After decades of this why would anyone think peace was possible? Iran and their minions in Hamas will not stop until Israel is wiped out!
Category Military
Hamas has rejected an Egyptian cease fire proposal. The most striking element of the negotiations underway to stop the bloodshed and violence between Israel and Hamas is the conspicuous absence of American involvement in the peace effort. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Egypt’s president, Palestinian (Hamas) authorities, and Israeli officials are meeting to discuss peace. True to form, Hamas is the only participant rejecting peace. The American absence in the peace discussions is clear evidence of the undeniable disrespect and lack of confidence in the current American leadership….
Well Obama has now succeeded in accomplishing something — no one is listening to him any longer since he is irrelevant!
by Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs
Hamas doesn’t want a ceasefire. They want to cause more pain to the Jewish people and their own supporters in order to gin up the ummah — specifically Muslims in the West. These attendant genocide marches in London, Paris, New York, The Hague, etc., the attacks on the Jews, violence, anarchy across the world — that is the objective of the devout Muslim group.
I do not believe that ceasefire is an option for Israel. Even so, Egypt wishes to lead the Muslim world in calling for Hamas and Israel to return to the 2012 agreement. Israel has said it is willing to accept the terms of that agreement, but Hamas has refused.
“Hamas rejected Egyptian proposal to hold fire,” TOI, July 13, 2014 Israel was favorable toward Cairo’s bid last week for a 40-hour truce, to be followed by negotiations for long-term agreement…
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Hamas rockets are now hitting almost all of Isreal
First Hamas rocket hits Nahariya. All parts of Israel within range from Gaza on Day Six of IDF operation
Re-Post from DEBKAfile Special Report July 13, 2014, 7:30 PM (IDT)
Nahariya, a small resort town 15 minutes drive from the Lebanese border, Sunday, July 13, had the unwanted distinction of being the northernmost Israeli town to be hit by a Hamas rocket from the Gaza Strip. The rocket traveled 172 km to land harmlessly outside the town – more than twice the distance from Gaza to Tel Aviv, which took its second round of Hamas rockets in two days. Mayor Jackie Sabag of Nahariya said he had fortunately not taken the advice of the Home Command to shut the city’s shelters after rockets were fired Friday and Saturday from Lebanon.
Nahariya, frequently blasted by Hizballah Katyushas in the past, can now “boast” it was targeted by Hamas as well.
Sunday, Day Six of Operation Defensive Edge, saw another first: an Israeli ground incursion of the Gaza Strip. An sea commando Shayetet 13 unit landed in the western Gaza Strip to raid a cluster of rocket launchers. It was forced to retreat under heavy fire after four commandos were lightly injured. The target was then hit by the unit’s air cover.
By sundown Sunday, 65 Palestinian rockets had been fired into Israel – 12 shot down by Iron Dome – and more were on the way. The last salvo covered a long swathe from Rishon Lezion, through Tel Aviv and its satellite towns, including the big port of Ashdod and Hadera, as well as Israeli locales bordering on Gaza.
An early rocket directed at Ben Gurion airport hit Modiin.
The only casualty was a 16-year old Israeli boy, who was seriously injured in Ashkelon by falling rocket shrapnel.
From Saturday night, the IDF conducted 130 air strikes. The Palestinian death toll continued to climb, reaching 170, despite IDF efforts to avoid civilian casualties when aiming at “terrorist” chiefs.
Several thousands of residents in northern Gaza have heeded IDF warnings by leaflets to evacuate their homes temporarily for their own safety, ahead of an imminent major Israeli operation against the rocket launchers and weapons stores maintained by Hamas in residential areas. The IDF calculates that 40 percent of all Hamas-Jihad Islami rockets were fired from northern Gaza.
UNWRA in the Gaza Strip opened 10 schools to accommodate the refugees, who continued to pour in, in the face of insistent Hamas calls not to leave their homes.
As the Israeli security cabinet conducted almost daily emergency sessions with army chiefs to determine their next steps, two controversies consumed the attention of Israeli media and the pundits: One revolves around the wisdom of sending ground troops into the Gaza Strip to finish the job of destroying Hamas-Jihad missile capabilities, or opting for half a cake, meaning a ceasefire – any ceasefire – if one becomes available. It is commonly agreed that a premature ceasefire would only hold up until Hamas decides to launch its next rocket blitz.
The last time it took eighteen months. The next one is predicted for six months time.
Estimates on the accessibility of a ceasefire are also constantly tossed back and forth.
debkafile’s Middle East sources, after examining the options, have concluded that, in the present situation, a truce is way out of reach. Israeli officials, when asked, said Sunday that no serious framework had developed.
In some Western diplomatic circles, there is talk of resuscitating the 2012 truce negotiated – or rather, dictated – by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – since retired; Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi – since ousted and jailed; Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan – rejected by both sides; and the emir of Qatar – deposed.
Not only have most of those figures come and gone or lost their clout, but the Middle East has undergone fundamental political, military and strategic change from end to end.
As things stand now, Qatar is no longer as rich as it was and, for Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni powers in the region, the Muslim Brotherhood is their archenemy, and neither would be eager to rescue MB’s offshoot Hamas from the cycle of turbulence in conjured up in the first place by kidnapping and murdering three Israeli teenagers last month.
Undeterred, US Secretary of State John Kerry was due to discuss ways to end the Gaza violence with UK, French and German foreign ministers in Vienna Sunday on the sidelines of the nuclear talks with Iran.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague talked by phone to Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman Saturday.
Last week, Middle East Quartet Special Envoy Tony Blair met Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in Cairo, and German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier is expected Tuesday for talks with Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who has been trying without much success to make himself relevant to the crisis.
All these well-intentioned emissaries will be told that Israel will stop bombing when Hamas stops shooting.
They will also find Hamas a very hard nut to crack.
Contrary to some reports that the Palestinian Islamist extremists are ready to crawl to bring Israel’s air assaults to an end, Hamas leaders are in fact far from dissatisfied with what they have achieved so far:
1) They have managed to keep more than 5 million Israelis caged in or near air raid shelters for the second week in a row.
2) They have not cracked under more than 1,340 air strikes in six days and their command structure and operatives remain fully functional.,
3) Although the conflict is asymmetrical, Hamas has made it a standoff with neither side able to claim the upper hand.
4) The Hamas kidnappers who murdered the three Israel boys are still at large.
Israeli Air Force Smashing Hamas to Pieces
The IAF should keep this up until all the targets all gone!
Netanyahu has a plan: put the IDF in control of West Bank security
An interesting idea Hamas with political control and the IMF for security but I think it is unsellable and unworkable so there must be more to this.
Re-post from DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis July 12, 2014, 12:58 PM (IDT)
For five days, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon opted to confront Hamas rockets with Israel’s air force alone, without the IDF at large. They were not even willing to approve a small-scale raid by special forces for pinpointing a few key targets, as a pretext for helping Netanyahu deny widespread allegations that he is again running away from full-scale military action.
Early Saturday, July 12, saw a few hours respite from Palestinian rocket fire before the first sirens starting wailing again in the western Negev and central Israel.
The rockets fired during this week came in an ever widening arc. Israel air strikes wrought heavy surface damage to the Gaza Strip, but scarcely scratched its rocket capabilities.
Friday night, air strikes hit 60 Palestinian targets, mostly buried missile launchers and arms stores, one cached in the Nuseirat mosque, which was razed except for the minaret, and others in a school and three multistory buildings. Before they were bombed, civilians were warned to get out of harm’s way.
The IDF spokesman reported 10 “terrorists” killed, including rocket team leaders. The Palestinians report their total death toll had climbed to 121 and 900 injured.
Israel reported 750 Palestinian rockets launched in five days, with no fatalities, and 82 people injured, many of them suffering the effects of shock.
Five days after Operation Protective Edge was launched to terminate the Hams rocket offensive, it was beginning to be blunted by the fading prospect of ground action. The decision for the time being not to launch ground forces into the Gaza Strip to finish the job, by reaching the thousands of rockets concealed by Hamas and Jihad Islami underground was evident from the news leaking out of the security and policy cabinet meeting held in Tel Aviv on Friday, July 11, and the words of Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz – “We stand ready for all possible action and await nothing more than a political decision.”
They reflected Netanyahu’s decision to hold off on a ground incursion, so long as Iron Dome batteries shoot rockets down before they hit population centers and cause fatalities, and Israelis remain remarkably obedient to the Home Command’s rules for keeping safe.
The prime minister exercised the same sort of restraint in meting out punishment to the same Hamas for abducting and murdering the three Israeli teenagers, Gil-Ad Shear, Naftali Fraenkel and Eyal Yifrach, whose bodies were discovered in a Palestinian West Bank village on June 27.
In the space of weeks, therefore, the Palestinian Islamist organization has twice got away with barbaric acts of terror without having to endure the full might of Israel’s armed forces.
This is consistent with the policies Netanyahu has pursued for five years.
In his televised news conference Friday, the prime minister publicly admitted for the first time the presence of al Qaeda forces around Israel’s borders – to the east, in Iraq and Jordan; to the north, in Syria and Lebanon; and to the south in the Gaza Strip and Sinai.
Although, he seemed to lump Hamas in with the looming Islamist menace, Netanyahu’s answers to reporters’ questions turned abruptly at this point to the issue of Judea and Samaria, left open by the breakdown of the umpteenth round of Israel-Palestinian peace talks earlier this year.
He stressed that in the current circumstances, it was incumbent on Israel to retain its armed forces in the West Bank. If Hamas was permitted to move in, it would “create 20 new Gazas on the West Bank,” he warned.
It may therefore be determined that the Netanyahu government has sketched in the lines of the end-game for Operation Protective Edge: Israel will abstain from a ground incursion and crushing Hamas rule of the Gaza Strip, but will claim in return international-Palestinian and pan-Arab sanction for the IDF to be assigned responsibility for the security of the Jordan Valley and Judea and Samaria.
This plan was behind Netanyahu’s comment Friday that the round of conversations he held with world leaders were “good” after which he pledged that “no international pressure would prevent us from acting against a terrorist organization aspiring to destroy us,” and “We will continue to defend our home front, the citizens of Israel, with resolve and prudence.”
What the prime minister appeared to be driving at was this: Israel would eradicate a major portion of Hamas’ military resources in Gaza but leave it in power – enfeebled and surrounded by Iron Dome batteries. IDF security control of the West Bank would be internationally accepted as the regional protector for holding al Qaeda belligerency back from swarming out of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.
Netanyahu’s plan provides Israel with an exit strategy from the Gaza operation, without requiring a ceasefire, which Hamas has anyway flatly refused to accept, except on ridiculously tall terms. But he will find his plan hard to sell outside Jerusalem.
Maybe Netanyahu is waking up to the fact the Obama does not have his 6
Netanyahu: “No international pressure will prevent us from acting with all power”
Re-Post from Jihad Watch Robert Spencer Jul 11, 2014 at 2:46pm
Its good that NetanyahuIt said this. For decades now, Islamic supremacists, jihadists, and their Leftist allies have brought tremendous pressure to bear upon Israel to get it to end defensive measures prematurely. For years now, this has worked quite well. But now, perhaps because Netanyahu knows that Obama is not in his corner and that Israel is on its own, he feels freer to act as he should to defend his nation.
“Israel leader: World pressure won’t stop offensive,” Associated Press, July 11, 2014:
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s prime minister vowed Friday to press forward with a broad military offensive in the Gaza Strip, saying international pressure will not halt what he said was a determined effort to halt rocket fire by Palestinian militants as the death toll from the 4-day-old conflict rose above 100.
Addressing a news conference, Benjamin Netanyahu brushed off a question about possible cease-fire efforts, signaling there was no end in sight to the operation.
“I will end it when our goals are realized. And the overriding goal is to restore the peace and quiet,” Netanyahu said.
Israel launched the offensive on Tuesday in response to weeks of heavy rocket fire out of Gaza. At least 103 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians, have been killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza. Palestinian militants have fired more than 600 rockets at Israel.
One rocket fired from the Gaza Strip struck a gas station and set it ablaze earlier Friday in southern Israel, seriously wounding one man, and the army said the condition of a soldier wounded by rocket shrapnel on Thursday had worsened. But there have been no deaths on the Israeli side, in large part because of a new rocket-defense system that has intercepted more than 100 incoming projectiles.
Netanyahu said he has been in touch with numerous world leaders, including President Barack Obama and the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Canada.
He said he had “good discussions” with his counterparts, telling them that no other country would tolerate repeated fire on its citizens.
“No international pressure will prevent us from acting with all power,” he said.
Israel’s allies have backed the country’s right to self-defense, but they have called for restraint. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern about the heavy civilian casualties in Gaza, and on Friday, the U.N.’s top human rights official said the air campaign may violate international laws prohibiting the targeting of civilians.
“We have received deeply disturbing reports that many of the civilian casualties, including of children, occurred as a result of strikes on homes,” said Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.
“Such reports raise serious doubt about whether the Israeli strikes have been in accordance with international humanitarian law and international human rights law,” she said.
Netanyahu brushed aside such criticism, saying Israel’s aerial campaign is aimed at military targets.
He blamed Hamas for causing civilian casualties by hiding in residential areas and criticized the group for targeting Israeli population centers….
…as Hamas itself acknowledges.
Hamas Commits ‘..Act of Nuclear Terrorism..’ According to UN Charter
If a Hamas missile took out this reactor that could be worse than than the Russian chernobyl Nuclear disaster in 1986
The Hammer: Obama Robbing the Military to Further His Ideological Social Welfare Goals
I don’t always agree with Krauthammer but he is certainly 100% right on this subject. As the US military is drawn down so do the problems in the world go up there is a perfect inverse relationship here; which I’m sure that B. H. Obama and V. Jarret don’t have the mental capacity to understand!
“It’s robbing the military to inflate the entitlement state.”
Charles Krauthammer, on Friday’s Special Report, compared President Obama’s approach to that of European governments shifting resources from their militaries to social welfare after World War II. The key difference now being that the U.S. will not have an ally with the capacity to defend them as those European states have relied on the American military in recent decades…(read more)
“Europe had us behind them in the last 50 years when it had no military; there’s nobody to back us up if we strip our military and neuter it as we do now.”
Is the Israeli IDF going in to Gaza?
IDF tells 100,000 Gaza civilians to move back from Israeli border – sign of impending ground incursion
Re-Post from DEBKAfile Special Report July 10, 2014, 4:55 PM (IDT)
Israel air strikes over the Gaza Strip
Thursday afternoon, July 10, the IDF advised 100,000 Palestinian civilians to leave their homes in the northern Gaza villages of Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, Greater Ibsen and Smaller Ibsen and head west to the coast or south to remove themselves from danger. This order, issued shortly after a special Israeli cabinet meeting, suggested that an Israel military incursion is impending. During the day, Hamas kept up its barrage. By firing 100 rockets, the Islamists demonstrated that their rocket capability had not been impaired by three days of massive Israeli air strikes.
debkafile reported earlier Thursday: Early Thursday, July 10, two more rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip at Tel Aviv. Iron Dome intercepted one. By 9 am, 10 more landed in Negev sites. Between Wednesday midnight and Thursday morning, the Israeli Air Force and Navy had carried out 108 strikes in the Gaza Strip – 322 in 24 hours. Targeted were a weapons store, 5 arms manufacturing plants, 5 military compounds, 58 tunnels, 2 surveillance posts, 217 buried rocket launching pads, one command and control base and 46 homes of Hamas and Jihad Islami commanders.
In this time span, the Palestinians fired 234 rockets.
On Wednesday July 9, the second day of Operation Protective Edge, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that he had ordered its expansion “until the [Palestinian] shooting stopped.”
debkafile‘s military sources say that the IDF high command replied that expansion would necessitate adding a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip to complement the air strikes. Enough equipment is present around the enclave but not enough troops. The call-up of 10,000 reservists did not meet requirements.
Since the prime minister had not yet provided them with specific orders, the air force continued to bomb rocket-related targets in Gaza, tallying strikes and publishing video clips of exploding targets and pillars of smoke.
But the facts in the field speak for themselves.
Despite the smoke and thunder, no senior Hamas commander or key command center has been hit – for lack of a clear directive. The Hamas chain of command is therefore still functioning.
This situation is fast developing into a standoff. Hamas leaders are perfectly aware of Israel’s dilemmas and quick to exploit them. They hear Netanyahu’s solemn words, but see for themselves that the concentration of IDF ground strength on the Gaza border is short of the numbers needed for an incursion and mobilizing them will take time.
Hamas is also listening to President Shimon Peres, who assured CNN that if Hamas holds its rocket fire, the IDF won’t go through with a ground incursion.
The Hamas rocket blitz has so far caused no Israeli fatalities thanks to a highly effective home defense system. On the Palestinian side, they are mounting, which they are beginning to use as a propaganda tool accompanied by vivid footage.
This situation decided Hamas Wednesday night to save its rockets, especially the more valuable ones with the longest range, and so confound Israeli predictions of another massive rocket blitz in store that would again widen out to reach Haifa.
Israel’s indecision about the next stage of Operation Protective Edge has given Hamas the time and breathing space it needs. Meanwhile, its most effective rockets for longer distances can be reserved for major confrontations.
And, meanwhile too, the perceived weakening of the government’s resolve and its reluctance to fix on a clear final objective have become fertile ground for self-doubts and unfounded rumors. The most damaging in circulation claimed that IDF and Air Force chiefs were complaining of a shortage of good intelligence for continuing their operations.
Our military sources confirm, without going into details on how much Israel knows about Hamas’ field setup, that the air force has all the intelligence it needs to carry on. What is lacking is not intelligence but a clear decision by Prime Minister Netanyahu about the operation’s ultimate goal and correlatively whether to go through with the ground operation necessary to complement the aerial operation. Until that is settled, Israel’s military operation against Hamas will continue to tread water.
Why is the IDF’s Gaza operation treading water?
Maybe Obama ordered Netanyahu to stand down!
Re-Post from DEBKAfile Special Report July 10, 2014, 10:25 AM (IDT)
Early Thursday, July 10, two more rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip at Tel Aviv. Iron Dome intercepted one. By 9 am, 10 more landed in Negev sites. Between Wednesday midnight and Thursday morning, the Israeli Air Force and Navy had carried out 108 strikes in the Gaza Strip – 322 in 24 hours. Targeted were a weapons store, 5 arms manufacturing plants, 5 military compounds, 58 tunnels, 2 surveillance posts, 217 buried rocket launching pads, one command and control base and 46 homes of Hamas and Jihad Islami commanders.
In this time span, the Palestinians fired 234 rockets.
On Wednesday July 9, the second day of Operation Protective Edge, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that he had ordered its expansion “until the [Palestinian] shooting stopped.”
debkafile’s military sources say that the IDF high command replied that expansion would necessitate adding a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip to complement the air strikes. Enough equipment is present around the enclave but not enough troops. The call-up of 10,000 reservists did not meet requirements.
Since the prime minister had not yet provided them with specific orders, the air force continued to bomb rocket-related targets in Gaza, tallying strikes and publishing video clips of exploding targets and pillars of smoke.
But the facts in the field speak for themselves.
Despite the smoke and thunder, no senior Hamas commander or key command center has been hit – for lack of a clear directive. The Hamas chain of command is therefore still functioning.
This situation is fast developing into a standoff. Hamas leaders are perfectly aware of Israel’s dilemmas and quick to exploit them. They hear Netanyahu’s solemn words, but see for themselves that the concentration of IDF ground strength on the Gaza border is short of the numbers needed for an incursion and mobilizing them will take time.
Hamas is also listening to President Shimon Peres, who assured CNN that if Hamas holds its rocket fire, the IDF won’t go through with a ground incursion.
The Hamas rocket blitz has so far caused no Israeli fatalities thanks to a highly effective home defense system. On the Palestinian side, they are mounting, which they are beginning to use as a propaganda tool accompanied by vivid footage.
This situation decided Hamas Wednesday night to save its rockets, especially the more valuable ones with the longest range, and so confound Israeli predictions of another massive rocket blitz in store that would again widen out to reach Haifa.
Israel’s indecision about the next stage of Operation Protective Edge has given Hamas the time and breathing space it needs. Meanwhile, its most effective rockets for longer distances can be reserved for major confrontations.
And, meanwhile too, the perceived weakening of the government’s resolve and its reluctance to fix on a clear final objective have become fertile ground for self-doubts and unfounded rumors. The most damaging in circulation claimed that IDF and Air Force chiefs were complaining of a shortage of good intelligence for continuing their operations.
Our military sources confirm, without going into details on how much Israel knows about Hamas’ field setup, that the air force has all the intelligence it needs to carry on. What is lacking is not intelligence but a clear decision by Prime Minister Netanyahu about the operation’s ultimate goal and correlatively whether to go through with the ground operation necessary to complement the aerial operation. Until that is settled, Israel’s military operation against Hamas will continue to tread water.
Centinel2012 