A Peek into Others' mind » Items by Yael

Hamas terrorists increased their rocket range on Tuesday morning, striking the city of Gedera for the first time. Gedera, located five miles south of Rehovot (which is in the center of the country for those unaware of Israel’s geography). The grad rocket slammed into a house and injured a 3-month old baby.

I was on the phone with a colleague in Beer Sheva when the siren went off and he had to drop the phone (it was a land line phone and not a cell) and run for cover as a grad rocket hit the city. A second rocket fell in Beer Sheva shortly after.

Kibbutz Ashdot Negev was hit by two rockets, as was Sha’ar HaNegev. Four rockets hit this morning in the Eskhol. 1 hit in Netivot.

Yesterday a total of 40 rockets hit Israeli communities. Wonder what the count will be by the end of the day today?

Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip said on Monday that the general feeling was that Hamas does not exist any longer as a governing body. “All their government institutions have been destroyed,” said a Gaza City reporter. “The Hamas leaders are now behaving like al-Qaida’s Osama bin Laden and [his deputy] Ayman Zawahiri. Their only public appearances are through recorded messages aired on Arab TV stations.”

It appears, from these reports, that Hamas leaders in Gaza are no longer able to maintain contact with the Hamas leaders in Syria. They threw away their mobile phones and went into deep hiding. Thus it came as a surprise to those in Hamas in Gaza that two representatives were being sent to Egypt to discuss a means of obtaining a ceasefire –the representatives are being sent from Damascus.

The leaders in Gaza are also not able to coordinate activity with their armed thugs and thus “The gunmen on the streets are now in charge,” the Palestinian reporter noted. “This is a dangerous situation, because they don’t report to anyone at the top. This has created a state of anarchy and confusion.”

A Hamas source in Gaza acknowledged that the Gaza leaders had completely disappeared from sight and were completely out of contact. He, however, said that Mashaal, the Damascus-based leader of Hamas, was in direct contact with commanders of Izzadin Kassam in different parts of the Gaza Strip and was issuing “military” orders from Syria. “There’s a vacuum in the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip,” they said. “The Hamas leaders in Damascus are now in charge. There’s no one to talk to in the Gaza Strip.”

Hamas has opened their own medical treatment center for wounded fighters and are wholesale pilfering medical supplies from the Gaza hospitals and has stolen a significant portion of the medical supplies from aid shipments that were sent in for the treating of Gaza civilians.

This is not the first time that Hamas has stolen aid sent for the population in Gaza. During the Hamas-Fatah civil war, Hamas commandeered the majority of the food and medical supplies that were being sent in to Gaza and portioned it out only to their fighters and supporters, leaving the average Gaza residents and Fatah supporters in particular, without food and necessities.

In light of this intelligence, Israel sent in today an additional 50 truckloads of supplies (yesterday 80 trucksload of aid went in, and on Friday 74 truckloads went in) in the hopes some of it will reach the hospitals without being confiscated by Hamas.

Slow and careful is the name of the game for our troops in Gaza right now. They are moving forward inch by inch. Slow and careful in order to minimize civilian casualties. With a million and a half people, Gaza is the most densely populated area on earth; The fact that only between 1/5th - 1/4th of the 555 casualties thus far were civilian is nothing short of amazing given that Hamas has chosen to fight among this densely crowded urban population. Slow and careful to avoid the many booby-traps laid on roads and within buildings that Hamas has prepared.

They are moving forward one building at a time, carefully and fully searching and securing each one before moving on to the next. While gun battles raged today between Hamas gunmen and the soldiers, 100 terrorists were killed but more than 100 were captured. Indeed, the goal is to capture the terrorists if at all possible rather than to kill them if it can be avoided.

Gaza City is, of course, the biggest thorn and worry. While Gaza has been effectively partitioned into 3 sections, cutting off transportation of weapons and movement among the terrorists, as well as hindering their communications, one would think that the largest contingent of terrorists will be holed up within the warren of streets and buildings and crush of civilians there. Gaza City has been surrounded but troops have only entered the periphery of it thus far.

The largest remaining weapons supply depots are also likely to be within Gaza City. Many of those weapons are stockpiled in “sensitive” areas –like beside hospitals, in mosques, in schools, and in large apartment buildings housing hundreds of civilians and thus have not been targeted by air or by artillery in order to prevent loss of civilian life. The vast majority of weapons depots outside of the populated urban areas have been destroyed in the air strikes or made difficult-to-impossible for the terrorists to reach for resupplying.

Already, with the small inroads into populated areas, the IDF ground troops have found and destroyed dozens of weapons depots, containing thousands of weapons, that were hidden within apartment buildings and houses and other civilian-used buildings.

Slow, steady and careful wins the battle against terror.

Here’s a video made late Monday night (January 5th) which the capture of the terrorists is described. “The Hamas organization has invested in what I can only describe as an incredible military system across the whole of the Gaza Strip. They store weapons in the commanders homes with women, children next to qassam rockets.”

Or watch via direct link here if the embed does not work.

Comments wanting more information about the possibility of a Jordanian-West Bank/ Egypt-Gaza merger sent me searching through the archives of the Good Neighbors Blog to unearth the opinion on the issue and the rationales behind it from Palestinian participants. Below is a re-post copied off GNblog from June 11, 2007 that pretty much sums it all up quite well:

I am a supporter of a future Palestinian-Jordanian confederation, I will tell you why :

I don’t believe that a Divorce took place between the two nations, what took place was a Separation and not due to a conflict but due to a changement in the geopolitical map. If palestinians wanted the Jordanian forces to leave the westbank in the early 70’s , it’s due to the defeat of the 1967 War… don’t forget black september that came a few years later! Anyways, why do i defend the confederation ?

It’s not a secret that Both Jordan and Palestine share a lot demographically, economically, socially and politically. It’s also not a secret that Jordan never totally cut it ties with the Palestinian people due to very clear interdependencies, Mostly economic! Now come to think of it, when King Hussein decided to give up on the westbank, it was a political decision in order to allow the PLO to finally have an authority and a kind of independence, but the idea was always that After the creation of the palestinian State, a jordanian-Palestinian union was inevitable! ( Check out the 7th chapter of the Jordanian Charter).

Geographically and Politically :

Both the West Bank and Gaza are very important : Gaza has Land borders with Egypt and has natural Gas as well as an opening on the Mediterranean sea ( i wouldn’t give this up) .

The Westbank is a different story : It has all the Water that Jordan lacks, it’s relatively greener than Jordan, touristically, it’s very important, Religiously, it holds a lot of meanings etc….
The most important part : Hundreds of thousands( if not more) in the westbank hold Also Jordanian Nationalities ( more commonly called the Yellow Cards). Strategically, if this union is created, the current jordanian regime will control both sides of the Jordan river ( very important) as well as a major part of the Dead Sea ( Tourism, Potassium, Salt….) and will have wider frontiers with israel etc…

Jordan and Israel already have a peace treaty, if a confederation is created, this peace treaty will surely become stronger and will give moderates a much bigger mandate to rule over this part of the world, The Hashemites will surely not be nice to Hamas and will be very close to Fatah , they both share a very important thing : Both accept israel’s presence and both have signed a Peace treaty with it, both are secular and both have the same enemies…

And now, lets face it, a Palestinian State is never going to be viable on the long run unless one of the countries around it “Adopt it”! Israel will never do so and we really don’t want it to, Egypt has no reasons to do it … The only side that has a huge interest in this ( and this interest is shared) is Jordan! I know both countries very well , most of the palestinians i talked to were not against the idea, they had some fears ( will the Army control us again ? …) but at the end, when i explained what a confederation meant, they Agreed warmly! …as for the Jordanians, they were much more welcoming from the very Highly educated to the Taxi driver, there was a huge ” YES” with a smile on their faces! I even talked to a Bedouin in Wadi Rum, he was like ” Yes, if we both respect each other , Yes, we are Brothers after all” ….

Now , What do i think personally :

I have no problem with being ruled by King Abdallah ! Why is that ? well, i find him Legitimate , his wife is Palestinian, so are his children, and in the future, the next king will most probably be Half Jordanian and Half Palestinian. King Abdallah , with his young age and his ” very little experience in the field ” managed to rule and to lead Jordan towards an international success story! So I really don’t have any problem with having him as a leader!

Economically : it will be a shared interest : who are amongst the Richest jordanians ? I will give you an answer : the Shomans ( Arab Bank) , The Masris ( Paltel, Palmedia, Paltrade, Movenpick)… ( and some others ..) Both happen to be also Palestinians and the Arab Bank never gave up his Palestinian Identity as for Al Masri , Munib al Masri who is a prominent palestinian political figure , was also a Jordanian Deputy before 1988. Take a drive in Amman and try to see who owns the biggest stores and hotels… most of them are palestinians!…Take a Taxi and open the subject with him, he will also happen to be a Palestinian! Now i will give you a few names of places and companies owned partially or fully by palestinians : Pharmacy One ( biggest pharmacy chain in Jordan , Like SuperPharm in israel) , Cozmo , Movenpick Aqaba and Dead Sea, Arab Bank, Intercontinental Hotel, Salad House, Whispers, Popeyes….
Millions of palestinians are Land Owners in Jordan too, eventhough a new Law prohibits palestinians from owning lands in the kingdom, most palestinians have lands somewhere in Jordan , around Amman most of the time…

And now, i personally believe that together we can achieve much more than each one alone on his side! the Westbank is nothing ( sizewise) compared to Jordan and most of it’s residents will easily be loyal to the regime as for the others, they will have no other choice than to adhere! while i might not be for a total union where Jordan controls us, i am for a confederation where everyone will have his Parliement and where everyone will have a certain extent of self rule, while we all share one currency, one economy, one Land, eventually One king, one language, one dialect, One army and why not, one bi national dream…. It seems to me that such a union is nothing but a step that will come ” when the time is right” and that whether we are with it or we oppose it , it will happen , because the Old ” one Nation one land ” idea is slowly disappearing on a worldwide scale…

See also this post where extracts from the Jordanian response to the Palestinian-led initiative are given:

70 prominent Palestinian professors, business leaders, and members of the legislative councils were invited last month to attend a meeting at the port of Aqaba, Jordan. The meeting was initiated by Ex-prime minister Dr. Majali; the main man behind the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty, to discuss the dead peace process in the region and the future political relationship between the upcoming Palestinian state and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The timing of this invitation was very interesting since it was almost 40 years ago that the West Bank and East Jerusalem, fell out of Jordanian hands into Israeli control in the course of the Six-Day War. Surprisingly the idea of a potential confederation between the West Bank and Jordan surfaced again when many members of the Palestinian delegation raised it with the King.

Check it out, very interesting.

Hamas is showing the very first signs of backing down. Conflicting messages continue to come from the various leaders in Hamas but some Hamas leaders are now pushing for a ceasefire –something they violently (as we saw with the barrages of rockets that accompanied their announcement) rejected back when it came time to renew the treaty.

Several Hamas leaders have also now called for renewed talks with Abbas. Remember how Egypt had spent considerable time and effort to put talks in place between Hamas and Abbas a few weeks ago and Hamas refused to turn up at the last minute? Well, now talking with Abbas seems to be on the agenda again.

But it ain’t over until the Fat Lady (or in this case, Fat Guy Meshaal, with skinny guy Ahmadinejad behind him) sings.

The Sudanese Thinker, who is not only a great thinker but also a good friend, has proposed that Egypt take Gaza back and Jordan take back the West Bank. I like that idea. Yea!

I know that none of my Egyptian friends like that idea at all –see the Sandmonkey’s response.

But many of my West Bank Palestinian friends like it very much See this post. Indeed, about a year and a half ago, a whole group of Palestinian cabinet members from the West Bank went to Jordan to propose that the West Bank become a sub-state –that is, a province kind of like the French speaking region of Canada is to Canada –of Jordan (again, because Palestinians had Jordanian citizenship until the 1980s when, following the attempted coup by Arafat’s group during most of the 70s, Jordan stripped them of it) and that Egypt take Gaza. Many Jordanians weren’t terribly wild about it. Unfortunately, Jordan did not agree to it.

On the Yael side of things, I got absolutely no sleep at all. That worked out ok because I had to leave obscenely early but Ema you can relax because I’ve gone and returned without being hit by a rocket. A cat peed on my sofa. Again. It is definitely war. Oh wait, this is supposed to be about what happened in Gaza last night! Right, on with the summary:

The IDF operation continued overnight (Jan.3), with large infantry, tank, engineering, artillery and intelligence forces operating throughout the Gaza Strip, along with the assistance of the Israel Air Force and the Israel Navy.

During exchanges of fire overnight dozens of armed Hamas operatives were hit by the IDF. Approximately 30 Hamas operatives were killed in the fighting last night and another 20 thus far today, making a total of 50. Two senior Hamas commanders were among the dead. IAF planes struck over 45 targets including tunnels, weapons storage facilities, mortar shell launching squads, and a number of mortar shell launching sites. Where possible, terrorists are being surrounded and arrested and brought for questioning, and several dozen have been captured.

Israel Navy boats assisted the ground forces and attacked a number of targets including the Hamas intelligence headquarters in Gaza City, rocket launching areas, and Hamas marine force outposts.

An IDF officer and an IDF soldier were severely wounded during the night. The families of the injured officer and soldier have been notified.

In addition, 28 other soldiers were injured moderately and lightly.

Rockets shot by Hamas continued to strike Israeli cities overnight and throughout the morning, including hitting Ashdod and Sderot. Hamas fired a total of 25 rockets and mortars at civilian targets in the morning, resulting in a number of civilian injuries.

Here’s a video released on what is occurring in Gaza:

Or watch it here if you can’t see the embed.

Right, does anyone know if this program will be available online via Fox or if there is a place to access Foxnews live online? The documentary starts in like 15 minutes and I’d very much like to watch. The documentary deals with a young man who happens to be the son of one of the founders of Hamas and who for many years was himself an active member of Hamas and proponent of suicide bombings and so forth. He has since, however, renounced violence and, I think he also converted to Christianity since leaving. At any rate, he is to give an in-depth look at the workings of Hamas and insights on what they may be planning.

This week Hamas has gone after Fatah members once again. Dozens of Fatah members have been placed under house arrest in Gaza by Hamas.

Fatah officials in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that Hamas militiamen had been assaulting many Fatah activists since the beginning of the operation last Saturday. They said at least 75 activists were shot in the legs while others had their hands broken.

35 Fatah members have been murdered by Hamas this week in Gaza.

“We will kill them all if they try to help Israel bring down our government,” the official said. “We will hang Mahmoud Abbas and Muhammad Dahlan in the public square,” a Hamas official reported.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Capt. Benjamin Rutland announces the entrance of IDF forces into Gaza with the objective of dealing a heavy blow to Hamas’ terrorist infrastructure and rocket-launching capability.

Or watch here

“Our enemy is not the Palestinian people. We will do the utmost not to harm anyone who is not part of the Hamas terrorist organization.”

Support Czechoslovakia! The new President of the Eu, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg has asked in the past, “Why am I one of the few that have expressed understanding for Israel? … I am enjoying the luxury of telling the truth. Let us realize one thing: Hamas increased steeply the number of rockets fired at Israel since the cease-fire ended on December 19. That is not acceptable any more.”

Tonight, leading the EU, he has come out and unequivocally expressed support for the ground operation.

Vacation in Czechoslovakia. Buy Czech products and tell them it is in appreciation for the honesty, clear-sightedness, and guts of their former FM, now the President of the EU.

Here are some things of interest, many of which I didn’t know myself.

Since the beginning of operation “Cast Lead” on 27 Dec 2008, over 391 truckloads of aid carrying more than 6500 tons of aid (food, medicine, medical supplies), and 10 ambulances have been transferred into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom Crossing.

Compared to 2007, 2008 saw a 20% increase in the number of patients from Gaza receiving hospital care in Israel.

During the ceasefire, (June 16 – Dec 19, 2008) approximately 17,000 truckloads of aid were delivered, nearly double the 9,000 truckloads that Gaza had received in the five months prior. In addition to food, gas, and medicine, these truckloads carried in construction and industrial supplies.

The Erez Crossing has remained open since the beginning of Operation Cast Lead to allow in those who need medical care. 12 patients who were injured or seriously ill came through the crossing, including a number of children, and are being cared for in hospital in Beer Sheva.

The artillery shelling was effective in neutralizing the landmines placed by Hamas all along the area close to the border. Artillery shells blew many of those hidden mines up prior to the advance of the ground troops. The IAF hit the main highway that runs the length of the Gaza strip in 3 places which should severely hinder the movement of terrorists from the north to the south and vice versa. It has basically sectored the strip into 3 parts.

Heavy clashes were expected and they’ve already begun as troops entered.

In the coming days we should expect heavy barrages on the south of Israel, I’d say.

Here’s a message from the generally mild-mannered, extremely sweet, pro-peace and love, and certainly far more left-leaning than I am, Liza in a post titled “The Choice of Hamas:”

As far as I’m concerned, they can all go to hell, those bleeding-heart armchair warriors abroad who are far too busy to condemn Hamas when Israel shows restraint in the face of thousands of rockets and missiles, yet don’t hesitate to cry foul when Israel dares to defend itself and protect its citizens. Hypocrites the lot, as you conveniently ignore the truly one-sided atrocities of the world, preferring to save your venom solely for Israel. What of the ongoing tragic situation in Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe is literally allowing his own people to starve to death? Where were your raucous demonstrations against the Russians when they invaded Georgia, or against the Turks when they attack the Kurds? Where is the mad dash for the podium at the UN, the queue of ambassadors patiently awaiting their turns to condemn the leaders of these rogue nations, in the voice that you have seemingly reserved for your blindingly one-sided condemnations of Israel?

Hundreds of Palestinians killed is indeed a tragedy. You condemn the asymmetry with regard to the numbers of casualties, but it is certainly not for lack of trying. Perhaps you would be happier with a more proportionate response; perhaps you’d prefer if the citizens of Sderot and the South had responded by firing rockets into Gazan cities, but I suspect not. …

She has a lot more to say on the subject (you go girl!) and it is a really good read! Feisty, I tell you. I like it.

The Israel Defense Forces has opened a new Youtube channel where it it posting footage of events in Gaza. Below is the latest video they added, showing the Israeli Airforce striking terrorist targets as they are loading rockets into a truck for launch at our civilian population centers. The view is from inside the plane, via the targeting scope.

Here’s the direct link for those who can’t see the imbed.

And here is video of simultaneous aid –food, supplies, medicines, fuel — being transferred into Gaza by the IDF.

Check out the channel as they are adding new video frequently!

A barrage of rockets hit Yavneh just before midnight reaching the furthest north they’ve ever come. In barrages that fell on Ofakim, fully 30 kms from Gaza, a man was seriously injured about 11:50 p.m. this evening. He has been rushed into critical care. These are not southern communities but rather lie in the center of the country.

One of the women severely injured at the bus stop in Ashdod earlier this evening has died as a result of the injuries she received from a Hamas-fired grad rocket landing directly on her and another 5 people — one of whom remains in extremely critical condition. As noted in a previous post, less than one hour ago another Israeli woman was killed by shrapnel from a grad rocket in Nahal Oz. This afternoon a young Israeli-Arab was killed by shrapnel in Ashkelon.

All of the Israelis killed and injured thus far have been civilians.

Given that the Hamas has thousands of rockets stashed away, beyond the many thousands we’ve destroyed in attacks on their storage warehouses thus far, we should expect to see somewhere between 80 - 200 rockets fired at us per day for awhile. They are certainly using up their stash apace at the current rate. It is critical, when this whole thing is finished, however, that their access to a fresh supply is cut off. Otherwise, we’ll be right back where we started again in a couple of months.

In order to cut off the supply, it is necessary to cut off the tunnel connection between Gaza and Egypt. Since Egypt has been quite unsuccessful at curtailing the lively tunnel trade thus far, we really shouldn’t leave it to them in the future. They, after all, are less motivated to seek, destroy, nip in the bud and so forth tunnels since those rockets aren’t being fired at them –they should consider, however,that it is not a given that that will always be the case. We, on the other hand, are very motivated to not have rockets falling on our children on a daily basis.

We certainly don’t want to “re-take Gaza” but I’d definitely suggest we retake the narrow strip along the Egyptian border, called the Philadelphi Route –retake it, keep it, and squash tunnels with a vengeance.

An Israeli woman was killed when a rocket hit in the Nahal Oz region and 5 others were seriously wounded, 1 of whom is in critical condition. In another of the many rocket attacks this evening, a grad rocket hit a bus stop in northern Ashdod (that’s slightly less than 25 miles from Tel Aviv) and wounded 5 people, including two critically.

Hamas fired more than 70 rockets at southern and central Israel today thus far. Earlier this afternoon an Arab-Israeli construction worker was killed by a rocket attack on Ashkelon and 14 other Arab-Israeli labourers were injured, with 2 remaining in extremely critical condition.

Caption: Palestinian children and a man wounded in Israeli missile strikes are seen in the emergency area at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2008. Israeli warplanes demolished dozens of Hamas security compounds across Gaza on Saturday in unprecedented waves of simultaneous air strikes. Gaza medics said at least 145 people were killed and more than 310 wounded in the single deadliest day in Gaza fighting in recent memory.

Hat tip: LGF which notes that this image “has all the marks of being staged. Were these apparently unhurt children deliberately arranged on a stretcher next to a wounded man for propaganda purposes? Notice that the caption is vague about whether the children are injured.”

And this one I saw myself at the Daily Mail on Saturday and was like…ehhhhhhhhh somehow I don’t buy it:

Caption read: A Palestinian carries a wounded child after Israeli missile strikes in Gaza City today

Notice: No sign of blood. No dust. Child perfectly clean and tidy and appears to be, as children that age often do, napping peacefully as it is carried. Notice also the number of photographers snapping away at this child but no one else among the crowd behind seeming even remotely interested and all are instead looking in the opposite direction,which is quite a-typical of what you generally see of crowd behaviour in Gaza or anywhere else when injured are brought through, especially when those injured are children.

One especially wonders given that even Palestinian medics have noted that 7 children under the age of 15 have been killed and slightly more than that number injured in any way and with the vast majority of that small number occurring yesterday and not on Saturday when these pictures were taken.

Deputy Foreign Minister Majallie Whbee on Sunday criticized international media outlets who were not giving sufficient voice to Israel’s take on the fighting in Gaza:

“Some of the foreign media are not getting the Israeli side into their reporting,” Whbee told The Jerusalem Post. This means the international media have often failed to report on the pervasive Kassam attacks that preceded the [current] violence, he said.

“Instead of showing who these terrorists [Hamas] are and how Israeli children are hiding in bomb shelters afraid to leave,” the media outlets are showing Hamas’s side of the conflict, he said.

Meanwhile, Livni rocked in an interview on Al-Jazeera:

Hamas seeks to kill children; it fires at kindergartens, schools, civilians – because this corresponds with its extremist ideology. Our values are completely different,” she said. “We hit Hamas while it takes shelter among civilians… Hamas is indifferent to the fate of Gaza’s inhabitants.”

She pointed out that prior to air strikes on any buildings in Gaza, the IDF phones the inhabitants and warns them to leave the area and then gives the civilians ample time to leave before striking in order to not hit civilians in their strikes.

She went on to say pointedly to Al-Jazeera “”when you show one-sided images from Gaza you’re not helping peace. I understand that pictures which create provocation lead to anger and hostility among the citizens, but we want a better future for this region.”

Egyptian Foreign Minister Gheit slammed Nasrallah and Hizbollah today, stating, “They have practically declared war on Egypt via several satellite stations. The Egyptian people reject and opposes this declaration….I tell this man [Nasrallah]: No, no! Our armed forces can defend our homeland from people like you. Your interest in creating chaos is not in the best interest of the area.”

Damn straight.

According to this article by Khaled Abu Toameh , senior Fatah officials in the West Bank relayed a message to Israel to the effect that they would like to see the IDF “finish off the job” in the Gaza Strip by removing Hamas from power. They noted that they were ready, willing, and (between you and me and the fence post, probably not) able to resume control over Gaza as soon as Hamas is removed.

Given the bloody Hamas coup in the Gaza strip which, by the way, saw far more people die in that intercine violence than has yet occurred in the current battle between Israel and Hamas, the Fatah movement is undoubtedly feeling a bit gleeful and smug at the hits the Hamas is taking. After all, they still have vivid memories of images of Fatah supporters being hurled to their deaths from high-rise buildings and young children being purposely machine-gunned to death in their car as they were being driven to school.

I’m generally not a major fan of Foxnews but they impressed me today with a news story that actually provides background to what is going on now on our Southern border with Gaza –and not just the background of recent weeks or even the past year but going back to 2000. Check it out:

From 2000 to 2004, Hamas was responsible for killing nearly 400 Israelis and wounding more than 2,000 in 425 attacks, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

From 2001 through May 2008, Hamas launched more than 3,000 Qassam rockets and 2,500 mortar attacks against Israeli targets.

Fox did get the numbers a bit wrong. Hamas has launched 3,000 rockets this past year alone and more than 8,000 since 2000 but at least they are covering the fact that rockets have been consistently launched at us in large numbers.

Contrast that to reports coming out from the Biased British Communications (otherwise known as the BBC) which make it appear that Israel has just out of the blue and completely unprovoked decided to attack ‘innocent’ people in Gaza. They aren’t distinguishing in their reports between militants and civilians in their casualty reports, they are giving no real background. In the last few weeks they were not providing coverage of the barrages of rockets Hamas was raining down on entirely civilian population centers in Israel.

All of the frozen veggies in my freezer taste really badly of –fish. Yuck. The fish (frozen salmon steaks) themselves don’t smell fishy when I pulled them out to sniff, being wrapped individually in those plastic “you need a chainsaw to open” coverings by the manufacturer and further sealed in the zip-seal bag that they came in. Nonetheless, my frozen veggies have picked up the scent and the taste and I’m not a happy camper. Euuewwww.

I splurged yesterday on a 17 shek healthy salad where you get to add in all kinds of good stuff and got all 5 of your daily “eat your veggies” servings into it –and then didn’t have time to eat it. I had such a string of panicked students all afternoon yesterday (midterm week you know), I didn’t have time to do ANYTHING other than panic control.

I gave an open-book midterm exam last night that I thought and hoped was so ridiculously easy that I would get to go home early. I mean, I even put which lecture they should refer to for each question –and all the answers were on the slides from the class — or which section of the 3 readings they should look at. I gave them 3 questions in advance that would be on the exam. I gave them answers to one of those questions 3 minutes before the exam started –and that was the question of “help I don’t understand, what is a measure” that I got over and over again during the test –they’ve already taken a research methods course (with me!!) so what the hell?! Was it easy? Obviously not. The last kid handed in the exam nearly an hour after the class officially ended (3 hours of working on it!), making me not leave the university until well after 10. I splurged on the 96 shek cab ride home because I couldn’t face the 45 minute walk to the train and then the wait for the train which only goes once an hour at that time and then the further bus and walk.

Strange, or maybe not, but definitely true. A pair of gay penguins, who were continually placing rocks at the feet of new parent penguins and stealing away their eggs in order to try to hatch and care for them, were banned from the penguin colony at a zoo in a northern province in China and placed in a separate enclosure away from the other penguins. Zoo visitors, however, lobbied for the boys to be able to try their hand at egg-caring and baby-rearing and the zoo managers finally gave in and allowed the pair to try their fins at a set of eggs born to a pair of penguin parents who had a poor track record of not properly caring for their eggs, leading to the eggs not hatching or the babies dying within days. “They’ve turned out to be the best parents in the whole zoo,’ said one of the keepers.

One campaigner who did not want to be named welcomed the move and said: ‘It wasn’t fair to stop them becoming parents and keep them apart from all the other birds just because of the way nature has made them.’

Well, they’ve obviously got a flare for parenthood as their little hatchlings are the strongest, best cared-for, and most well-adjusted of the penguins born in that zoo. Well done, boys!

I can see it happening already and Obama has not yet been installed inside the Big Seat in the White House — the years of investigation, special prosecutors, congressional hearings and so forth, that may be looming on the horizon for President-Elect Obama. Talk about a Clinton First Four re-run.

I’m talking, of course, about the breaking scandal of Gov. Blagojevich of Illinois selling off the newly vacated Obama Senate Seat and the questions swirling as to whether Obama himself was involved in this illegal move in any way. Or in any of the other illegal activities that were undoubtedly going on within the tarnished rather than hallowed halls of Illinois political offices. Illinois, of course, holds the dubious distinction of having three (3!) recent governors convicted of criminal activity while in office –and this doesn’t include Blagojevitch in the count.

Obama and his team have already made some mistakes in the way they are handling his potential involvement. First, it is really dumb to issue statements, as he did in the first days the scandal was breaking, claiming that Obama never had a single meeting or discussion with Blagojevitch regarding his replacement when a pretty easy check of newspaper articles, published in the weeks before the scandal broke, finds a good number of them not only report there having been meetings –”Obama met for several hours today to meet with Gov. Blagojevitch regarding the vacant Senate seat” –but also have a couple of statements from Obama himself on record talking about how the meeting was productive and so forth. Yeah, like a really bad plan to issue a denial that is so easily found to be patently untrue.

Something tells me we are in for four years of hearing about on-going investigations into potential wrong-doing while Obama was serving in the state of Illinois. Where’s my tylenol?!

On Wednesday night I went cat catching. Ronen called me a bit before the appointed hour and told me he wasn’t coming but was sending in his stead a girl “who can catch anything.” I was a bit skeptical. I was really skeptical when the car arrived and out popped a pint-sized bundle of energy who looked about 12. But then she brought out her “special equipment” –amazingly modified cat carriers and a cat-catching box she’d made using one of those plastic supermarket crate bins. She’s been catching cats around Tel Aviv for 10 years and she was an amazing sight to see in action. Ronen and I, people who’ve always prided themselves on having cat-affinity and being expert catchers, often spent 3-4 hours and were excited to get 3 or 4 hard to catch critters in that time. Given that this time we were going after the Beit Knesset crew of the large brood of offspring from the thus-far-untrappable “Cat That Was Known As Tomer But Now Is Called Tamara,” (aka Prostitute Kitty) I was hoping we’d manage to get 3 of them. They have all learned the “escape a trap” tricks of the trade from their Ema, with the exception of one little gray one that loves to be picked up and cuddled. His siblings, however, are as shy-away as you can get whether they are in his “baby” brood of 5 or among the older two batches (yes, Ema worked over-time and produced 3 large litters this year). My jaw fell open as she calmly walked up behind the cats feasting on blobs of wet food and placed the self-made catching box over the first when the first minute. The next one was snagged about 2 minutes after frantic kitty 1 had been transferred, with my help, into a carrier. She bagged 3 within the first 20 minutes of our trying! Within two hours she’d managed to trap 8 previously untrappable cats! Prostitute Kitty was highest on our list for catching but, two more hours of trying, and we finally gave up on her and the 4 baby brood sibs of little gray. At least for that night. We’re going after them again next week.

Amazingly, she managed to catch all but one using her “creep up and pop a crate over” method. We got only one of them in the professional metal “safe-catch” animal trap where the kitty gets lured in to eat the tasty food at the end of the long wire box and triggers the door to snap shut behind. This brood of cats are way too smart to fall for that device. I can’t figure out how she does it! I and Ronen have both tried so many times to creep up and pop a box over feasting kitties and they always run before we can get it down over them. And she wasn’t even creeping, she was sauntering up to them! Quite literally. Some people are horse-whisperers but this girl is definitely a cat-whisperer!

Best of all, she is going to make me a crate-catching-device and so hopefully I will be able to catch Mitzi and Shakhori next time I have to move from one apartment to another. And I can maybe learn to use it to snag some of the critters that roam the street closer to my current apartment and have them “ready for pick-up” by Ronen.

Ronen and I released the 8 last night around 2 a.m. — 6 newly neutered boys and 2 dainty little spayed girls.

I’m worried about Ronen though as he is working himself into the ground, going on less than 3 hours of sleep a night most nights. And this morning, at 7 a.m. he was expecting delivery of 18 cats from Holon to be neutered and spayed today…the poor kid!

Yesterday was my very looooong day at work. I did not, in fact, get home until a good bit after midnight. When I left the house yesterday morning, granted, it looked like rain. In fact, it looked like it would rain soon but given that I expected to shortly be at work, sooner than the rain looked like it would arrive, I didn’t give much thought to footwear. So on went my “nice” black Mary Jane crocs (with socks of course). I didn’t really think about the hole factor –yeah know, those zillions of openings in crocs. I also didn’t think about the fact that, while storm clouds were gathering in Tel Aviv, just a short distance away in Herzliya they were getting ready to drop the motherlode. Still, when I arrived, the clouds just looked black and threatening and so I popped into the library without a second thought. Fifteen minutes later, when I popped back out again, the motherlode was unloading and, somehow a river, fast-moving and deep, had developed between the library and basically the rest of the campus.

Oy.

And I had an important faculty meeting across that great stretch of swift-flowing water. Hoping the deluge might slow down, I waited until I was already 10 minutes late for said meeting before running pell-mell across the campus. Crossing the river that had once been a road and which was flowing at ankle height meant that not only were my feet soaked through to the extent I could have rung a bucket of water from my socks but I was sodden up to my knees by the time I arrived to the meeting. And it was my long day. More than 12 hours with wet feet!

Even a couple of hours after I got home and out of my damp things, fixed a very late dinner, and got ready for bed, my toes were still looking like little sodden prunes.

Statistics I may be good at, but timing is, generally, so not my thing. I’m never on time, for one thing. Tonight though, I was in just in the nick of time getting home for the surprise downpour we had. It was a beautiful sunny day and a very pleasant, slightly chilly, early evening. After I got home from doing work stuff, I went out and fed the cats and then went for a nice half-hour walk in park HaYarkon and then zipped by the store to pick up a few things. I got home just as the rain started beating down, utterly surprising me, as I’d had no idea there were storm clouds a-brewing. Such good timing!

I had a serious hankering for making a salmon filet and it was very handy that I have 4 frozen ones in my freezer. Not so handy, however, was discovering that you are supposed to thaw those puppies in the fridge a full 24 hours before you cook them. No, no, what bad timing for me to get that craving!

Indeed, my cooking timing is just way out of bounds. This is probably because I never really learned how to cook and what I learned doesn’t translate to toaster ovens, microwaves, or crock pots. Take last week, for example. I was talking to my Ema and she noted that she’d just put a bunch of red beans on cooking to make up red beans and rice, a southern favourite. I had one of those “wow” moments because, not having made red beans for something like 4 years now, I had just that moment myself finished setting a bunch of beans to soaking before cooking! My Ema was like, yes so soak them for an hour and then cook for between 1-2 hours. My beans turned out to not be the fast-soaking kind, however. Mine took a full 24 hours before they didn’t look like little wizened game pieces. But I did know that, once soaked plump, it usually takes about 1 1/2 hours to cook — two to be pristine peak. Thus the next night, after soaking to plumpness, I popped them into the crock pot. I was actually doing a cheat and cooking up both red and white beans. I tossed in some chopped tomatoes, a chopped onion (of course), and because they were on death’s door in a use or else situation, a potato and a turnip. Turned that sucker up to high. Two hours later I came by to find extremely uncooked beans. And potatoes and turnips and…oy. So I let it cook until I was ready simply to eat the crockery and finally gave in and heated up an insto-pizza for dinner. Sometime around 3 a.m. the next morning I awoke in fear that the house would burn down (given my electrical situation) if I didn’t turn the crock pot down to low. Well, on low it stayed until the next morning when I discovered –the beans weren’t yet fully cooked, nor the potatoes, nor the…ugh. I turned the whole thing off and popped it into the fridge until I got home from work, whereupon I immediately plugged it in on high again. 6 hours later…still not done. I cooked it on low temp from then on and finally, at 9 a.m., three days after I’d put the beans on to soaking, I discovered, upon tasting, that I didn’t have red (and white) beans southern style to top with rice but…CHOLENT. I’ve never in my life made cholent before but it is one of my most favourite dishes. And, totally by accident, I’d created cholent. My grandmother, who never passed down to me her cholent creation, would be so proud –it tasted just like hers!

So my timing may be off, but, wherever it ends up, the timing is everything!

First, it would be a good plan to actually remember one’s password instead of relying on good ole firefox to pop it in for you else when firefox decides to not be so good and not pop it in, you will not be able to enter very very important sites like your own blog. Ahem.

Second, Harry Carrie and others –your wish was my command and I did indeed observe a second Shabbat. But yo people, I’m going hiking next Saturday unless like the Moshiach decides to pay us a visit between now and then! But on that whole Shabbat topic, wow, imagine my surprise when I got into my account and found like 15 messages waiting in moderation for my Shabbat post for last week, including one from the Rebbe who I’d heard interviewed on CNN and who inspired me to be a good observant girl at least once more in my life (you can watch an interview with him on the Today show here as he talks about Rabbi Gabi Holzberg and his wife Rivka –they were heroes indeed and do represent unadulterated love). Thud. Wow talk about surprised. You can take the girl out of Chabad but ya can’t completely take Chabad out of the girl, or something like that, I guess.

Third, is maybe the attitude toward little cats on the streets starting to slowly change here? Tonight no less than six! people stopped me to say kol ha’kavod for feeding the little animals. And they are really looking fat and sassy too, if I do say so myself. I was especially noticing Rufus Toofus, who got the Toofus added to his name after the whole infected tooth ordeal (his, not mine). Remember about a year ago when I was so worried about him because he had gone from being a very sweet “pet me, pet me, please” tom cat to one we couldn’t catch for love or money for the longest time as we watched him literally starving to death because he had some teeth that were so infected that he couldn’t chew even wet food? Well we’d finally managed to catch him and Ronen took out about half of his teeth. Now, instead of looking like an ancient cat on the brink of death, he is strong and young and sleek –and back to wanting as much petting as he can get! Unfortunately, I was also noticing that there are about 15 cats that need to be caught and spayed and neutered immediately before kitten season is upon us.

Things are pretty hectic with work at the moment. Mid-term exams are next week and I’ve been working especially hard on putting the exam for the stats class together.

I think I’m going to avoid reading the news for a few days at least. Reading about the nuttiness happening in Hebron, the rockets hitting us from Gaza, Barak, Bibi and Livni all trying to out-politic each other and so on is just giving me fits. The next time I even think about checking out the news (which I habitually do, oh say every hour or so) I’m going to watch a bit of a Heroes episode instead. Yeah I know everyone else has been watching this program for like 4 years but I only just discovered it (this is what happens when you don’t have TV). Nice thing is, I have like 4 years worth of episodes that I can watch whenever I want without having to wait a week or a season for the next one! Gotta love the Internet. Seriously gotta love it.

Everyone has heard of the brave and heroic act of the nanny, Sandra Samuel, who saved 2 year old Moshe Holtzberg from the horrors that were unfolding at the hands of the terrorists in the Chabad House in Mumbai. But what she truly did in order to save this child is only just now becoming known and the bravery it took simply leaves me breathless.

Sandra Samuel was on the ground floor when the terrorists burst into the four-story building. She locked and barricaded herself into a room on that floor and hunkered down in terror for 12 hours as the gunmen ranged throughout the building, shooting immediately several of the hostages on the floors above, shooting from the windows and killing pedestrians on the street, killing and injuring people in apartments in buildings next door, killing a tailor in his shop down the street. Hours later they killed more of the hostages. And then there was a long lull in the shootings and noise. In that lull, she heard the baby crying.

When I first heard that she had “scooped up the baby and fled” I assumed that the baby was perhaps in the hallway outside her door or in a room across from where she was hiding. Had that been the case, her selfless act would have still been brave and heroic beyond measure. Many people in such situations of incredible fear for their own life think only of saving themselves, not because they are selfish or bad people but rather they are simply unable to cope because they are so overwhelmed with fear and panic. But the fact of the matter was that the baby was not in the hallway nor in a room nearby on that ground floor by the exit.

The baby was upstairs. The baby was upstairs where the terrorists were. The terrorists had gone up to the roof of the building but Sandra Samuel did not know that when she left her barricaded room and, rather than fleeing out the door to save her own life, crept up those stairs to where she could hear the baby’s cries. She did not know where the terrorists were when she went up into the killing grounds to try to save that little boy. At some point during those first 12 hours of siege, little Moshe has climbed out of his crib and his nanny found him sitting and crying, covered in blood, among the bodies of the victims. It was from this place that she scooped him and fled back downstairs and then out the door toward safety.

I will tell you that, untested, I’d like to believe that I too would climb up into the lion’s den to save a child –my own or someone else’s — but I don’t know if I would have that kind of strength, that level of bravery and heroism. I don’t know if, standing so close to freedom and in such fear for my own life, that I would be able to make myself climb those stairs up to where I would have a very good chance of coming face to face with a maniac with a gun who would be more than happy to slaughter me on sight. I keep picturing this woman, standing there at the bottom of the stairs like a classic scene from a horror movie where everyone in the audience is screaming, “no, don’t go up, are you stupid?!” –and still going up.

That, my friends, is not stupidity but the face of true heroism that simply takes my breath away.

The terrorist attacks in Mumbai resulted in my doing something I haven’t done since I was a child –I fully observed Shabbat to the letter, with the exception of carrying the cat food to feed the outside cats on Friday night and I don’t think that counts as a breaking of the rule because it falls under the protection of preserving life. I didn’t start out the day intending to be “Shabbos” observant.

On Friday morning I got up early and really cleaned my house. I mean really cleaned. It took the lion’s share of the day. I hadn’t done a full cleaning, see, since before I’d had the operation and even then I hadn’t gotten it as clean as I’d have liked. It certainly didn’t last for these two weeks either. Around 3 p.m. I took a break from cleaning and put CNN on the computer. I came into the streaming broadcast just as a Lubavitcher Rebbe was being interviewed regarding the then on-going siege of the Chabad House in Mumbai. It was during this interview that the word came through that the Rabbi, his wife and the other hostages, had all been killed. The Rebbe that was being interviewed then asked two things. First, that if you are Jewish, that you light Shabbat (Shabbos) candles that night, even if you never do so, in their memory. The second thing he asked was that, since (well now yesterday) Saturday was the 2nd birthday of the now-orphaned little boy of this brave Rabbi and his wife, that people around the world and regardless of faith give him the birthday present of doing a mitzvah (good deed) –whether it is giving to the charity of your choice, helping out a neighbour, or even just smiling at a stranger, –anything you can think of to make the world a better, kinder, more loving place.

After the interview finished and I was sort of straightening up some more stuff around the house, I thought, “yes, why not? Why not light candles tonight?” And then I thought, “Why not do it properly? Do the whole shabang?” And I decided on the spot that I would. I don’t think (at least I don’t think I think) that it matters one whit whether one observes Shabbat (or whatever equivalent in other religions). But I do think that it would matter to Rivka and Gavriel Holtzman. It just really felt to me like the right thing to do, the best way to honour their memory and all the other lives lost, criminally lost. In large part because by celebrating Shabbat as a Jew I was carrying on one of the very things the terrorists were fighting to wipe out. By celebrating Shabbat, which is symbolically in essence the celebration of the miracle of life and love and goodness and commitment for a better future, it is absolute defiance and rejection and maybe a tiny countering of the evil that so obviously exists in this world. So I checked candle-lighting time and I threw together enough salad for Friday evening and Saturday and tossed a bunch of vegetables, water, and instant fake chicken soup into the seer bishul (newly purchased crock pot) and got ready to celebrate Shabbat the traditional way. I’m really glad I did for, whether it did anything for the world or not, it certainly did a lot for me in terms of real physical and mental rest. When Shabbat was over, I made a donation to Chabad of Mumbai Relief which has been started to help rebuild the Chabad center in Mumbai and to raise funds for the care of little 2 year old Moshe Holtzman and his brother who is here in Israel undergoing treatment for an illness (their oldest child died a few years ago at age 3 from a genetic disease). I am also looking for a reliable charity to donate to that will directly help the citizens of Mumbai to recover from this horrific and really incomprehensible attack on life and civilization and humanity. If you know of one, please let me know!!!!

The news is going from bad to worse as word is coming in from the terrorist attacks that are still ongoing in Mumbai, India. At least 10 different places have been attacked, all across the city, including a hospital, a railway station, a popular cafe, a police station, and two of the most prestigious hotels in the city. There are hostage situations in both the Taj Hotel and the Trident. More than 900 innocent civilians have been injured and 80 killed and those numbers will certainly rise.

The terrorists fired automatic weapons indiscriminately into crowds of people. In many of the places attacked, they also lobbed grenades. They have indiscriminately maimed and killed so many men, women, and children. It is simply horrifying. We have words like evil and depraved but we really don’t have a vocabulary to describe the depths of depravity for acts like this where just soulless terrorists seek to kill as many innocent civilians as they can. We, who have experienced so many suicide bombings and terrorist attacks against our civilians, grieve with the family and friends of the victims. We grieve with the people of India and share your horror at these heinous acts. My heart is with the people of Mumbai tonight.