Posts
The
article below comes from Washington's Blog, which I find, on the
whole to be reasonably reliable.
Meanwhile events in Gaza seem to be taking an unexpected turn.
These tweets from RamiAlLolah, have yet to be confirmed:
Unconfirmed reports: a unit (assumed small) of Israeli forces entered #Gaza earlier this morning to destroy particular rocket infrastructure
#France 24: Failed #Israel|i navy landing attempt on #Gaza coasts. Intense clashes with Qassam in the landing sport. via @Rawaak #Palestine
#Aljazeera: Qassam Battalions repel a landing attempt by #Israel Navy north of #Gaza strip. #Palestine
#CNN Correspondent: Reports of injuries and deaths among #Israel|i Navy Special Forces unit ambushed by Qassam near #Gaza coast. #Palestine
Israel
Is Bombing Gaza Back to the Stone Age to Get Hamas ... But ISIS –
NOT HAMAS – Claims Credit for Attacks Against Israel
Washington's
Blog
11
July, 2014
Israel
is currently bombing
Gaza back to the stone age (MSM
spin notwithstanding).
While
Israel claims that Hamas was behind the murder of 3 Israeli boys
which started this round of violence (and subsequent rocket attacks),
the Times of Israel reported last
week
A new Palestinian jihadist group pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (formerly known as ISIL) [or "ISIS"] has claimed responsibility for the killing of three Israeli teenagers last month in the West Bank, as well as other recent deadly attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians
Hamas
has denied responsibility for the attacks.
On Tuesday evening, Israel’s antimissile system, called Iron Dome, intercepted a rocket “over the Tel Aviv area,” the army said, showing the reach of Gazan rocketry. The rocket was believed to be of Iranian design, a Fajr-5, and Islamic Jihad claimed credit. Tel Aviv opened some public shelters, and in a city near Tel Aviv, Rishon LeZion, people were instructed to leave the beach.
Given
that countries all over the world – including
Israel and Muslim countries –
have admitted to carrying out false flag attacks, we should carefully
investigate who was responsible before cheering on a new Arab-Israeli
war. (And the head of Mossad had predicted
such an occurrence shortly
before it happened.)
Palestine
has gained a lot of support recently. For example, Palestine
was accorded
observer nation status by
the United Nations. The movement to boycott and divest from
companies doing business with Israel
has gathered tremendous momentum. And
the two main factions in Palestinian politics – Hamas and Fatah –
have formed a unity government.
As
Michael Rivero points
out,
it makes no sense for Hamas to have committed brutal acts of violence
right now, when it is securing quick progress through peaceful
political means:
HAMAS and FATAH formed a unity government. They need the support of the world right now, and neither HAMAS or FATAH is going to carry out an act that would wreck the very public support they need. It’s like George Washington trying to kick out the British by shooting students in the colonial schools; it is just not going to happen.
And
the Jewish Daily Forward notes that
– if rogue Hamas members did carry
out the murders – it was not with
the permission or knowledge of Hamas leadership:
In the flood of angry words that poured out of Israel and Gaza during a week of spiraling violence, few statements were more blunt, or more telling, than this throwaway line by the chief spokesman of the Israeli military, Brigadier General Moti Almoz, speaking July 8 on Army Radio’s morning show: “We have been instructed by the political echelon to hit Hamas hard.”
That’s unusual language for a military mouthpiece. Typically they spout lines like “We will take all necessary actions” or “The state of Israel will defend its citizens.” You don’t expect to hear: “This is the politicians’ idea. They’re making us do it.”
***
It was clear from the beginning that the kidnappers weren’t acting on orders from Hamas leadership in Gaza or Damascus. Hamas’ Hebron branch — more a crime family than a clandestine organization — had a history of acting without the leaders’ knowledge, sometimes against their interests. Yet Netanyahu repeatedly insisted Hamas was responsible for the crime and would pay for it.
Gaza
death toll rises; Hamas fires rockets at Tel Aviv
12
July, 2014, 7:41pm EDT
(Reuters)
- An Israeli air strike on the home of Gaza's police chief killed 18
people on Saturday, Gaza's health ministry said, and Hamas fired the
largest salvo of rockets yet on Tel Aviv since the start of the
Jewish state's offensive in the Palestinian enclave.
The
strike on the home of Tayseer Al-Batsh in Gaza City was the deadliest
bombing since Israel launched its offensive on Tuesday to end
Palestinian rocket fire into its territory.
A
source in the Islamist group Hamas, which has fired hundreds of
rockets into Israel since Tuesday, said Al-Batsh, was in critical
condition. All of those killed in the air strike were members of
Al-Batsh's family.
Ashraf
Al-Qidra, spokesman for the Gaza Health ministry, said 45 people were
wounded and others were still trapped under the rubble where rescue
workers were searching.
Hamas
earlier claimed responsibility for 10 rockets that were launched at
Tel Aviv on Saturday but which caused no casualties or damage.
Sirens
sounded across central Israel as people rushed for cover from the
rockets. One group of youths sitting at the beachcheered as they saw
a rocket intercepted in the night sky. In Gaza, Palestinians stood at
rooftops chanting Allah Akbar (God is great), cries that also echoed
over mosque loudspeakers.
The
Israeli military said three of the rockets fired were intercepted
over Tel Aviv and another struck an open area.
Hamas
had broadcast a televised statement an hour before the salvo to say
it was preparing a major attack on Tel Aviv. The Israeli military
said it bombed the rocket launcher used for the salvo.
Israel's
offensive has killed 145 Palestinians since Tuesday. Gaza medical
officials said at least 82 civilians, including 25 children, were
among the dead from the air strikes on the territory into which
nearly 2 million people are packed.
A
nephew of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas political leader in the territory
was among six people killed in an air strike in a Gaza street.
A
mosque in the central Gaza Strip was bombed to rubble, residents
said. The Israeli military said it had housed a weapons cache. Eight
other mosques have been damaged by bombing and 537 Gaza houses have
either been destroyed or damaged, the Gaza-based Al-Mezan Association
for Human Rights said.
Israel
is keeping its options open for a possible ground offensive into
densely populated Gaza despite international pressure to negotiate a
ceasefire in the conflict.
Israeli
Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said he had told troops they might
enter the Gaza Strip in the coming days.
"We
are attacking and destroying weapon storages, militants' homes,
armaments, launchers, rockets ... the damage is great and it grows as
time goes by, but it may not be enough, we may need a substantial
ground operation," Yaalon said on Facebook.
Some
20,000 reservists have been mobilized for a possible thrust into
Gaza.
The
U.N. Security Council, after days of discussion, issued a statement
calling for a ceasefire and expressed serious concern about the
welfare of civilians on both sides. "The Security Council
members called for de-escalation of the situation, restoration of
calm and reinstitution of the November 2012 ceasefire," the
15-member body said.
Gaza
militants fired more than 100 rockets at Israel on Saturday, the
Israeli military said, one of which struck the occupied West Bank
Palestinian city of Hebron.
No
Israeli has been killed by the rocket salvos due in part to Iron
Dome, a partly U.S.-funded interceptor system.
But
racing for shelter has become a daily routine for hundreds of
thousands of Israelis, and Israel rushed an eighth Iron Dome into
service on Saturday to counter stronger-than-expected rocket fire
from Gaza.
"In
the past week, we carried out a very complex technological exercise
to deliver the eighth (Iron Dome) system," a Defence Ministry
official said on Israel Radio.
Gaza rocket fire intensified last month after Israel arrested hundreds of Hamas supporters in the occupied West Bank after the abduction there of three Jewish teenagers who were later found killed. A Palestinian youth was then killed in Jerusalem in a suspected revenge attack by Israelis.
'MAP
OF PAIN'
Egypt's
state news agency said that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
had met with Tony Blair, envoy for the so-called Quartet of United
Nations, European Union, Russia and United States, in efforts to
secure a truce.
An
Israeli government official said Blair had met with Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday. "There are no serious
contacts toward a truce. There are many proposals, but as long as
Hamas keeps firing, Israel will keep fighting and will not discuss a
truce," the official said.
Cairo
played a crucial role in mediating a truce that ended an eight-day
war between Hamas and Israel in 2012, when Egypt was governed by
Hamas's Muslim Brotherhood allies.
Egypt's
current military-backed government is locked in a feud with Hamas
over the group's alleged support for jihadi militants in Egypt's
Sinai desert - Hamas denies supporting the militants. That could
complicate Cairo's efforts at mediation.
Hamas
spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: "We will not beg for calm and we
continue to defend our people. Once we are offered a genuine,
coherent and serious proposal, we will look into it."
Israel
says Hamas puts innocent Gazans in harm's way by placing weaponry and
gunmen in residential areas. A senior Israeli military officer said
aircraft had aborted "hundreds" of strikes to avoid
collateral damage and that targets bombed were meant to impact Hamas
fire capacity.
"We
are dealing with a variety of families of targets. If there is a kind
of a map, or a map of pain that the enemy sees, we create a lot of
pain so that he will have to think first to stop the conflict,"
the officer said in a briefing to reporters.
Israel
says it has hit more than 1,000 targets in Gaza since the start of
its offensive.
Casualties
on both sides would probably rise sharply if Israeli forces stormed
the largely urbanized enclave. A ground invasion of Gaza would be the
first since a three-week war with Hamas in 2008-09 in which 1,400
Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.
Israel
fires into Lebanon after rockets launched over border
12
July, 2014
(Reuters)
- Rockets fired from Lebanon hit Israeli territory on Saturday and
Israel's army responded with artillery fire, Lebanese security
sources and the Israeli military said, in the second such incident in
two days.
"Initial
reports indicate that at least two rockets fired from Lebanon hit
open areas north of Nahariya. No damage or injuries, thus far,"
an Israeli military statement said, adding that Israeli forces had
fired artillery toward the source of the rocket fire.
A
Lebanese security source said three rockets had been fired from
Lebanon.
Southern
Lebanon is a stronghold of Hezbollah, a Shi'ite Muslim group that
battled Israel seven years ago and is engaged in Syria's civil war in
support of President Bashar al-Assad; but there are also Palestinian
groups in the same area.
Palestinian
militant group Hamas, battling with Israel from Gaza, claimed
responsibility for the rocket fire from Lebanon, though it was
unclear what kind of influence or presence the Islamist group had
there.
Palestinian
militants in the Gaza Strip have launched hundreds of rockets into
Israel since the start of an Israeli offensive five days ago and at
least 125 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed.
On
Friday rockets from Lebanon struck northern Israel and drew Israeli
artillery fire. Lebanese security forces arrested a man suspected of
firing the projectiles, the national news agency said. He was
Lebanese and a member of "fundamentalist groups", the
report said, without naming the groups.
It
said he had admitted he had been accompanied by two Palestinians who
were also members of these groups, and security forces were still
searching for the pair.
The
army said it had discovered two missile platforms with more rockets
ready for launch after searching the area, and had dismantled them.
The view from Tel-Aviv
Outside
Gaza: Bomb shelters set up across Israel, residents applaud Iron Dome
All
that mounting international pressure to end the violence is having no
effect on the ground - Israeli leaders are vowing to continue the
Gaza offensive. Hamas isn't backing down either - raining more
rockets on Israel. Our Middle East correspondent Paula Slier has more
from Tel Aviv
Harry Fear reports from Gaza -
Unstoppable Barrage: Gaza bombing intensifies, death toll over 100
Medical
officials in Gaza say about three quarters of all Palestinians killed
in Gaza this week are civilians. Among them, 24 children. Israel
insists it's only targeting Hamas militants and their facilities.
With Israel readying for a possible ground invasion, locals expect
the worst - as Harry Fear reports.
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