Left I on the News

Four, so far, anyway. 27 Palestinians killed in the last two days alone.

And the New York Times continues its "balanced" coverage. After mentioning both Palestinian rocket attacks and Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes in the lead paragraph, the Times proceeds with three long paragraphs about Ashkalon (the Israeli city attacked by rockets), where no one was even hurt, before returning to the deaths of Palestinians. They did manage to include one picture from Gaza along with a picture from Israel today, but still haven't seen fit to trouble their readers with pictures of dead or even injured Palestinians. Since they haven't managed, I'll help them out here:

Mohammed al-Borai, aged six months,
one of the children killed by the Israeli army in the last 24 hours

Ha'aretz (link above) notes the dropping of any pretense that Israel is just aiming at people allegedly on their way to fire rockets:

Early Thursday evening, an Israel Air Force helicopter attacked a police roadblock near the Gaza City home of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, in which Palestinian officials said one person was killed and four others wounded.

The attack appeared to be aimed at sending a message to Hamas, one day after the IAF targeted Haniyeh's empty office, as the heavily populated area is not used to launch rockets.

So a random person is killed and four wounded to "send a message." Although Israel has been compared to the Mafia, I don't even think the Mafia did (or does) things like that. Horses, yes, if the Godfather is to be believed, but not random people.

*EOJ: Ehud Olmert of Jerusalem (sorry, best I could do)

Update: Following up more on the post below this one than on this one, I find myself shocked by the Los Angeles Times headline, which reads "Hamas answers Israeli airstrikes with rockets." I guess we'll file that under "the exception that proves the rule."