The Israeli Navy Wednesday morning thwarted an attempt to smuggle what may have been explosives form Egypt into Gaza.

After two “fishing” boats encroached on international waters and refused orders from the Navy to stop, soldiers opened fire and hit the vessels, setting off secondary explosions. Two Arabs suffered light to moderate wounds.

Arab sources in Gaza said that the boat was loaded with cigarettes and tobacco.

The explosions indicate that the fire hit the engine room or that the cigarettes were of special varieties that blow up when lit.

Or perhaps, just maybe, the “tobacco” was a load of explosives and ammunition.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that the government “has turned the Negev and Be’er Sheva into the cyber capital of the Eastern Hemisphere” and that “there will no trickle of rockets.”

Every prime minister for the past 20 years has promised Jews in Gaza, before they were expelled, and residents in the Western Negev, that Israel will not tolerate missile fire from Gaza.

Those promises were worth about as much as the commitment of Ariel Sharon when he encouraged Jews to live in Gush Katif and as much as the intellectual dishonesty of the Labor governments that offered incentives to Jews to live in the same communities in Judea and Samaria that they now want to dismantle.

After the expulsion of Jews from Gaza in 2005, the Palestinian Authority, then under the aegis of Mahmoud Abbas and later under the current Hamas regime, relentlessly pounded Sderot and Netivot with missiles. They developed longer-range rockets to hit Ashkelon, and then Ashdod, both of them key port cities where a single missile blast at the wrong place could blow up strategic  infrastructure, such as the electric generating, fuel depots and gas lines. Defense ministers talked, and terrorists fired. When the missiles stated hitting the area of Rehovot and Rishon LeTzion, cities that are part of metropolitan Tel Aviv, the government ordered the IDF not only to put an end to the attacks but also changed its policy and started retaliating for every rocket attack.

It is a sad fact that the government really does not care that much about the towns of Sederot, Netivot and surrounding rural areas. The votes are in metorpolitcan Tel Aviv, the home of most Israeli factories and offices and the homes of the power brokers, the people who really run Israel.

Tel Aviv is running out of room, Home prices are out of reach of the average family, and the Olmert and Netanyahu administrations made strategic decisions to invest in the wide open Negev, whose “capital” is Be’er Sheva, for decades an ignored outpost for Moroccan Jews and academics who learn and teach at Ben Gurion University.

A revolution is taking place in Israel, and it is in the Negev. A new high-tech park, with international investment, was launched earlier this year. The north-south Highway 6 high-speed highway is being extended to the outskirts of Be’er Sheva.

The IDF is in the process of moving bases, especially Air Force bases, from the Tel Aviv area to the Negev.

“We are in the midst of a revolution that is turning the Negev into a thriving center, not a periphery or branch, into a bustling center of Israel,” Netanyahu said Tuesday.

His last line, that “my policy is clear; any firing of rockets will be met with an immediate and sharp response,” was ostensibly irrelevant to the subject of development, but in fact it was part and parcel of the new Negev.

Israel now has a vested interest in the Negev, and it cannot afford even one rocket attack no more than it can allow rocket firing on Ben Gurion Airport.

It is not a very nice message to the pioneers of kibbutzim, moshavim and development towns in the Negev, but the truth is that the Iron Dome anti-missile system is just a Band-Aid.

The developing the Negev as the Cyber Capital of the Eastern Hemisphere is guaranteeing southern Israel peace and quiet.

The Shomron Council is gearing up to host Israeli who live along the Gaza border and have been under massive rocket fire these past few days, offering them a Shabbat respite.

Residents of the Shomron who wish to host a family from Israel’s battered south this Shabbat, can call: 1700-700-0106.

The Israel Defense Forces called up a limited number of reservists following a second day of rocket attacks from Gaza on southern Israel.

The reservists — for air defense, according to the Israel Defense Forces — were summoned on Thursday, when 17 more rockets were fired at Israel. Seven landed in Israel and two were intercepted by the Iron Dome system. The remainder hit Palestinian areas. Another rocket struck southern Israel after the announcement was made but caused no damage.

At least seven rockets were fired at southern Israel shortly after the Islamic Jihad terrorist group in Gaza said it would abide by the cease-fire mediated by Egypt in 2012 amid an Israeli operation to stop rocket attacks.

Four rockets were fired Thursday morning at Ashkelon and Ashdod, with two landing in open fields between the cities and one intercepted over Ashkelon by Iron Dome. Ashdod closed schools without rocket-proof shelters following attacks.

Hours later, Israel’s Air Force retaliated by targeting seven “terror sites” in the southern Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Thursday afternoon.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would continue to respond militarily to the attacks.

“Our policy in the South is clear — we attack anyone who attempts to hurt us and we will react with a powerful force,” Netanyahu said Thursday morning. “I want to clarify that whoever tries to hurt our Purim celebrations, we will respond with force.” Purim begins on Saturday evening.

Israel’s security Cabinet met Thursday morning to discuss the escalation in attacks from Gaza.

The previous evening, Islamic Jihad fired dozens of rockets at southern Israel, with 41 landing in Israeli territory, including five in residential neighborhoods. Iron Dome shot down at least three of the rockets. The IDF responded by hitting what it called in a statement 29 “terror locations” in Gaza with artillery fire. Israeli residents were instructed to remain within 15 seconds of a bomb shelter overnight. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attacks and urged restraint from all sides. The U.S. State Department in its condemnation of the attacks said Israel has a right to defend itself.

Wednesday’s attack was the largest on Israel since the 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense, the IDF said.

The Israeli Air Force bombed seven terror targets, four in southern Gaza and three in the north around midnight Thursday after Gaza terrorists ignored the Islamic Jihad’s ceasefire announcement.

Eight short-range exploded in southern Israel between noon and night, and additional eight rockets missed their targets and landed in Gaza., causing damage to a home, IDF Spokesman Peter Lerner said in a statement after midnight. The Iron Dome intercepted two of the missiles aimed at Israeli civilians.

“Civilians in southern Israel face an unbearable reality, a reality the IDF will not allow to become routine,” Lerner said, “We will continue to retaliate to the aggression emanating from the Hamas run Gaza Strip. Militants attacking Israel from the Gaza Strip will not feel safe, will pay the price and will find that their actions are futile.”

Islamic Jihad claimed that it did not fore any of the rockets after it announced that Egypt had brokered a ceasefire. Israel denied it was part of any agreement, but Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said “quiet would be met with quiet.” He also said that rocket fire will be met with rocket fire.

It was apparent that both Islamic and Israel were interested in putting an end to the latest round of attacks and retaliations, but there are dozens of minor terrorist organizations in Gaza who always are interested in throwing their weight around.

The ceasefire that is not a ceasefire still may come into existence in the next couple of days if Hamas sees it has nothing to gain by an all-out Israeli attack and if it has the capability or controlling smaller terror gangs.

Hamas has little room to maneuver. Having been isolated by Hamas, its only real allies are Hezbollah and Iran.

The only thing it might gain from continued conflict with Israel is breaking up the  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace talk show, but Kerry so far has displayed amazing talents at doing that without any outside help.

Gaza terrorists fired two rockets towards Ashkelon Thursday afternoon, six more on Sderot and other Gaza Belt communities in the evening and at least another two at night in what was a typical signature of a Gaza ceasefire.

All of the missiles exploded in open areas and caused little or no damage.

Israel has denied knowledge of the agreement that Islamic Jihad terrorists said earlier in the day was put into effect with help of mediators from Egypt. Islamic Jihad denied that its terrorists launched the rockets after it said it was holding hits fire.

Sporadic rocket fire by Gaze terrorists is part of a typical Gaze ceasefire.

There have been dozens of announcements  over the past years of a truce or “calm” – the Arabs have all kinds of names to get out of using the word “ceasefire” –  and virtually every one of them goes into effect with a couple of rocket attacks, a farewell salute to another attempt to kill a few more Zionists.

The Arabs love gunfire and rockets. No Arab wedding is complete without fireworks. No Hamas or Fatah rally is decent without machine guns hoisted in the air. And no ceasefire, as temporary as it is, can be consummated without its being broken, just to show everyone how useless it is.

Israel always has played along with the game, unless one of those aimless rockets happens to hit someone, and then the ceasefire is postponed until after the next round of retaliation, attacks and retaliation.

Gaza terrorists always like to get in the last word, or shot, and it is easy for Islamic Jihad or Hamas to say that some small group, perhaps a couple of kids who decided to form their own clubhouse terrorist gang, launched the rockets to show Hamas who really is in charge.

Hamas is certainly not in charge, and Egypt has further isolated it, bypassing it and talking directly to Islamic Jihad leaders, a move that could further weaken Hamas’ control of Gaza.

Hamas either stood by  jealously while Islamic Jihad fired dozens of missiles on Israel this week or simply was not able to wield any influence over its rival terrorists, who were aided by three other smaller gangs.

Gaza has been a hell-hole by all accounts. That is the way it was when Egypt neglected it before the Six-Day War in 1967, and that is the way it has been since Yasser Arafat started making peace with Israel in the 1980s by killing as many Jews as possible. Things got even worse when Hamas ousted rival Fatah faction in a bloody militia war in 2005.

Israel has said it knows nothing of a ceasefire and that it does not negotiate with terrorists, a blatant bluff, if not lie, since that is what it did to conclude the hostilities a year and a half ago when it launched the Pillar of Defense campaign to stop missile fire that reached as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Thursday “quiet will be met with quiet” and that if missile attacks resume, “we know how to hit whoever has to be hit,” de facto confirmations that the shooting is over – for now, unless Hamas continues to lose control over the terrorist gangs and  the rocket attacks continue,

Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) raised $20 million on Tuesday at its annual national gala, held in New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel.

Some 1,400 guests from the U.S., Panama, and Israel attended the event, where IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz thanked the organization “for choosing to stand by our side and open your hearts to our soldiers.”

Gantz also remarked on recent events, including the seizure of an illicit Gaza-bound arms shipment from Iran aboard the Klos C cargo ship. “Terrorist organizations do not rest and are continuing their large efforts to smuggle weapons into Gaza,” Gantz said.

He returned Israel as Gaza terrorists pummeled the Western Negev with missiles.

Islamic Jihad leaders said Thursday afternoon that Egypt has brokered a ceasefire following the Israeli Air Force’s bombing of smuggling tunnels in the Gaza-Egypt border city of Rafiah Thursday afternoon in retaliation for Islamic Jihad missile attacks on the Ashkelon-Ashdod area earlier in the day.

Israel has not commented on the report, but there is relative quiet in the Jewish communities near Gaza.

“The ceasefire has been reached with the mediation of Egypt and will continue until Israel breaks it,” Islamic Jihad said in a statement.

Assuming the terrorists honor the ceasefire, which probably will be broken by an occasional Kassam rocket attack just to let everyone that the terrorists are not sleeping, it will put an end to the latest war of chickens.

The sudden and massive missile barrage on Israel last night and today caused no injuries other than emotional shock, and it is not coincidental that the equally massive IDF retaliation Wednesday did not cause any casualties.Gaza sources said three people were injured in the aerial strikes on Rafiah. No one was killed, and terrorists’ smuggling tunnels and not the terrorists themselves were the targets.

Nobody except the simple peasants in Gaza want an escalation of violence to the point that Israel has no choice other than to make Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s dream come true by invading and taking over Gaza, rescuing the average Mohammed on the street from the despotic Hamas regime that has made their lives worse than miserable, although Yasser Arafat gets the credit for having stared the bomb rolling down that road.

Islamic Jihad launched a new round of attacks on Israel as a response to the Israeli military’s killing three of its terrorist after they fired a mortar shell at Israeli soldiers earlier this week..

Iran could have a hand in the decision to strike back since Israel exposed the Islamic Republic regime’s evil hand in trying to arm Hamas so it can carry out a proxy war on Israel. If Israel really wants to retaliate for the missile attacks, Tehran is a better target than Gaza, but that is not going to happen so long as President Barack Obama keeps Iran chattering so no one can hear the sounds of centrifuges spinning out enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb.

Islamic Jihad got much needed PR from its “missile roulette” attacks. No Israeli was injured, so Israel could respond “proportionately” and hit unmanned terrorist posts and underground missile launchers without eliminating a few terrorists. The IDF has to retaliate so that Gaza terrorists would not get a message that they could extend their assault northwards towards Tel Aviv. They are saving that for a future war if it decides to commit suicide.

Lieberman notwithstanding, Israel cannot invade Gaza without nothing worse than malign neglect from its useless friends in the European Union, who as recently as today continue to blame Jerusalem for the perennial humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

Islamic Jihad terrorists are a bunch of chickens. They did nothing but panic the residents of southern Israel, who are not as valuable to the Israeli government as the good citizens of Tel Aviv.

The IDF played chicken but did so out of strength, not weakness.

These chicken wars have taken place before and they will take place again.

The problem is that one day, one of those chickens is going to launch a missile that “misfires” and hits, God forbid, a hospital, kindergarten, shopping center or a family bedroom.

If that happens, the terrorists won’t be able to flee the subsequent invasion of Gaza because chickens can’t fly.