Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have unearthed a huge wine press and a ceramic model of a church dating back to the 5th and 6th centuries, the early-Byzantine period.

The huge wine press, the size of a football field, consists of three components, IAA archaeologist Dr. Rina Avner explained.

“A large treading floor paved with ceramic tiles was discovered in the center in which there is a press bed of a screw used to press grapes. Three vats into which the must flowed were revealed along the western side of the treading floor. The collecting vats were carefully designed with slots in their sides that allowed the liquid to flow in a controlled manner and they were treated with hydraulic plaster so as to prevent the must from seeping into the ground.”

The wine was fermented and made into quality wine through the use of compartments around the treading floor. In the second stage the grape remnants were pressed a second time by means of the screw situated in the center of the treading floor, from which plain wine was prepared that was referred to in rabbinic sources as paupers’ wine, she added.

The ceramic model of a church was a rare archaeological discovery and was unearthed near the wine press.

“This object is a kind of clay box that has an accentuated and decorated opening in its broad side,” said Dr. Avner.

“Floral decorations and crosses appear on the other three sides. The roof of the model is fashioned in the shape of a sloped tile roof, and in its four corners are four decorative knobs meant to accentuate the corners. On the top of the roof a large loop handle, also flanked by crosses, was attached for holding or suspending the object. The variety of decorations and building-like features of the object suggest this is a miniature model of a church.”

The model is one of several objects that were used as ritual objects that were hung or placed inside buildings. An oil lamp inserted into it through the decorated opening illuminated the inside of the model.

“Since the crosses also served as narrow openings, the light was disseminated via them and shadows of crosses were projected onto the walls of the building where the object was placed,” she said.

Turns out that GRAD rocket about which we reported this past Tuesday morning was intended to hit the Israel Electric Corp.’s power plant in Ashkelon on Israel’s southern coast. And as happens frequently there are competing claims of ‘credit’ for the failed attack:

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade initially claimed responsibility for firing the rocket, saying it was retaliation for Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat’s death in an Israeli prison on Saturday. The terrorist group, associated with Fatah, had published a leaflet on Monday urging a harsh response against Israel for Jaradat’s death. On Thursday, though, Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack — a claim Israeli officials said was more credible. [IDF Chief of Staff Benny] Gantz, speaking Thursday with high school students in Rosh Haayin, said that Israel knew who was behind the shooting. He added that the IDF was working tirelessly to prevent further such attacks. “More information about our deterrence methods exists, but cannot be revealed,” he said. He said there was a possibility of more clashes with Gaza in the future, but rejected suggestions that Israel was facing a third Intifada. “I do not think we see such a thing unfolding before our eyes,” he said, referring to the recent upsurge of violence in the West Bank. “But the conflict level may rise, so we are prepared and we are convinced that we will know how to contain such events properly.” [Source: Times of Israel]

A November 2012 report said Israel was supplying 125 megawatts of electricity to the Gaza Strip from that same power station in Ashkelon, the one that has come under repeated rocket fire over the past six years. There is a power shortfall in Gaza, chiefly because the Hamas regime which rules Gaza has, as a matter of deliberate and very cynical policy, refused to allow the import of fuel from Israel, resulting in its one and only power station operating at 20% capacity.

Visit This Ongoing War.

Israel’s security apparatus at this point is calling the single missile drop that damaged a road outside Ashkelon “a local event,” but makes clear that the IDF will respond forcefully if more launches happen, the Walla website reports. Which means that the other side gets one freebee. If the reader is in tremendous hurry, we should reveal that the above bit of information is the most crucial, outshining anything else we could possibly report next. Because in societies where maintaining law and order is considered the most elementary part of a government’s duty to its citizens the criminals don’t get a freebee.

You see, on the eve of the “disengagement,” as the transfer buses and the bulk of Israel’s internal security forces were moving in on the Jews of Gaza, then prime minister Ariel Sharon swore an oath, that should a single rocket be fired out of Gaza following the disengagement, “we will react with greater force than ever before.”

Since that promise, Israel has stood twice with its boot on the neck of Hamas and its minions, and twice it let go, each time bragging that walking away from the festering wound that Ariel Sharon had cut open was, somehow, the mature, responsible, even brave thing to do.

Well, here we go again. Eager to show that they’re just as angry as their brethren in the PA over the death in jail of an Arab youngster arrested for stone throwing, Hamas ordered its subordinate gang of thugs, the Islamic Jihad (which is just another name for Hamas, in the end) to shoot a trial missile over the line. A shot across the bow.

Israel is determined to react only to the second one. Which means we should alter Sharon’s famous threat to “should two rockets be fired out of Gaza.” Must keep up with the changing realities.

And IDF sources are saying today that they’re not surprised, that they’d been expecting something like that, it only makes sense, what with all the clashes between a smattering of Arab youths (the PLO is only able to raise a couple dozen rock throwers in each location because its funds have been dwindling—but now, that Israel has renewed the flow of money, they’ll be financing much larger groups).

Here’s a question: If the IDF was well aware that this was coming, how come the sirens didn’t go off in Ashkelon? And how come that glorious expression of the Jewish genius, the Iron Dome, didn’t stop the rocket?

American slang uses the metaphor of a male bovine’s droppings to suggest that a particular statement is entirely unrelated to the truth. In the case of the following disclosure from our brave spokespersons in uniform, the heaps of bovine refuse are high enough to bury the entire bovine:

“This is an isolated incident and not a system-wide decision to return to rocket firing against Israel. It’s merely a few rogue activists who decided on their own to express solidarity with what is happening in Judea and Samaria regarding mostly the issue of the prisoners, which is sensitive not only in Judea and Samaria. We must not forget that there are security prisoners released into Gaza in the Gilad Shalit deal, instead of to their Judea and Samaria homes, and they are engaged in terrorism from morning to night.”

Moo…

Now here’s something a bit closer to reality, another statement, same IDF sources, this time with facts:

A senior security official told Walla this morning that “It doesn’t make sense that while Hamas is negotiating with Israel through the Egyptian, it would be trying to bend Israel’s arm. The launch this morning is against its own strategy. And so, the new reality will be examined over time. If there are additional launches, the IDF will respond with force. There is no intention to allow a return to the time of missile trickles.”

Now the picture is clearer: Hamas, which looks to open up the border passages and increase the flow of incoming goods, including cement (to fortify new rocket launchers replacing the ones destroyed last November), orders its subordinate organization, the Islamic Jihad, to shoot one. The message has nothing to do with prisoners. The message is: we’ll keep the rockets quiet as long as you adhere to our demands. We are in complete control of the rocket fire, no one shoots anything unless we say so – now, do you want quiet or a new war on your border?

Outraged residents of the beleaguered cities of Sderot, Ashkelon, and Kiryat Malachi took to the streets, decrying the government’s decision to enter into a ceasefire with Hamas.

Many of whom had been holed up in bunkers for eight straight days of rocket lobbies and emergency alerts in their cities, the residents demanded protection from the government and urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to conduct a ground war in Gaza.

Almost half of Sderot’s preteens suffer from signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a study that was published this November in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Based on a questionnaire answered by 154 seventh and eighth grade students, it was found that 43.5 percent of the children demonstrated clinical signs of PTSD.

The survey, which was conducted in 2007-2008 during a time period when thousands of rockets had been fired towards Sderot, was directed by a team led by Dr. Rony Berger, a clinical psychologist at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Dr. Berger is also the community services director of NATAL, the Israel Trauma Center for Victims of Terror and War, which released a report in 2011 that 70% of all Sderot children suffer from at least one symptom of post-traumatic stress, and that 50% continue to relive rocket trauma.

Idan Bitton, a 25-year-old student at Sapir college, spoke with Tazpit News Agency this week, relating how life had changed for him when the rockets from Gaza began striking Sderot 10 years ago. “Suddenly, in the middle of class, we would hear a rocket explosion,” he explained. “There was no Code Red [rocket alarm system] then, so we had no idea when the rockets would land in our city.”

Fifteen-year-old Odaya of Sderot after rocket attack on her neighbor’s home, Sunday, November 18. Photo: Anav Silverman, Tazpit News Agency.

“I remember as a student in school, hearing an explosion, and then continuing on in class as if nothing happened. This was a mistake,” emphasized Bitton. “In a way, our passive reaction gave legitimacy that those rocket attacks against us were OK, even acceptable.” Bitton says that the rockets attack dramatically affected his friends. “Most of my friends from high school didn’t stay in Sderot or the south– they moved to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. It was a kind of ‘flight’ reaction to the rockets,” he explains.

But Biton says that he learned in the army how to respond, and take on the ‘fight’ approach. “In the army when I trained to become an officer, I learned how to respond effectively in an emergency situation, and how to take on bad situations and turn them around.”

“It all begins with your attitude and approach,” he said.

But for Idan’s 12-year-old brother, the fear still remains. “My brother was born into the rockets, he doesn’t know anything else. He associates the color red with the rocket warning system.”

“Last week, when I brought my brother to school, he was trembling,” recalls Idan. “He was simply too scared to leave the car because of the rockets.”

“I feel lucky because I still got to enjoy my childhood until I was a teenager when the rocket strikes began—my brother never had one,” he said.

For 15-year-old Odaya of Sderot, the rocket attacks on her city hit very close to home, literally, this past Sunday, November 18, when Gaza rocket struck Odaya’s neighbor’s home. The soft-spoken teenager told Tazpit News Agency, that the rocket attack was “scary” and had left her in shock.

“I went into our family’s bomb shelter as soon as the Code Red siren went off,” she said. “And then as I was standing there, I heard the shriek of the rocket as it flew over our house, followed by a deafening explosion. I thought the rocket had fallen on our home.”

The rocket, which slammed into the roof of Odaya’s neighbors’ house, sent pieces of shrapnel and glass everywhere, reaching also Odaya’s home. The neighboring family was away at the time of the attack, but for Odaya, the experience was scarring.

Elsewhere in southern Israel, children continue to remain targets of Gaza rocket attacks.

In Ashkelon on Sunday, November 18, a group of Ethiopian children experienced a rocket attack on their apartment building, which left two residents wounded and a gaping hole in the ceiling and floor of two apartments.

“The roof exploded open,” six-year-old Eli triesto explain. “We all heard the rocket boom.” Eli and his teenage cousins, Eden and Stav, have been living in the public bomb shelter of their run-down apartment building for five days, since Wednesday, November 14. Beds, blankets, and canned foods pack their shelter. Their mothers’ faces are lined with worry.

Reports indicate that a Grad rocket has hit a children’s school in Ashkelon.  No injuries were reported.

The population of Ashkelon is estimated around 110,000 people.

The 122 mm Grad rockets used in Gaza have a range of about 25 miles, and can reach the cities of Ashdod, Beer-Sheva, Ashkelon, Gedera, Rehovot, Ofakim, Kiryat Gat, Sderot, Kiryat Malachi and Gan Yavne.  Most of the rockets are made in Iran, but some are made in China.  They are believed to be smuggled in through Egypt.

The coastal city of Ashkelon, population 130,000, was hit particularly hard on Sunday. In one attack, a rocket slammed into a four-story building, penetrating through the roof of the stairwell, and continuing on, leaving a large gaping hole in the floor of one apartment, and in the ceiling of the apartment below. Two people sustained injuries from the attack and five suffered shock. The rundown apartment building is home to Russian and Ethiopian immigrants as well as native Israelis.

For Alex Leibowitz and his wife Olga, parents of four, the rocket attack could have had much more serious consequences had it not been for their dog, Louisa.

Alex was home, not feeling well, on Sunday, while his wife had left to work in the morning. At one point, their dog began barking incessantly. “Louisa just kept on nervously barking non-stop and I couldn’t listen to it any longer, so l went back to the bedroom,” explained Alex.

Because of the barking, Alex did not hear the rocket warning siren and remained in his bedroom. Shortly after, a rocket fired from Gaza struck his apartment building, slicing into his apartment door and penetrating his floor, leaving a trail of debris, shrapnel and shattered glass in its path.

A rocket left a gaping hole in the floor of the Leibovitzs’ Ashkelon apartment. Photo: Anav Silverman, Tazpit News Agency

“It was a miracle. Had I gone down the stairwell, having heard the siren, the rocket would have caught me,” said Alex. Residents of Ashkelon have only 30 seconds to get to shelter once the sirens sound.

“It was as if our dog had some kind of sixth sense to know that a rocket was on its way,” added Olga, his wife. “Louisa’s barking kept my husband alive.”

Although the front end of their apartment has been badly devastated, the couple feels very fortunate.

“We have such a good dog,” said Olga, patting Louisa’s head as she now sat calmly on the porch. “We are lucky people today,” she added as she surveyed the large hole in her living room floor. “This could have been a much worse situation.”

Gaza rockets continued to pound Israel on Sunday, with more than 100 striking residential communities and cities, wounding nine people including a rescue service worker, who sustained moderate head injuries from a mortar fired from Gaza at Sha’ar HaNegev Regional Council. Five others were wounded when a Grad rocket struck a vehicle in Ofakim including a couple and their two-year-old daughter. Cars, homes, and buildings were damaged in the rocket strikes and countless people experienced shock and trauma from the attacks.

3:46 PM Sirens sounding in Ashdod.

3:39 PM As of 3:30 PM today, the IDF Iron Dome system has knocked out 184 Gazan rockets, with a 87% successful it rate!

3:37 PM Ehud Yaari from Channel 2 TV: Traffic jam of IAF Fighter jets awaiting to bomb terror targets in Gaza. 

3:23 PM Reports from Gaza that IDF is firing on a motorcylce

3:17 PM England says Israel will “lose support” if a ground incursion into Gaza takes place.  Thanks, send our regards to Her Majesty.

3:09 PM Israeli Member of Knesset Zahava Galon (Meretz) says Israel must immediately start negotiating with Hamas. 

3:04 PM The house damaged in Beer Tuvia was hit by a fragment of a Iron Dome rocket, which blew into the home’s living room of the house through the ceiling. No family members were home at the time and no one was injured.  There is damage to the home.

3:03 PM IDF Radio: Weekend weather is going to be hotter and dryer than usual for this season.

2:59 PM Air Raid Sirens in communities south of Ashdod.

2:59 PM IDF has hit over 30 targets in Gaza in the past hour. 

2:54 PM Cleared for publication by IDF censor:  3 Wounded before in Eshkol rocket attack are IDF soldiers.   1 wounded moderately, 2 lightly wounded.

2:46 PM IDF reports that 510 rockets fired at Israel since the beginning of the operation; only 26 of them have hit Israeli communities.

2:46 PM Reports of a direct strike on a home in the Beer Tuvia region; no injuries.

2:43 PM Israeli police dealing with Arab rioters in Jerusalem’s Abu-Dis and Ras Al-Amud nieghboohd. No injuires reported.

2:38 PM Israeli President Shimon Peres: “No one doubts the justification of this operation, We cannot abandon women and children to the insanity of Hamas”.

2:58: 3 soldiers were injured from a rocket that fell in the Eshkol Regional Council. They were flown to Soroka medical center in Beer Sheva.

2:48: 570 rockets fired since the start of Amud Anan, according to the IDF. Only 26 fell in residential areas. In the same time period, the IAF attacked 500 pre-selected targets in Gaza.

2:45: Shock in Ashdod, Grad rockets injure 15 civilians.

2:42: Missiles fired from Gaza at the Regional Council Beer Tuvia. Damage to property.

2:33 PM Arabs throwing rocks in Ras Al Amud neighborhood of Jerusalem in response to IDF Airstirkes on Gaza.

2:37: Target bombed in downtown Gaza. Smoke rising.

2:36: Another rocket lands on the Gush Dan area.

2:32 PM More rockets land on Ashkelon at the civic center and an industrial park.

2:31 PM Irone Dome intercepted 5 rockets over Ashkelon.

2:30 PM An all out effort on the part of the terrorists to hit the Tel Aviv area. The Al Kassam Brigades claimed responsibility for a long-range rocket fired at Jerusalem.

Oh no. we’re shaking. 

2:27 PM Air Raid Sirens in Ashkelon and central/south areas adjacent to Gaza strip 

2:26 PM IDF returning heavy fire against all areas that launched rockets in the past few minutes.

2:25 PM Air Raid Sirens in Shaar HaNegev Regional Council…

2:19 PM Air Raid Sirens in Yoav Region, Gan Yavneh Area… 

2:17 PM Air Raid Sirens on Ashdod, Gan Yanveh, South Ashkelon area

2:16 PM Rocket Strike hits house in Beer Tuvia region (YNET)

2:15 PM Rocket at Tel Aviv was launched from heavily populated area.

2:11 PM Palestinians sources claim a UN worker was killed by IDF airstike. Unconfirmed.

Unconfirmed report that UN worker killed in air strike.

2:10 PM  Funeral of Yitzchak Amsalem (27) ,who was killed yesterday in Kiryat Malachi by a rocket, was disrupted by another attack.

1:58 PM Sky News says Tel Aviv rockets hit in Ramat HaSharon

1:57 PM Alerts all across South

1:55 PM Be’er Sheva siren.

1:55 PM In response to the rocket attack on Tel Aviv, all public bomb shelters are being unlocked and made available to the public.

1:37 PM Two Missiles hit Tel Aviv. No injuries or damage. Rockets fall in open areas.

Ashdod and other areas hit too.

1:29 PM Sirens in Tel Aviv. Explosion heard in Tel Aviv.

1:20 PM Direct Hit in Be’er Sheva. Damage, no injuries.

Ashkelon. No injuries.

Ein Hashlosha – Injuries.

Hamas claims they are targeting Jerusalem too.