporting that rockets fired from Egypt have hit Israel.
“Terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula launched rockets into Israel Friday night,” reports the Jerusalem Post. “The rockets fell near an Israeli village on the southern border, causing some damage, but no injuries.”
The Israeli daily Haaretz reports, “Rockets fired from direction of Egypt toward Eshkol Regional Council.”
It appears no damage was reported in connection with the rocket fire from Egypt. Earlier today, the Egyptian prime minister visited Gaza to express solidarity with the Palestinians there.
Terrorists in the Sinai operate relatively freely due to their friendship with the tribes in the area. President Morsi has made a half-hearted attempt to rein them in, but the Egyptian army is hamstrung — and reluctant — in going after the extremists.
The real danger now comes from the use by Hamas of longer range rockets that have hit Jerusalem and Tel Aviv:
This new front comes a day after a rocket landed near Tel Aviv and on the same day Israel’s capital Jerusalem was the target of rocket fire. Those attacks were courtesy of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“After Tel Aviv metropolitan area, capital under fire too: An air raid siren was sounded in Jerusalem and surrounding communities early Friday evening. After residents reported hearing blast sounds, security forces confirmed that one rocket had landed in the Gush Etzion area near a Palestinian village,” Ynet reports.
“There were no reports of injuries or damage. This was the first air raid siren sounded in the area since the IDF launched Operation Pillar of Defense in the Gaza Strip. Air raid sirens were sounded in southern communities throughout the day and a barrage of missiles hit the area.”
With the Israeli government upping their call up of reservists from 30,000 to 75,000, the prospect of a ground attack to destroy the terrorist’s ability to threaten civilians have gone up considerably. The difference between today and the last time the Israelis launched a ground attack into Gaza in 2008 is that Egypt now has an Islamist government.
President Morsi sent his prime minister to Gaza on Friday to demonstrate “solidarity” with Hamas. No doubt the unpredictability of Egypt’s response to a ground attack in Gaza is causing much concern in the Israeli cabinet. But in the end, they will do what is necessary to protect their population from the constant rocket bombardment — more than 850 in 2012 before the latest barrages.
My prayers are with Israel.
The CFR American government sent my tax monies to the Muslim Brotherhood the ememy of Israel. I do not condone that.
I think Hamas is waiting for the ground war. They are getting hammered from the air and their missile force, what is left of it, is having small effect. They are hoping to mire Israel into a high cost street fighting battle with high casualy rate among civilians. Then they can negotiate a cease fire back to status quo while they resupply through the strategic reserves in Sinai.
Guessing from my armchair given the modest nature of call up thus far, mostly engineering reserves, Israel will limit gound operations which will be more like targeted raids against defined targets. They will not try to hold gound or launch a massive assault to overthrow Hamas.
There has been effective control of information from both sides but in these times the propaganda war is critical. Israel is doing much better than in the past. Most important is that the Israeli public is supportive of the operation. From what I have read Tel Aviv bubble is functional but air raids having some impact. People still went out last night and business is still going on. The bars and cafes (a critical marker of normal there) were open with maybe 30% loss of business.
It has been many years since I saw this kind of calm determined response from Israel. If Hamas is not pissing in their boots at this point they ought to be. Obama apparently trying to open a back door through Turkey which is about as dumb as you can get. The Turks have no traction in Gaza, Egypt, or Israel having blown all those channels with blustery rhetoric backed by taffy.
When Erdogon can deal with Syria then he will have done something.