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.

They keep saying that they are working to change things. But I don’t believe a word of it. According to the Jerusalem Post The Meah Shearim crowd is working with Charedi volunteers in the fire fighting establishment to prevent such occurrences in the future.

What kind of occurrences? These:

Haredim physically assaulted a female firefighter in the Mea She’arim neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel Radio reported Thursday. The woman was working in a group of firefighters to put out garbage fires when the haredim threw objects at her, hitting her back and very lightly injuring her.

I’ve heard it all before. I know all about it. “These are hooligans no less than any society’s hooligans.” That is the cry of the apologists among us. I do not buy that argument. Never will. These people may be hooligans in the sense that they perpetrate violence against innocent outsiders whereas most of their society would never do that. But they are not hooligans like any other society’s hooligans. Certainly not in their Hashkafos which is what motivate their actions. These people were raised to believe that certain behavior is unacceptable. One cannot allow mingling of the sexes for any reason. Female firefighters working with male firefighters is therefore a violation of Halacha as they understand it.

That most of these people would not necessarily act this way on those beliefs is beside the point. There are some among them who believe they have an obligation to act on it. One can call them misguided. One can call them hooligans. But one cannot deny their motives. They do not just attack random people. They attack only people whom they feel violate their community rules. Rules which the rest of civilization does not have. Including the vast majority of Orthodox Jews. Including most normal Charedim.

Hooligans of the type that apologists compare these people to do not attack others based on the ideals learned from their religious leaders. The hooligans of a Chicago street gang are an orders of magnitude different from the Shomer Shabbos Charedim who threw objects at a female firefighter. The hooligans of Meah Shearim are meticulous about a great many Mitzvos – including going beyond the letter of Halacha in their observance of them.

They have beards, They have Peyos. They wear Chasidic type garb so as to differentiate from the secular world. They take pride in their isolationism for purposes of not being influenced by it. In short they are Frum to the point of being “Lifnim MeShuras HaDin” (beyond the letter of the law) in many aspects of their lives! I doubt for example that any of those hooligans have ever eating anything that did not have an Eida haCharedis Hechsher. To compare these people with the street gangs of Chicago or New York is completely disingenuous.

I realize of course that these people are probably dysfunctional. I also realize that they do not have the approval to do what they do from their rabbinic leadership. They do all this pretty much on their own. But they also know that their gender separation goals are very much appreciated by that very same leadership.

That is the core issue. It is the issue now with respect to that innocent firefighter and it was the issue last year with Naama Margolis, the 8 year old who was severely harassed on her way to school by the “hooligans” of Bet Shemesh. I’m sure those people too eat only from the Eida Hacharedis Hechsher.

In other words, they are all coming form the same place, Hashkaficly.

I have absolutely no confidence on things changing in those communities. The Charedi hooligans of Meah Shearim (and Bet Shemesh; and where ever else they can be found) who have lots of time on their hands will continue doing this type of thing unless their leadership cracks down on them. That means that they would have to violate their concepts of Mesira (informing on – or testifying against one of their own to the secular authorities). The Israeli government is not only a secular authority, they are considered a virtual enemy!

The bottom line is that this community can “Shrei Chai V’Kayom” – they scream until they are blue in the face about stopping this from happening again. They can say it is only the hooligans and that every society has hooligans. They can say all day long that they will work to change things. I don’t believe them. Until their leadership (like the Toldos Avraham Yitzchok Rebbe – pictured above) recognize that the problem starts with them – nothing is going to change.

What can we do about it? Not sure. But at the very least we ought to know the truth about what the real problem is.

Visit Emes Ve-Emunah.

The funeral for Mira Sharf has begun in Jerusalem.

Sharf was killed in a rocket attack on Thursday in Kiryat Melachi. She was a a Chabad Shaliach.

Her husband Shmulik and their children are currently still in the hospital.

Aharon Samdaja and Itzik Amsalem were also killed in the rocket attack.

As of 10:44 PM, a total of 55 rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza.

10:55 PM Ashkelon hit by rocket in attack from 10:51. No known injuries.

10:53 PM 2 Rockets land in Beer Sheva. No known injuries or damage.

On March 8, the Guardian published “International Women’s Day highlights hurdles obstructing women,” (co-authored by 12 Guardian correspondents, including the paper’s Jerusalem correspondent, Harriet Sherwood), on the subjugation of women around the world.

Sherwood’s contribution, on the abrogation of women’s rights in the region she covers, didn’t mention female genital mutilation, honor killings , an endemic culture of misogyny, nor the impunity granted to men who physically and sexually abuse their spouses, throughout in Gaza and the PA.

Harriet Sherwood not only ignored the egregious violation of womens’ rights in the Palestinian territories, but, instead, devoted 118 words to the alleged injustice meted out to a female Palestinian terrorist affiliated with Islamic Jihad held in an Israeli jail named Hana Shalabi.

So, it’s not surprising that neither Sherwood, nor any of her Guardian colleagues, have reported the following about an incident in Gaza on Nov. 6:

Hamas police violently attacked a group of women who were peacefully protesting on Tuesday in front of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza. The women were calling for Palestinian reconciliation and sent a request to protest to Hamas which was ignored. Using sticks and batons, Hamas police attacked the women and dispersed the protest.

Another report included the following information:

The protest, organized by women’s organizations including the general union of Palestinian women, was held outside the parliament building.

Iktimal Hamad, a member of the union’s secretariat, told Ma’an that police ordered protesters to leave the area.

“Women refused to leave, because this is a right for every human being to express their opinions and demand their rights,” Hamad told Ma’an.

“We were verbally insulted and hit by fists and sticks. Police tried to arrest some of us but despite that we will continue with our campaign which calls for ending the division,” she added.

Journalist Samya al-Zubeidi said female police officers hit her and ordered her to stop filming.

“They beat me up, in addition to female police officers, (male) police officers also attacked women protesters,” al-Zubeidi told Ma’an.

Interestingly, a Gulf News report on the incident quoted a Fatah spokesperson condemning the attack on Gazan women, thus:

Hamas’ violent attack against the women gives the entire Palestinian population a bad reputation internationally,”

However, any negative publicity for the Palestinian cause in response to the beating of peaceful female protesters in Gaza could only be created if “liberal” media institutions such as the Guardian actually reported the story.

Visit CifWatch.com.

Background information  on Ahmed al Jaabari, who was recently taken out by the IDF and the General Security Service (the “shaback”).

Al Jaabari served 13 years in Israeli prison for his role in  1982 terror attack until he was released in 1995 (Ma’an)

He gained prominence among Palestinians for his role in the attack of the IDF patrol and the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit (Ma’an).

According to Ma’an he organized Hamas’s military wing, al-Qassam Brigades and was in charge of 10,000 terrorists.

According to the IDF, al-Jaabari was responsible for hundreds of rocket attacks  from Gaza in recent years.

There are some fascinating questions that come to mind regarding the current controversy concerning Gen. David Petraeus, and in the coming weeks and months many of the blanks will doubtless be filled in. To be sure, the personal dimension to the story will continue to draw much attention – infidelity and personal failure in high places will always have a certain allure. But there are some serious public issues involved that we hope will be pursued.

It’s obvious that news of this sort would dominate the media once it surfaced. Surely it would have sucked much of the air out of the story of the president’s efforts to rally the nation in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. It would also have drawn attention away from the president’s newly charged economic appeal to the middle class that had given him some late momentum in his electoral battle with Gov. Romney.

Yet it appears that the news about Gen. Petraeus was circulating long before the resignation, which occurred after the election. Thus, the FBI investigation that led to Gen. Petraeus’s stepping down began in May and continued until late summer, at which point Attorney General Eric Holder supposedly was notified. Yet it is claimed that it was only on November 6– Election Day – that the Justice Department informed Director of National Intelligence James Clapper of the investigation; that on November 7the White House was notified; and that the president was first told on November 8.

Maybe. But it certainly seems inconceivable that an investigation of this sort involving the head of the Central Intelligence Agency – including possible criminal liability for compromising classified national security information – would not have been brought to the attention of the president or his senior staff early on. So the issue of whether there was an effort by public officials to suppress the Petraeus story in order to enhance the president’s reelection prospects is squarely before us.

Perhaps more important, Gen. Petraeus appears to be the intelligence source cited by the president and his senior staff as the basis for their refusal, for more than two weeks, to characterize the Benghazi attack as a terrorist act despite evidence that it was indeed a well-planned operation of an Al Qaeda affiliate. Not a few critics noted that to have acknowledged that fact would have been inconsistent with the administration’s position that Al Qaeda and similar outfits had been routed by U.S. military action.

In any event, soon after the Benghazi attack, Gen. Petraeus testified before a congressional committee that the attack was a spontaneous reaction on the part of Muslims angered by an anti-Muhamamad video. Further, Gen. Petraeus was scheduled to testify at two congressional hearings, beginning November 15,on both the failure to anticipate and properly respond to the attack as well as the decision to identify it as something other than a terrorist attack.

With the Petraeus resignation, acting CIA director Michael Morell is now scheduled to testify on behalf of the CIA. Gen. Petraeus has indicated that he will not testify, and as a civilian he will have an easier time avoiding that prospect despite the intentions of some in Congress to demand that he appear.

Was the general’s resignation part of an effort to keep him from having to testify? One need not subscribe to all the conspiracy theories now swirling around these developments. Generally, they are not helpful. But there certainly are questions that need to be looked into.

5:34 PM, Israel Time: The IDF carried out an extensive attack damaging to the long-range launch capabilities (over 25 miles) of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The attack caused significant damage to underground launch systems and weapons and ammunition storehouses belonging to terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip. The purpose of the attack is to disrupt the launch capabilities of terrorist organizations and damage terrorist network buildup.