Over the past two days, two Grad missiles and a mortar shell exploded in the southern Israeli towns of Ofakim and Netivot. One landed very close to a hall where a wedding celebration was in progress. Another of the blasts occurred in the Eshkol Regional Council district. At least one rocket in Netivot. Four people were treated for shock.
Since the beginning of the 2011 calendar year, more than 30 long-range Grad Katyusha missiles, short-range Kassam rockets and mortar shells fired by Gaza terrorists have exploded in southern Israel.
"The IDF holds the Hamas terrorist organization solely responsible for maintaining the calm in the Gaza Strip and for any terrorist activity emanating from it," said the IDF Spokesperson in a statement. "The IDF will also continue to respond harshly to any attempt to use terror against the State of Israel," the statement said.
Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Meron Reuven, sent a letter of complaint about the stepped-up rocket attacks to the international body via U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the head of the U.N. Security Council.
In his letter, Reuven wrote that Israel expects the international body to condemn the attacks by the Gaza terrorists.
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In Gaza, Hamas forces not only broke up a sit-in demonstration but they also beat journalists. In Ramallah, armed PA police confiscated journalists' cameras and ordered them to turn off recorders.
Arab activist Omar Barghouti told the Bethlehem-based Ma'annews agency, "Heavy-handed suppression of the youth-initiated and…peaceful celebration of the Tunisian uprising's overthrow of the dictator, Ben-Ali, indicates where the PA's loyalty lies."
"Autocratic, unelected regimes tend to identify with one another, it seems. The glaring difference here, in the occupied Palestinian territory, is that the PA is trying to 'rule' by decree while we are still under foreign occupation. After Tunis, there is no telling when the next Arab dictator will fall.”
While banning rallies on behalf of the uprising, the Fatah movement, headed by Abbas, has launched a Facebook campaign calling for rallies against the rival Hamas movement. Abbas' regime also has been increasingly criticized for turning the PA into a , the same complaint leveled against Mubarak ad the ousted Tunisian leader.
Abbas, who is serving illegally because his term expired more than a year ago, suddenly announced this week that he is planning new elections. He previously has contradicted himself several times concerning his future, saying he will quit and often declaring he will run again.
The PA last year canceled elections that were scheduled for June 2010, ostensibly because Hamas said it would boycott the vote, although the terrorist organization had made the boycott announcement months before Abbas called off the vote.
Although Abbas leads opponents in popularity polls, he has been roundly criticized by PA Arabs for not having established the Palestinian Authority as an independent country as he holds out for Israel to concede to all of his demands.
A poll in December by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research showed that only 27 per cent of respondents believed a new state would be formed in the next five years.
The “Arab on the street” identifies with the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, according to the Los Angeles Times, which quoted Mahdi Abdul Hadi, a PA-based think tank director, as sayng he is proud of “true, passionate and national young Egyptians.”
