Upwards of 600 rockets are believed to have been fired “into” Israel from the Gaza Strip since Friday night – which is when the Israel Defence Forces seized the initiative and went to war against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

For the reader who has not been following events, they unfolded as follows:

Israel’s security forces have been working in recent months to limit efforts by the Gaza-based Palestinian Islamic Jihad to recruit followers among the stateless Arabs in Samaria and Judea.

These efforts have proven successful, incensing the PIJ.  Then, on August 1, Israel took a senior leader in the organisation, Sheikh Bassam al-Saadi, into custody.  It is thought likely that Israel’s Shin Bet internal security services would have been working on al-Saadi to gather vital intelligence needed to combat the PIJ in both “the West Bank” and in Gaza.

The PIJ reacted with fury to the sheikh’s arrest, and vowed in increasingly violent terms to unleash hell against Israelis – to bomb and kill Jews in the heart of the country.

As fears of an attack grew, Israelis living in proximity to the Gaza Strip were to all intents and purposes incarcerated in their homes for four days by order of the IDF. Farmers were banned from caring for their crops and fields. Their anger at being held hostage to Arab terror in this way was directed against Israel’s interim government which – it is thought also out of electoral considerations – decided to go to war against the PIJ in Gaza.

Israel’s leadership publicly proclaimed Friday that it would not let any attack on its citizens go unanswered, and launched “Operation Breaking Dawn” against the PIJ.

Dead: PIJ commander in northern Gaza, Tayseer Jabari, and Khaled Mansour, PIJ commander of the Southern Gaza Division. Photo: Majdi Fathi/TPS

In the course of the action, the IDF succeeded in killing the two senior-most leaders of the organisation – Taysir al-Jabari, commander of the Islamic Jihad’s northern division, and Khaled Mansour, commander of the southern division.

From Friday night through Sunday afternoon, the PIJ fired hundreds of rockets, launching them from behind the human shield of their own civilian population, and directing them deliberately at Israel’s civilian population – a double war crime.  Over 100 Israeli properties have reportedly been damaged by the rockets.

Israel does everything possible to avoid causing civilian casualties among the Arabs. In vivid contrast to Muslim values, the significance the Jews place on human life is very high. Also, in these conflicts, images of dead or wounded Arab children are used to galvanise global opinion against Israel – something the Arab side knows, and cynically exploits.

Thus were images of dead children in one of Gaza’s residences used on Saturday to provoke international condemnation of Israel.  These innocent children were “the victims of brutal Israeli aggression” according to not only the PIJ spokesman, but also to Israeli Arab Knesset Member Ahmed Tibi (a virulent anti-Semite).

After carefully checking the reports and going over its coverage of the conflict, the IDF published an unedited video Sunday showing clearly how a PIJ missile had misfired, gone off course, and hit the building, killing the Arab children who were inside.

“Israeli security forces did not strike in Jabaliya in the past few hours. It has been unequivocally proven that this incident was the result of the misfiring of a rocket launched by Islamic Jihad,” stated the IDF.

Watch this failed rocket launch which killed children in Gaza.

This barrage of rockets was fired by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in Gaza last night.

The rocket in the red circle misfired, killing Palestinian civilians—including children—in Jabaliya in northern Gaza. pic.twitter.com/55zSU3fsRY

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) August 7, 2022

At least two more Palestinian Arabs were killed in another, separate, rocket misfiring incident.

While the IDF had let it be known Sunday morning that it was prepared to keep fighting the PIJ for at least a week, massive international pressure is mounting for a ceasefire between the parties.