More than 200 Rockets fired at Israel

Tuesday: “Israel and militants in Gaza agreed to cease hostilities Tuesday after Egypt brokered a “mutual truce” following four days of bloodletting which left 25 Gazans dead,” reports Agence France Presse. “Under the agreement, which came into force at 1:00am (2300 GMT on Monday), both Israel and militants from Islamic Jihad — responsible for the lion’s share of rockets targeting southern Israel — agreed to hold their fire, an Egyptian intelligence official told AFP. Israeli officials and Islamic Jihad both confirmed that a deal was in place.” The Jerusalem Post is reporting that 7 “projectiles” were fired at Israel after the cease-fire went into effect. Please pray that the cease-fire will hold and these radical Islamic terrorism will stop.

“Data from the most recent bout of escalation in southern Israel which ended on Tuesday morning when an Egypt brokered ceasefire came into effect revealed that some 222 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip over the last four days, the Iron Dome system logged 56 successful interceptions and the IDF carried out 37 strikes within the Gaza Strip,” reports Ynet News. Here is an interesting breakdown of the month-by-month numbers of rocket attacks against southern Israel over the past year. Israel saw a record number of tourists coming in February. What will March numbers look like?

Monday: “The current round of fighting between the IDF and Gaza terrorists is increasingly appearing to be unprecedented in terms of the number of rockets directed at Israel, military officials say,” reports Ynet News. “The IDF has registered some 200 rocket launches from Gaza and is characterizing the attacks as a dramatic development in terms of the quantity and rate of the fire. ’In the first three days of the current round of fighting we’ve sustained a larger quantity of rockets than the quantity fired at Israel in the two previous rounds, in August and October, which were longer,’ an army official said. More than 50 of the rockets fired in recent days were medium-range missiles and most attacks were carried out by the Islamic Jihad, the army said. The IDF said that at this time there is no indication of attempts to target central Israel with long-range rockets.” The Israeli Air Force continues to retaliate, and Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed Monday to escalate attacks in Gaza if rocket attacks don’t stop. For the first time in the new round of fighting, Netanyahu hinted at a possible ground war. ”The IDF is ready to expand its operations and continue them as necessary.” Notably, the U.N. has not yet denounced the Palestinians for these 200+ terrorist attacks against Israel’s civilian population.

Joel Rosenberg