Mere Rhetoric: This Summer's War In Gaza - Qassam Attack On IDF Base Wounds 50 Soldiers (Updated: 60 Injuries, At Least 2 Critical) (Updated: 66 Injured, "Unclear Whether The IDF Will Change Its Current Policy")

UPDATE 06 (21:20 PST) - Yeah, no useful news. IDF sources won't say if there's going to be any change in the current policy of pinpoint strikes against terror leaders. We just don't see how that happens politically. No one has been reported dead, so maybe the IDF could even the score with a couple of air raids and an assassination. But if there's no response now and the next time it's a schoolhouse instead of a military base - that seems like the end of the government, and probably of Barak's chances. We're closing this post - any future updates will be in a new post.

UPDATE 05 (20:50 PST) - At least 66 wounded. The count is so high because many of the soldier recruits were asleep in tents - just hours away from a graduation ceremony - when the alarm went off. That means that they had between 15 to 25 seconds to wake up and get to a bomb shelter. Surprising to see the Palestinians firing their rockets at night - their most recent practice has been to fire them in the middle of morning rush hour at Sderot, when the kids on the way to school are out in the street and way too far to make it to bomb shelters.

UPDATE 04 (19:50 PST) - Every time Palestinian fighters launch a rocket attack at Israeli troops - or, far more often, at Israeli civilians - there's a little macro that inserts the phrase "crude" or "rudimentary" in front of "Palestinian Qassam rocket" in media reports. The idea of Palestinians using "rocks and slingshots" against the IDF is desperately important to the idea of poor and innocent Palestinian victims. Except it's obviously not true:

IDF sources told Ynet that there were serious consequences as a result of a direct hit. "Sometimes there are direct hits, and then there are many casualties. That's what happened this time." The tent that sustained the direct hit served as a makeshift meal tent and contained a number of soldiers at the time of impact. Several soldiers in an adjacent sleeping tent were injured from shrapnel and the force of the blast.

Qassams have a 10km range and can pack up to 20kg of explosives and shrapnel. The Palestinians fire them at kids in Sderot almost every single day and certainly every single week. The last barrage - on the opening of the school year - was fired at 7:45am so that the kids would be walking to school and too far away to get to any bomb shelters.

UPDATE 03 (19:30 PST) - AP reports at least two severe injuries. Although you have to dig through them saying that Qassams rarely cause injuries in both the second and the third paragraphs to find that little bit of news. They also state that "Gaza's Hamas rulers have not been actively involved, but have done nothing to halt the rocket fire" which is a demonstrable lie.

UPDATE 02 (19:05 PST) - Ask and ye shall receive. Reuters provides the requisit Gaza Occupation Fetish headline: "Gaza rocket wounds about 30 Israeli soldiers". Technically true, to the extent the rocket was fired out of Gaza and into Israel. But that's kind of an strange way to put it. Equally strange: the first paragraph, which fails to mention that the rocket attack was actually inside Israeli territory and very much implies the opposite:

A rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday wounded some 30 soldiers in Israel in an attack likely to increase pressure on Israeli leaders to take strong action in the Hamas-controlled territory.

Again, technically true since the Palestinian militants were in the Gaza Strip - but very much implying that the rocket was fired in the Gaza Strip. Certainly that's how it comes off to the casual reader who stops at the first paragraph, which is more than 90% of all readers. Even the second paragraph describes the base as "just north of the border" - an interesting way of kind of but not really stating that the base is outside of Gaza. Reuters just can't accept that Israel is out Gaza. They couldn't even bring themselves to write "just north of the border between Gaza and Israel." It's a mental block. Because if they accepted that Israel was out of Gaza, then they'd have to accept that continued Palestinian terrorism and violence isn't "resistance" to anything exept Israelis' stubborn refusal to stop being so damn Jewish.

UPDATE 01 (18:50 PST) - Ha'aretz says it's 60 troops and the base was a full km inside Israeli territory. The rocket scored a direct hit on an empty tent that's used for administration during the daytime. Most are light wounds and shock, although about a dozen are more severe. If the wounds are superficial enough, maybe Olmert can get away with not retaliating. We doubt it though. First, 24 ambulances with screaming sirens rushing to the Negev though - that's not only a hell of an image to minimize, but they could just as easily be heading to a schoolhouse in Sderot instead. What if next time they hate to? Also: Olmert may want to take it easy, but Barak has his own agenda. He's in the cabinet for exactly one purpose: to rehabilitate his image as a security man in the lead up to the next election. Letting this go unanswered...

ORIGINAL - Since the IDF is not in Gaza, this is much closer to "act of war" territory than "resistance to occupation" (although don't expect it to be covered that way). This is what happens when you let seething lunatics target children with rockets for months on end. As infuriating and tragic as it was inevitable given Olmert's refusal to take on Hamas - because nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of his thus far flawlessly executed peacemaking.

Fifty soldiers were wounded after Palestinians fired a Kassam rocket into Israel on Monday night. The rocket struck inside an IDF basic training camp in Zikim, located one kilometer north of the Gaza Strip. The Kassam landed next to a tent in which a group of soldiers were sleeping. The severity of wounds received by the troops, both male and female, varied between them...Twenty ambulances were alerted to the scene, south of Ashkleon, where they are accompanied by two helicopters responsible for evacuating the wounded. The Nasr Salah al-Din Brigades, the Palestinian Resistance Committee's armed wing, claimed responsibility for the attack. The IDF, who confirmed the attack, said that the rockets were fired from Beit Hanun.

Beit Hanun is one of the Palestinians' favorite civilian hideouts. They launch their Qassams from the tops of apartment complexes, and they know that if the IDF comes to get them they can score months and months of anti-Israel media coverage.

That said, precluding a significant heating up of the northern border, the IDF will be in Gaza within two weeks.

References:
* BBC Slips, Proves Liberal Gaza Occupation Fetish [MR]
* Fifty wounded in Kassam attack near IDF's Zikim military base [JPost]
* Beit Hanoun Meme Watch - (1) "Rage and Tears" - Apparently Theats Of Genocide Are OK If You're Really Upset [MR]

Previously:
* Amidst Non-Civil War, Palestinians Find Time To Bomb Israeli School House
* Islamic Jihad Rocket Hits House, Narrowly Misses Pre-School
* Palestinians Still Firing Missiles at Israel