The Israeli military said a total of four rockets were fired Thursday from Gaza. Israeli officials previously refused to confirm any cease-fire deal was in place.

Rockets Strike Israel, Jeopardizing Truce Talk – ABC News

* * *

“Our mujahedeen responded to the Zionist aggression by firing tens of rockets,” Islamic Jihad said in a statement to the BBC.

“The rockets fired today came in response to the occupation aggression against us and does not mean the collapse of the ceasefire agreement [with Israel],” it said.

BBC News – Israeli planes hit Gaza in response to rocket strikes

______

End the brutal and senseless preoccupation with the Jews!

Because impotence and obsession are what Hamas and companies are all about: if only Israel didn’t exist; if only the Jews disappeared (after being plundered — let’s not be in too much of a hurry about this); if only the “occupation aggression” did not include trade throughput, medical assistance, basic utilities deliveries, employment, and so on, then the Arab mind (of the Islamic Jihad) might find itself at peace.

Last spring, scholar Mordechai Kedar noted in “An Open Letter to the Arab League”, “The way you relate to one another is so terrible that we are not sure that we want anything to do with you.”

If as much was true then, it’s certainly true now.  Hamas may value its post-Cast Lead (2009) truce with Israel, but it evidently cannot contain either itself or less encumbered — for being less governmental — Islamic Jihad movements on its own block.

Last night, Israel returned like fire in response to yesterday’s rocket and mortar barrage (the latest news reports four more rockets fired from Gaza today).  That tit-for-tat is an old show: curtain up, please, on the mindlessness, the essential empty thoughtlessness, of Islamic Jihad and the whole bogus mission that has proved convenient for shielding the destruction of other cultures and the theft of wealth (for Gaza, start with the UNRWA annual contribution intended to secure some benefits in qualities of living, and then move swiftly on to Arafat and funds never accounted).

Because of what it really represents, because of what it does to its own constituents and others, because of its self-serving and grandiose delusions, Hamas finds itself in trouble today.

An Egyptian court ruled on March 4 to forbid all activities in Egypt by Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas. The court ruling cuts off all official Hamas-Egyptian ties and closes all Hamas offices and infrastructure within Egypt.

Egypt Bans Hamas – theTrumpet.com

Special interest press bias?

Related: With the Egyptian blockade, is Hamas in deep financial trouble? Well, its employees are complaining about not being paid | Al Bawaba – 3/5/2014; Saudi Arabia declares Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group – McClatchy DC News – The Sacramento Bee – 3/7/2014; AP Interview: Jihadi head says Gaza groups growing – 3/9/2014; Al Qaida-inspired jihadi movement growing in Gaza, says group leader – Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz – 3/10/2014.

It would appear that when it comes to attacks against Israel, which it falls to Hamas to police, Hamas has found itself between a fiercely active and impossibly passive place: it either can’t or won’t stand up to or stall “Gaza’s secretive jihadist groups”; it won’t itself step out from beneath the Muslim Brotherhood umbrella; it won’t step forward to make peace with the Jewish State of Israel but it will allow itself to be cajoled and dragged into fairly begging Israel for incursion and real occupation on the turf it was supposed to govern (x suspect election followed by civil war with Fatah) independently.

In fact, Hamas has gotten itself so into trouble, so isolated between worlds, so caught between al-Qaeda, the Ayatollah, Egypt, and Israel, that I would not be surprised were it to look to the IDF to defend its interests from the local competitors that have infiltrated its writ and compromised whatever integrity and self-possession it once may have had.

Salafi groups have been suspected in the bombings of Internet cafes and music stores, intimidation of Gaza’s small Christian community, the kidnapping of a BBC journalist in 2007 and more recently, the death of an Italian activist in 2011. Salafi groups are also believed to cooperate with militants in the neighboring Sinai Peninsula in Egypt to attack Egyptian and Israeli targets.

Gaza’s Salafis support al-Qaida’s campaign of global jihad, but are not believed to have direct links with the global terror network. In contrast, Hamas says its struggle is solely against Israel.

Al Qaida-inspired jihadi movement growing in Gaza, says group leader – Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz – 3/10/2014.

______

Netanyahu Warns Gaza Militants Against Attack on Purim Holiday – SFGate

Oren: Why Gaza conflict risks wider war | News – Home

Israel fires on 29 ‘terror sites’ after rockets from Gaza hit towns – CNN.com – 3/12/2014 (updated).

Middle East and Terrorism: Mordechai Kedar: An Open Letter to the Arab League – 5/10/2013.

# # #