We invite you to view a slice of ordinary/extraordinary life in Israel in this video.

Be’er Sheva is an ancient/modern desert city that most people visit, if they ever go there, because of its first-rateuniversity (Ben Gurion) and its hospital, one of the busiest in Israel. But like many forgotten places in various parts of the world, it’s also home for a certain number of people, nearly 200,000 of them.

Now that Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and practically every other Israeli community in the southern half of Israel have experienced the blood-chilling sound of air-raid sirens in the past three days (and in some places, many repeats of the experience), it may be interesting for people living far from here to see and hear what it feels like from the ground.

We don’t know the exact number, but the residents of Be’er Sheva have experienced dozens of incoming missile warnings since Wednesday night. The one captured in this video involves multiple rockets flying in from Gaza. Through the magic of videography, they appear here as floating fairy lights in an ink-black sea of heavens above the ground-level festivities of an ordinary shopping center.

Then one after another in rapid succession they are extinguished. The reality of what is happening is much less poetic, but astonishing when you pause to think about it: an anti-missile technology that did not exist anywhere in the world is now knocking these terrorist flying bombs out of the sky as the ordinary folk who are the actual targets of an attempt to kill them in quantities watch from below and quietly applaud.

It’s larger than life. But it’s life. Our life, for now.

Visit This Ongoing War.

Hamas has announced that it shot down an Israeli warplane by a land to air missile. The IDF denies the claim.

The IDF spokesperson’s office assured The Jewish Press that the reported downing of an Israeli plane “never happened.”

A map showing the amount of time the residents of each district in Israel have to get into a bomb shelter after a rocket has been launched. The critical areas are right around the Gaza Strip, ut, depending on the missile, no one is completely safe.

An alarm sounded Thursday evening in the city of Tel Aviv. Gush-Dan area residents reported hearing a very loud explosion. The Islamic Jihad issued a statement claiming that it fired a Fajr-5 missile toward Tel Aviv. The missile has not yet been discovered and there’s no known damage.

The missile that was fired earluer on Rishon L’Tzion, to the south of Tel Aviv, fell in an open area causing no damage. The Hamas claimed responsibility for it.

The first Fajr-5 rockets an Iranian development of the Chinese WS-1 MLRS that was exported to Iran in the late 1980s. In 2006, Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO) announced it had developed an upgraded version of the Fajr-5 333 mm (4-round) unguided surface-to-surface artillery rocket system.

During the 2006 Lebanon War, Hezbollah fired Fajr-5 rockets deeper into Israeli space than any previous time. It is believed that those “Khaibar-1″ rockets, as Hezbollah called them, were an enhanced version of the Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets.

12:47 PM Alert: Ramat Hanegev, Sdot Hanegev

12:45 PM Netivot

12:45 PM Alerts in Be’er Sheva and Rahat

12:35 PM Alerts Omer, Lachish, Bnei Shimon, Har Hevron!

12:35 PM Multiple rockets shot at Sderot and taken out by Iron Dome anti missile system. No injuries.

12:28 PM Air raid sirens sounding in Ashkelon Beach region.

12:19 PM Rockets fired over Netiv HaAsarah.

12:11 PM So far 200 rockets have been fired into Israel since the start of the current offensive.

12:09 PM Rocket hits in Sderot. Magen David responding.UPDATE: House in Sderot hit. No injuries but gas leak detected.

12:08 PM Army Sources reporting that they have managed to cripple Hamas and Islamic Jihad long range missile capabilities.

12:06 PM Air Raid sirens sounding in Sderot.

11:54 AM Two more rockets fired at Ashkelon. No report of damage or injuries.

Channel 1 reports that missiles shot at Dimona. Missile landed north of Dimona.

Girl injured from shrapnel.

IDF “Tzav 8″ emergency call up orders for reservists are currently for Homefront Command soldiers (to help with incoming missile threats) and not for additional combat battalions.

IDF ground troops preparing.

Palestinian terrorist factions met on Monday in Gaza City to discuss Israeli attacks and its threats of a wider operation in the near future, the Ma’an news agency reported.

Hamas called the meeting to try and avoid further casualties after Israeli forces killed six Palestinians in Gaza since Saturday, said Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader Talal Abu Tharefa.

Abu Tharefa told Ma’an any truce with Israel must include an end to Israeli air strikes and attacks, adding that the Palestinian resistance would retain the right to respond to Israeli aggression.

Israeli tanks shelled Gaza City on Saturday killing four and injuring at least 25, in response to a missile attack on an IDF jeep that injured four soldiers.

Gaza terrorists fired as many as 100 rockets into Israel, and the IDF launched an air strike early Sunday which killed two members of Islamic Jihad’s military wing.

Israel launched multiple air strikes on the Gaza Strip overnight Sunday, with no injuries reported, and rockets continued to be fired from Gaza. On Monday a rocket struck a home in the city of Netivot, causing heavy damage. On Tuesday morning a rocket fired from Gaza landed in Ashdod.

Hamas took part in missile launches over the weekend but Monday’s attack was claimed by the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen, a Salafi organization that rejects Hamas’ authority.

Israel has been deploying its Iron Dome rocket interceptor, air raid sirens and blast shelters, but eight people have still been wounded by the salvos.

Youssef Rizqa, journalist and political adviser to Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh, said he believed Egypt’s President Mohammad Mursi is providing “a safety net” for the Palestinians.

“The president of the biggest neighboring Arab country (has) said: We will not allow a new war on Gaza, and Palestinian blood is our blood,” Rizqa wrote in the pro-Hamas daily Felesteen.

Meanwhile, according to Ma’an, Jamal Nazzal, a member of Fatah’s revolutionary council, said in Ramallah that Israel was trying to hold the Palestinian Authority responsible for rockets fired from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, and using the escalation in Gaza to try and thwart the PLO’s bid for state membership of the UN.

“It’s politically absurd to hold the PA the responsibility for the escalation,” Nazzal told Ma’an.

Of course, by proclaiming its complete inability to influence decisions in Gaza, the PA is putting in question its claim of being a state, since a crucial element in being a state is the ability of said state’s government to govern it.