AFP got the ball rolling this morning by lining up Israeli West Bank operations and Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza. Because it would be an outright lie to suggest that Israel was in violation of the ceasefire, their intrepid staff settled settled for lining up the two events and linking them with the oh-so-subtle "meanwhile." Not particularly restrained, but still not as blisteringly stupid as what the MSNBC people managed to come up with:

Militants in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip fired at least two rockets into southern Israel on Tuesday, breaching a five-day-old cease-fire. The attack came hours after Israeli troops killed two Palestinians in a West Bank raid. The victims included an Islamic Jihad commander. The militant group later claimed responsibility for firing the rockets, saying the attack was intended to avenge the Israeli operation. The West Bank is not formally part of the Gaza truce. But the Israeli raid could be seen as violating the spirit of the cease-fire.

No it can't. Because when the Gaza truce was arranged last week, everybody agreed that the West Bank was outside the scope of the agreement. The differences seemed plain enough to media outlets when Israeli civilians were getting shot up in the West Bank last Friday:

But at a Friday sermon in Gaza, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the deal did not include a ban on smuggling, and he would not enforce it on militants in the coastal strip. In the West Bank, which is not covered by the truce, Palestinian gunmen shot and wounded three Israeli hikers near the settlement of Neve Tsuf, 12 miles northwest of Jerusalem. one of the men was in moderate condition and other two were lightly injured. The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group affiliated with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Someone should ask MSNBC if that violated "the spirit of the cease-fire." Maybe they just forgot. Anyway, after the jump, more great news about the truce.