Today’s Sderot forecast: 100% chance it’s raining missiles

Twenty-eight Thirty more missiles rained down on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory that Israel withdrew from in 2005 in the hopes of creating a more peaceful existence with the Palestinians. Funny how that didn’t work.

The AP, which can’t bring itself to use the words “over rocket attacks” in the headline, actually manages to get things close to right in the lede. Let’s see how long that lasts.

Israel Closes Gaza Border Crossings
Israel has closed all border crossings into Gaza, cutting off food and humanitarian supplies to the coastal strip in a bid to pressure its Hamas rulers to stop a barrage of rocket attacks on Israeli towns, defense officials said Friday.

Ten rockets slammed into southern Israel on Friday, one damaging a day care center in the town of Sderot and another hitting Ashkelon, a town of 120,000 people. No injuries were reported.

Israeli aircraft fired on rocket launchers in northern Gaza in retaliation. Hamas security officials said two Palestinians were killed – a Hamas militant who had just fired rockets and a 17-year-old civilian who apparently was an onlooker.

The rocket attacks escalated following an Israeli anti-rocket raid in Gaza that left 19 Palestinians dead Tuesday, including the son of a prominent Hamas leader.

CNN takes three grafs to get to the reason why the borders are closed. The highlights manage to blame the rocket attacks, but also highlight Palestinian deaths. The headline?

Israel closes Gaza border, raids West Bank camp

Reuters explains all in the first graf. I’ve been finding them more informative than the AP for some time now. That’s frightening, as the Reuters anti-Israel bias is much stronger than AP’s. Of course, the Reuters headline is a bit more biased.

Israel closes Gaza crossings, blocks aid shipments
JERUSALEM, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Israel tightened its closure of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Friday in response to cross-border rocket fire, preventing even U.N. humanitarian supplies from getting in, officials said.

The decision came after Israel vowed to broaden its military campaign against Gaza militants who have fired more than 110 rockets at southern Israel in the last three days.

What you don’t see in most stories, however, is this:

In Sderot on Thursday, Eliyahu Cohen, 65, was surveying the damage to his home, which was struck during an early barrage about 8 a.m. His wife, Marcelle, had been alone in the house at the time, and had managed to reach a fortified basement room, escaping injury. At best, the municipal alert system gives residents about 20 seconds to find shelter from incoming Qassams.

The rocket crashed through an outside wall into the Cohen family’s kitchen, sending the refrigerator flying across the room and blasting off its door, which lodged in the ceiling. The ground floor was covered with broken glass and debris, and the aroma of sweet Sabbath wine from a shattered bottle hung in the air.

The house next door, where the Cohens’ daughter, Nofit, lives, was also carpeted with glass and debris.

“I’m calm,” said Mr. Cohen, who owns a bus company. “I’m happy that everyone was miraculously saved.” As he spoke, another alert sounded, and about a dozen friends, relatives and local officials who had been standing outside tramped through the daughter’s house, glass crunching underfoot, and crammed into a tiny fortified room.

The New York Times is finally noticing the victims of Palestinian rocket attacks, not just the deaths caused when the IDF goes after the terrorists firing the rockets. Perhaps the AP might start sending around secondary stories featuring the fact that most houses in Sderot are equipped with a safe room, and that Sderot residents will often sleep in those rooms. I imagine they did last night, and the night before, and will do so tomorrow night as well.

But then, even the Times led with this headline:

Rockets Hit Israel, Whose Strikes Kill 5 Palestinians

Uh-huh. It’s that tired old cycle-of-violence syndrome. The cause of those deaths is terrorism, plain and simple. When the Palestinians stop trying to bomb, rocket, shoot, stone, and stab Israelis, the IDF will no longer have to send Hellfire missiles into terrorists’ cars.