Sunday 13 July 2014

Gaza update - 07/12/2014

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 earlier this morning to destroy particular rocket infrastructure


24: Failed |i navy landing attempt on coasts. Intense clashes with Qassam in the landing sport. via

Emergency units at Ben Gurion airport now.. via


: Qassam Battalions repel a landing attempt by Navy north of strip.

Correspondent: Reports of injuries and deaths among |i Navy Special Forces unit ambushed by Qassam near coast.
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


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.

The New York Times also reported on Wednesday:


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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