Israeli killed by Kassam hit on Sapir College in Sderot

A student at Sapir College in Sderot was killed and one other person wounded by shrapnel after a Kassam rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit the western Negev campus.

Palestinian men gather around the wreckage of a car that gunmen managed to flee after an IAF missile strike near Khan Younis, Wednesday. Photo: AP

Slideshow: Gaza violence At least five other people were reported in shock. Army Radio reported that everyone present on the college campus was being shepherded into sheltered areas.

The rocket that struck the college's parking lot was one of a barrage of six fired late Wednesday afternoon, two of which landed in Sderot. One rocket hit and caused severe damage to a residential building in the city's Neveh Eshkol neighborhood. No one was wounded.

A total of 22 Kassam rockets were launched at southern Israel Wednesday afternoon from the Gaza Strip.

Earlier, a barrage of 11 rockets slammed into Sderot, sending four people into shock. One hit a factory cafeteria shortly after some 100 workers had left the room. The building sustained serious damage.

Earlier, an IAF air strike targeting a minivan in southern Gaza killed five Hamas gunmen, including a senior rocket engineer and a regional rocket squad commander, the group said.

Two other gunmen were wounded in the attack, Hamas said, as the vehicle drove on Gaza's coastal road near Khan Yunis, on its way to a Hamas training base.

Minutes after the first explosion, another missile struck a car nearby. Witnesses said the gunmen had abandoned that vehicle for the minivan shortly before the strike. There were no casualties in the second attack.

The IDF confirmed the attack, saying it had been conducted in cooperation with the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and was targeting gunmen. It gave no further details.

Meanwhile in the West Bank, a Palestinian fugitive was killed, another was critically wounded and two others were lightly wounded when special police forces fired at them in Nablus.

Security forces said they had fired at five Tanzim operatives after they tried to escape arrest. The four who were wounded were evacuated to hospital by the forces, while the fifth was arrested. The army said the group was planning an attack against Israeli targets, Israel Radio reported.

In an earlier incident, Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip claimed that an Islamic Jihad operative was killed by the IAF Tuesday overnight. According to the report, the man was killed when aircraft fired at a group of Islamic Jihad men at an observation post.

The army denied involvement, saying a man had approached the Gaza-Israel border fence late Wednesday and that soldiers had seen an explosion, likely caused by explosives he was carrying.

The army said it had arrested 17 Palestinian fugitives in the West Bank Tuesday overnight. The suspects were being interrogated by security forces. Soldiers also confiscated three Molotov cocktails from Palestinians near Jericho

I think this may end up being a bigger news story than what people initially think. There has been ALOT of chatter in recent months within Israeli political and military circles of a massive ground operation in Gaza with the aim to topple Hamas. The residents of southern Israel have been clamoring for such an operation.

However, these unguided quassams have, fortunately, have caused little in the way of fatalities, thus little in the way for justification for such an operation (as if firing rockets into populated areas isn’t justification enough). With this barrage today and the resulting fatality, may be what forces Olmert’s hand. We shall see.

The Arabs have got Israel trapped in an unwinnable war of attrition for as long as :

- the world depends on their oil.
- the UN general assembley continues to be dominated by the muslims and their oil-dependent friends (and that’s practically every member of the UN).

Under this condition, Israel is not allowed to win the war against the Arabs. That’s why it’s always fighting with one hand behind its back. That’s why it’s so reluctant to launch a full-scale war to wipe out Hamas or the Hizbollah. Whatever gains that could come out of any war is only temporary before it’s pressured to give it all back by the UN.

There’s only one way to win the war, and even that doesn’t guarantee anything for long. That way is to totally ignore international condemnation & possible sanctions, risk an all-out war with the Arab nation and their muslim friends, risk the lives of Jews outside Israel, and pray that somehow its small-country economy will survive all those consequences.

Now who wants to volunteer to lead Israel out of its predicament?

[When will this madness stop?]

When Israel becomes an orphan nation and no other nation will stand with her and she is desperate to survive and turns to the Lord God and His only begotten Son Jesus the Messiah of God at the end of the 7 year tribulation when Jesus of Nazareth will be total King of All the earth, then Israel will have peace from all the heathen of the world.
Search the scriptures and beleive God’s testimony and you will understand. Or, as the LORD GOD of Hosts has plainly stated in HIS Word,

Zechariah 12

1. The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4. In that day, saith the Lord, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5. And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the Lord of hosts their God.
6. In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.
7. The Lord also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah.
8. In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them.
9. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
10. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
11. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.

Note especially,
3. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.

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