Gaza: The Gates of Wrath and Sorrow Swing Open Once Again

[seemslikeadream]

Gaza: The Gates of Wrath and Sorrow Swing Open Once Again

WRITTEN BY CHRIS FLOYD
THURSDAY, 15 NOVEMBER 2012 00:23
(UPDATED BELOW.)

How about this child, then? Is he dead enough for you?



The gates of wrath and sorrow open wide again in Gaza, clanging on their rusty, bloodstained hinges.

***

A report, via Facebook, from Gaza:

From Dr. Mona Al-Farra in Gaza City, an urgent message on Facebook: Dear Friends, Gaza is under extensive Israeli military attack ,in less than 2 hours , 14 military attacks against different targets in different parts of Gaza Strip , 6 were killed including 2 young girls age 4 and 7, 11 were injured, the hospitals are already lacking essential emergency medications, and citizens were called for blood donation, we do not have power , iam using UBS ,the first stage of this operation has been accomplished , we expect more escalation. your solidarity means a lot at this difficult times, pass the word, this aggression, should stop now.

***
The 20th paragraph -- the 20th paragraph -- of the New York Times story on the attack notes, very obliquely, that the recent rocket firing was in response to "deadly Israeli airstrikes":

Since then Hamas has mostly adhered to an informal, if shaky, cease-fire and at times tried to enforce the smaller militant groups to stick to it. But in recent months, under pressure from some of the Gaza population for not avenging deadly Israeli airstrikes, it has claimed responsibility for participating in the firing of rockets. Last week, it also claimed credit for detonating a tunnel packed with explosives along the Israel-Gaza border while Israeli soldiers were working nearby.

But elsewhere in the story, and everywhere in the media, the attack is clearly presented as righteous retaliation for unprovoked attacks: not as collective punishment on a captive people for themselves retaliating against airstrikes against them.

(UPDATE: In the latest online version of the constantly updated NYT story, the mention of the rocket attacks as retaliation for "deadly Israeli airstrikes" is now in the 32nd paragraph. Most of the new material is taken up with the Peace Laureate's firm support for Israel's right to "self-defense" -- a right which obviously does not extend to the Palestinians at any time, in any form. Like "good injuns," they're supposed to lay down and die on the cracked, caged earth of the reservation.)

***
In responding to the current attack, Arthur Silber also points to this this deeper look (from the 2009 slaughter in Gaza) at the template behind these spasms of atrocity -- a template much used not only by the "light unto the nations" but also "the shining city on the hill":

For a very long time, the United States government has specialized in the pattern pursued by Israel. The vastly more powerful nation wishes to act on a certain policy -- almost always territorial expansion, for purposes of access to resources, or to force itself into new markets, or to pursue the evil notion that economic and ideological success depend on brutality and conquest -- but a specifically moral justification for its planned actions does not lie easily to hand.

So the powerful nation embarks on a course designed to make life intolerable for the country and/or those people that stand in its way. The more powerful nation is confident that, given sufficient time and sufficient provocation, the weaker country and people will finally do something that the actual aggressor can seize on as a pretext for the policy upon which it had already decided. In this way, what then unfolds becomes the victim's fault.

***
And so it goes, and on it goes: the curse of violence, hatred, estrangement, fear. Madness snaking in and out of the only place where the universe is: in the electrics of our brains. So many sharp and painful endings to the world and all that's in it.

Published on Wednesday, November 14, 2012 by Common Dreams
'All Options on the Table' as Israel Launches 'Operation Pillar of Cloud'
Multiple airstrikes already started, ground invasion may follow

- Common Dreams staff
Israel has launched the start of a new war on Gaza "that will continue and grow," pounding the blockaded area with an aerial assault including multiple airstrikes on Wednesday.


Smoke rises after an Israeli air strike in the northern Gaza Strip November 14, 2012. (Amir Cohen/Reuters)
Israel has named their new war "Operation Pillar of Cloud" -- a Biblical reference to the Divine cloud that protected the Jewish people.

The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) tweeted Wednesday: "All options are on the table. If necessary, the IDF is ready to initiate a ground operation in Gaza." And Israel's Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai also hinted at a ground operation being a possibility, telling Channel 2 TV, "There are preparations, and if we are required to, the option of a entry by ground is available." In more evidence of a ground war in sight, Haaretz reports that the IDF has issued draft orders for Israeli Homefront Command reserve soldiers.

Confirming that air assaults are only part of longer-term escalation, Mordechai added on Wednesday evening, "We are in the midst of an attack that will continue and grow. There is no hourglass."

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed this message in a televised address on Wednesday, saying "we are prepared to expand the operation," and, in a sign of the scope of this newest assault, said, "We are at the beginning, not end of this action."

Australia's The Age reports that "Gaza’s health ministry said 10 civilians have been killed, including two young children – an 11-month-old and a six-year-old – while at least 45 people were wounded, 10 of them in critical condition."

One of the strikes killed Ahmad Al Jabari, the head of the armed wing of Hamas, Ezzedine Al-Qassam. The assassination "opened the gates of hell," Agence France-Presse reports the group as saying.

The IDF has a boastful tweet of Jabari's assassination, in which it says he has been "eliminated."

“The Israelis thought they could break Hamas resistance by killing Al-Jabari. They are wrong. The Palestinian resistance is still strong. We will coordinate together our reply to this crime committed by the Israelis,” the Independent reports Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri as saying. “Two days ago there was a ceasefire agreement prepared through Egyptian mediation. The Israelis did not commit to it and now they will pay the price.”

The Guardian reports on the reaction from Egypt's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political wing of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood group and the party of the new president, Mohammed Morsi:

The chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood's FJP party, Saad Elkatatny, said: "The Egyptian people revolted against injustice and will not accept an attack on Gaza. The brutal aggression on Gaza proves that Israel has not yet learned that Egypt has changed."

A statement from the FJP added: "The Freedom and Justice party stresses its full condemnation of the Israeli assignation operation against al-Qassam leader Ahmed al-Jaabari." It called for a quick Arab and international reaction.

"Israel's return to the policy of assignation of leaders from the Palestinian struggle groups shows that the Israeli occupation wants to drag the region towards instability," the FJP statement added.

"But the occupying state has to understand that the changes the Arab region, and especially Egypt, have witnessed will not permit that the Palestinian people be put under the hold of the Israeli offence in the same way as the past."
Egypt has also recalled its ambassador to Israel.

The U.S. State Department issued a statement on Wednesday in which it said the U.S. "support[s] Israel's right to defend itself."

[seemslikeadream]

thanks Arthur for being there

Goddamned Motherfuckers
I just sent this email to a good friend. This followed several earlier emails between us about other matters. Thought I'd share it with you:
And GAZA.

AGAIN.

STILL.

ALWAYS.

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH

Christ, I fucking HATE these motherfuckers.
I've said what I have to say about this particular category of monstrousness here.

That's it.

JANUARY 05, 2009

The Slaughter of the Diseased Animals
Eyad El-Sarraj is very ill; he suffers from multiple myeloma. He was unable to obtain desperately needed medical treatment for three months, because he was refused permission to make the short trip to Tel Aviv. El-Sarraj has a British passport. He lives in Gaza.

El-Sarraj was finally granted a one-day travel permit, but only because an Israeli friend with the right connections intervened on his behalf. We know that many others are not so fortunate. In mid-December 2008, El-Sarraj described some of the effects of the Israeli blockade:
The situation in Gaza got worse early last month when Israel tightened its blockade of Gaza. Our food, fuel and medical supplies have been severely limited. The blockade has ruined our economy and reduced many among us to a level of economic desperation that has alarmed United Nations officials.

According to Karen Koning Abu Zayd, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the human toll of this siege is terribly grave. Gaza has "been closed for so much longer than ever before ... and we have nothing in our warehouses. ... It will be a catastrophe if this persists, a disaster," she said. And U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently called for the immediate easing of the closure because of "deprivations of basic supplies and human dignity."

The secretary-general rightfully condemned Palestinian rocket fire at civilian targets in Israel. Such rockets are morally wrong and strategically inept. Yet the blockade that Israel has clamped on 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza is a collective punishment that harms men, women and children who have no power to control those firing the rockets. Rather than turn Gazans against Hamas, the blockade's effect has been a humanitarian catastrophe that alienates Gazans young and old from both Israel and the West. Even I, a practicing psychiatrist for decades and a longtime advocate of coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis, am having trouble coping with the hardships to which we are subjected.

Travel is crucial to me, not just for medical reasons but for reasons of basic sanity. I long to see dear friends, to see the world again, to breathe fresh air and, most of all, to reassure my senses that there are normal things and normal people outside Gaza's debilitating confines.
I'm almost certain that El-Sarraj understands this, but it is crucial to emphasize that this exercise in dehumanization engineered by Israel is intentionally designed to destroy the concept of "normal things and normal people" -- indeed, to destroy the concept of "normality" itself.

El-Sarraj mentions "Palestinian rocket fire at civilian targets in Israel"; this is, of course, the primary justification offered by Israel for the current slaughter. But without an appreciation of the monstrousness of the conditions that have been imposed on Gaza over a long period of time, this represents only the worst, most viciously dishonest kind of war propaganda. When one considers every matter of moment, that is to say, all those conditions that make possible a human mode of existence, Israel has all the power -- and the Palestinians generally, and certainly the inhabitants of Gaza, have none. That is the point from which all further analysis must begin.

And the argument about "Palestinian rocket fire" is a notable lie used to "justify" acts that are immensely evil. Uri Avnery explains:
"Israel must defend itself against the rockets that are terrorizing our Southern towns," the Israeli spokesmen explained. "Palestinians must respond to the killing of their fighters inside the Gaza Strip," the Hamas spokesmen declared.

As a matter of fact, the cease-fire did not collapse, because there was no real cease-fire to start with. The main requirement for any cease-fire in the Gaza Strip must be the opening of the border crossings. There can be no life in Gaza without a steady flow of supplies. But the crossings were not opened, except for a few hours now and again. The blockade on land, on sea and in the air against a million and a half human beings is an act of war, as much as any dropping of bombs or launching of rockets. It paralyzes life in the Gaza Strip: eliminating most sources of employment, pushing hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation, stopping most hospitals from functioning, disrupting the supply of electricity and water.

Those who decided to close the crossings – under whatever pretext – knew that there is no real cease-fire under these conditions.

That is the main thing. Then there came the small provocations which were designed to get Hamas to react. After several months, in which hardly any Qassam rockets were launched, an army unit was sent into the Strip "in order to destroy a tunnel that came close to the border fence". From a purely military point of view, it would have made more sense to lay an ambush on our side of the fence. But the aim was to find a pretext for the termination of the cease-fire, in a way that made it plausible to put the blame on the Palestinians. And indeed, after several such small actions, in which Hamas fighters were killed, Hamas retaliated with a massive launch of rockets, and – lo and behold – the cease-fire was at an end. Everybody blamed Hamas.
For a very long time, the United States government has specialized in the pattern pursued by Israel. The vastly more powerful nation wishes to act on a certain policy -- almost always territorial expansion, for purposes of access to resources, or to force itself into new markets, or to pursue the evil notion that economic and ideological success depend on brutality and conquest -- but a specifically moral justification for its planned actions does not lie easily to hand.

So the powerful nation embarks on a course designed to make life intolerable for the country and/or those people that stand in its way. The more powerful nation is confident that, given sufficient time and sufficient provocation, the weaker country and people will finally do something that the actual aggressor can seize on as a pretext for the policy upon which it had already decided. In this way, what then unfolds becomes the victim's fault.

The United States government has utilized this tactic with Mexico, to begin the Spanish-American War, even, dear reader, in connection with the U.S. entrance into World War II, most recently in Iraq, possibly (perhaps probably) with Iran in the future, and in numerous other conflicts. It's always the fault of the other side, never the fault of the United States itself. Yet the United States has always been much more powerful than those it victimizes in this manner. The United States always claims that its victims represented a dire threat to its very survival, a threat that must be brought under U.S. control, or eliminated altogether. The claim has almost never been true. This monstrous pattern is "The American Way of Doing Business."

Another of Avnery's points deserves emphasis: that blockades such as that imposed on Gaza are acts of war. The horrifying effects of the U.S. sanctions against Iraq should be recalled; you will find them detailed here. But U.S. politicians and most Americans deny that this is "war"; in the manner of remarkably stupid and/or disgustingly dishonest killers, we insist that our government's actions do not result in death unless bullets are fired or bombs are dropped. But sanctions and blockades of this kind kill as finally as bullets and bombs do. And such sanctions and blockades very frequently and inevitably lead to the deployment of bullets and bombs. As I noted in the earlier post about the Clinton administration's detestable Iraq policy (which included not only immensely destructive sanctions, but bombing too, let us not forget):
The Clinton administration's Iraq policy, as well as its interventions in the Balkans, strengthened the groundwork of our bipartisan foreign policy and provided unbroken continuity to the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. Anyone who tells you otherwise is ignorant or lying, or both. The Clinton administration and its defenders in the realm of foreign policy have a great deal to answer for.
In that same article, I quoted Stanley Kutler: "The sanctions and bombings of the 1990s are directly linked to Bush's determination to invade Iraq in 2003 and attempt to remake it--again, in our image."

In their unceasing determination to learn less than nothing from this deadly history, the Democrats and the incoming Obama administration have made indisputably clear that they intend to repeat this same precise pattern with Iran. If and when the bombs and missiles begin to fly, let no one be heard to say that they were not warned.

The general pattern described above, and more particularly the devastation visited on Gaza, remind me of an especially harrowing sequence from a fine film, Hud. The story concerns a cattle rancher and his family. It is discovered that some of the cattle have contracted hoof and mouth disease. To prevent the spread of the disease, and because he can think of no other means to control it, the head of the family decides that all the cattle must be destroyed.

A large pit is dug, deep enough to prevent the cattle from getting out. The cattle are driven into the pit, with all means of escape closed off. The men stand around the edges of the pit, and they lift their rifles. They begin to shoot -- and they shoot, and shoot, and shoot, and shoot.

Finally, after endless, terrifying minutes, all the cattle are dead.

Cattle, the inhabitants of Gaza ... what's the difference? They're all animals and subhumans, diseased or possibly diseased, incapable of being saved, beyond redemption. Kill them all.

And the world watches -- and the world does nothing.

Nothing.

[seemslikeadream]

Published on Thursday, November 15, 2012 by Common Dreams
Regional War Feared as Israel 'Viciously' Pounds Gaza
Assault on Palestinian territory continues as Netanyahu tells Israelis to expect further action and regional leaders condemn 'viciousness'
- Common Dreams staff

An Israeli airstrike sent up smoke over Gaza on Thursday. (Oliver Weiken/European Pressphoto Agency)
President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt renewed his warning on Thursday that his country considers the Israeli assault on the people of Gaza—what many consider to be the largest open-air prison on the planet—an act of outright aggression and vowed to stand by Palestinians.

Morsi's comments reflect the regional implications of a quickly escalating conflict in Gaza which continued overnight with dozens of Israeli airstrikes. As the aerial assault continued in what Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have named "Operation Pillar of Cloud"—a Biblical reference to the Divine cloud that protected the Jewish people—the fear of a regional conflict growing out of Gaza has heightened.

“Israel must realize that we don’t accept the aggression that negatively affects security and stability in the region,” Morsi said before a meeting of senior ministers, reports The New York Times. Morsi used the opportunity to tell Palestinians in Gaza that Egypt would "stand by them to stop this assault on them,” though he not precise about how the Egyptians might do so.

Prime Minister of Qatar Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani also condemned Israel's action and called for UN intervention immediately, saying: "This vicious attack must not pass unpunished... The UN security council must take up its responsibility to secure peace and security in the world ... We reject extremism and terrorism but such irresponsible and unjustified attacks must be condemned by the world."

Inter Press Service reports:

The Israeli military dropped leaflets onto Gaza Thursday, telling Palestinians that they need to “take responsibility for (themselves) and avoid being present in the vicinity of Hamas operatives and facilities and those of other terror organisations that pose a risk to their safety.”

With 1.7 million people living in a 365 square-kilometre area, the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated places in the world. Israeli attacks, PCHR’s Jaber Wichah said, “could reach everywhere, and all of Gaza could be under threat. According to these leaflets, it’s not just a specific area. Every person is vulnerable.”
In an interview with Al-Jazeera late Wednesday, Palestinian rights campaigner and author Ali Abunimah, recounted for viewers the incidents that resulted in the renewed violence and condemned both Israel's assault on Gaza and the widely mis-reported aspects of the realities on the ground there:



Following the first major wave of airstrikes that pounded targets in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a national televised appearance and vowed that Israel was sending a clear message to Palestinians and warned that the IDF's military assault could escalate.

In the address, Netanyahu said: "Today we sent a clear message to Hamas and other terrorist organizations, and if it becomes necessary we are prepared to expand the operation."

"We are at the beginning, not end of this action," said Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, stressing the need to be "on high alert in Israel and West Bank... It won't be a quick fix.. but we'll reach goals we set for this operation."

Graphic images of child casualties and the resulting anger in Gaza accompanied fresh warnings from Hamas leaders and other militia leaders that "open war" was inevitable. Thursday saw the first evidence of the threatened response as agencies reported rockets from Gaza struck a residential building in the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malahi, killing three Israelis.
Palestinians wheel a wounded child into a hospital after an Israeli air strike in Gaza City November 14, 2012. (Reuters/Mohammed Salem)

Al-Jazeera reports:

Five Palestinians were killed by Israeli air strikes on Thursday morning, as militants shot around 250 rockets into Israel, killing three Israelis.

The latest violence raised the total number of Gazans killed in 20 hours of Israeli air strikes to 13. At least 120 other residents of the coastal enclave have been injured, according to medics.

In the same period, Gaza rockets killed three Israelis and injured another five in a direct hit on a residential building in the southern town of Kiryat Malahi, said Israeli police.

"We have three killed," spokeswoman Luba Samri told the AFP news agency, saying four other people were also injured in a "direct hit on a house" in the town, 30km north of the Gaza Strip.

The fighting began when Israel assassinated Ahmed al-Jabari, head of Hamas’ military wing, with an air strike on his car in Gaza on Wednesday. Jabari's bodyguard and son were also killed in the strike.

Thursday's rocket fire on Kiryat Malahi was claimed by Jabari's group, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, in a statement on its website.

[Sepka]

Here's a thought - what if the Palestinians tried living in peace, and not shooting rockets at Israel?

[JackRiddler]

Here's a thought - what if the Palestinians tried living in peace, and not shooting rockets at Israel?

What if you stopped lying about who broke the peace and shot first, as usual?

This is so far a repeat of 2008 - Israel follows US election by immediately attacking Gaza as a demonstration to the US president that there will be no thought of challenging this barbarism given the US politics. (Example: your own.)

[brekin]

Sepka wrote:

Here's a thought - what if the Palestinians tried living in peace, and not shooting rockets at Israel?

What JR said, but I see your point Sepka. People who have been forcibly removed from their homes, enclosed in ghettos in which they are slowly starved and slaughtered, who don't just lie down and die, are annoying fuckers, aren't they?

[8bitagent]

the interesting thing about this particular horror is that Israel recently fired missiles into Syria and has warned them. They continue to plan an attack on Iran. And there's always the Hezbollah forces in Southern Lebanon they claim to want to strike down. Just imagine if all four fronts were opened.

Since the death of Rabin by a militant right winger, there has and probably won't be peace anytime soon. Perhaps the only conclusion will be war. And it will be curious which side Saudi Arabia truly sides with, since they obviously seem to love Israel so much despite backing the "Palestinian cause" as so many Wahhabists merely claim to do. Again Im highly naive on all this so apologies if I sound highly ignorant on the topic.
I love the people of Israel and Palestine equally and feel bad for everyone. My belief has long been that Egypt or another neighboring Arab country should give up a tiny bit of their land to Palestine, Israel should withdraw all apartheid occupation and borders drawn up that are fair for a full on Palestinian country.

[Occult Means Hidden]

Sepka, That's not how it works. All western media presents these stories as Israel acting in retaliation or response. With on-going violence, it is impossible to say one side "started" it, and the other side "retaliated". You have to go to the beginning to understand the situation as well as understand where the current balance of power lies. It started with British imperialism and Israeli expansionism displacing millions. It worsened with an act of conquest over sovereign territory and continues unabated with a 100-1 kill ratio and 1000-1 war dollar advantage while denying millions a right to a state citizenship, effectively making them nobodies over the course of decades. November 29th was coincidently the date Palestine was to appeal for an initial vote to be recognized as an independent state. There just might be a motive, somewhere out there, to prevent that from happening. But those Palestinians are irrational animals, right?

[seemslikeadream]

Here's a thought - what if the Palestinians tried living in peace, and not shooting rockets at Israel?

not to worry there will be peace when Israel has finished taken every single grain of sand under the Palestinians feet....for the life of me I can't figure out why they'd be pissed about anything

Three More Palestinians Killed In Gaza, 19 in 24 Hours, 23 Since Saturday
Friday November 16, 2012 02:43 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News
The Israeli army continued it aggression and massive offensive against the civilians in the Gaza Strip, and bombarded on Thursday at night dozens of targets in the besieged coastal region killing three children and wounding several residents. 19 Palestinians have been killed since Wednesday evening, and at least 180 have been injured. 23 Palestinians have been killed since last Saturday; most of the casualties are civilians, children and women.

Haneen Tafesh - 10 Months Killed By Israeli Fire - Palestinain Information Center

Ashraf Al-Qodra, spokesperson of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, reported that Israeli war jets fired a missile at a civilian car in Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza, killing three children.

The slain children were identified as Fares Al-Basyouni, 9, Odai Jamal Nasser, 16, and Tareq Jamal Nasser, 14.

Earlier on Thursday evening, a 10-month-old infant, identified as Haneen Tafesh, died at the Ash-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, after being seriously injured in an earlier Israeli attack.

The Israeli army is widening its assault against the civilians in Gaza, bombarding their homes and lands.

Israel killed 23 Palestinians in the coastal region since Saturday, 19 of them were killed in the last 24 hours; among the casualties are 7 children, a pregnant women, and two elderly. More than 180 Palestinians have been injured; dozens are in serious conditions.

Thousands of Palestinians held protests in different parts of the occupied West Bank denouncing the ongoing Israeli military aggression against Gaza. The army fired rounds of live ammunition, gas bombs, concussion grenades and rubber-coated metal bullets at them leading to a number of injuries.

Clashes were reported in different parts of the Hebron district, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank, and the soldiers kidnapped three Palestinians.

Injuries were reported in Jenin and Nablus, in the northern part of the West Bank during clashes with the army, a number of residents were kidnapped.

The army also occupied a school in Jenin and turned it into a military base.

Soldiers also invaded Beit Sahour and Beit Jala, in the West Bank district of Bethlehem, and clashed with local residents who hurled stones at the invading forces.

Israel Moves Troops To Gaza
By KARIN LAUB and IBRAHIM BARZAK 11/15/12 06:39 PM ET EST

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Palestinian militants targeted densely populated Tel Aviv in Israel's heartland with rockets for the first time Thursday, part of an unprecedented barrage that threatened to provoke an Israeli ground assault on Gaza. Three Israelis were killed.

Air raid sirens wailed and panicked residents ran for cover in Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial and cultural capital. Israel responded by moving troops and heavy weapons toward Gaza and authorizing the call-up of tens of thousands of reservists.

There was no word on where the two rockets aimed at Tel Aviv landed, raising the possibility they fell into the Mediterranean. A third rocket landed in an open area on the southern outskirts of Tel Aviv.

The fighting, the heaviest in four years, came after Israel launched a ferocious air assault Wednesday to stop repeated rocket fire from Gaza. The powerful Hamas military chief was killed in that strike, and another 18 Palestinians have died over two days, including five children. Some 100 Palestinians have been wounded.

Israeli warplanes struck dozens of Hamas-linked targets in Gaza on Thursday, sending loud booms echoing across the narrow Mediterranean coastal strip at regular intervals, followed by gray columns of smoke. After nightfall, several explosions shook Gaza City several minutes apart, a sign the strikes were not letting up, and the military said the targets were about 70 underground rocket-launching sites.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the army was hitting Hamas hard with what he called surgical strikes, and warned of a "significant widening" of the Gaza operation. Israel will "continue to take whatever action is necessary to defend our people," said Netanyahu, who is up for re-election in January.

There were mounting signs of a ground operation. At least 12 trucks were seen transporting tanks and armored personnel carriers toward Gaza late Thursday, and a number of buses carrying soldiers arrived. Israeli TV stations said a Gaza incursion was expected on Friday, though military officials said no decision had been made.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said he authorized the call-up of reservists, and the army said up to 30,000 additional troops could be drafted.

"We will continue the attacks and we will increase the attacks, and I believe we will obtain our objectives," said Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, Israel's military chief.


Hamas, meanwhile, warned it would strike deeper inside Israel with Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets, acknowledging for the first time it has such longer-range weapons capable of hitting targets some 47 miles (75 kilometers) away. Tel Aviv is 40 miles (70 kilometers) from Gaza.

By nightfall Thursday, Hamas said it had fired more than 350 rockets into Israel. Israel, which estimates Gaza militants have as many as 12,000 rockets, said some 220 rockets struck the Jewish state and another 130 were intercepted by an anti-missile shield.

Israel believes Hamas has significantly boosted its arsenal since the last Gaza war four years ago, including with weapons from Iran and from Libyan stockpiles plundered after the 2011 fall of the regime there.

"After four years, we became stronger, we have a strategy and we became united with all the military wings in Gaza," said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, referring to Hamas' setbacks during Israel's last major offensive in late 2008.

In the current round of fighting, Israel is facing an emboldened Hamas with a stronger arsenal and greater regional backing. Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, like Hamas a member of the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood, said he was sending a high-level delegation to Gaza on Friday in a show of support for the fellow Islamists there.

Both Israel and Hamas had largely observed an informal truce over the last four years, marred by occasional flare-ups. In recent days, however, border tensions escalated, then exploded into major violence Wednesday when Israel assassinated Hamas' secretive military chief, Ahmed Jabari, with a missile strike on his car.

Jabari led Hamas' 2007 takeover of the territory, turning small squads of Hamas gunmen into a fighting force and supervising Gaza's fledgling arms industry, including rocket production. He was long No. 1 on Israel's most-wanted list, particularly for his role in capturing Israeli Sgt. Gilad Schalit and holding him for more than five years.

On Thursday, Hamas gunmen fired machine guns in the air as frenzied mourners carried Jabari's body, wrapped in a white burial shroud, through the streets of Gaza City on a wooden stretcher. At the cemetery, young men surged toward the corpse, trying to touch Jabari's face before he was lowered into the grave in a chaotic scene.

Hamas' top leaders have dropped out of sight since the assassination, but it was not clear if they would be targets. The Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, said in a televised speech Thursday that the group "will not forget and not forgive" the killing of Jabari.

Late Thursday, Hamas security said an Israeli navy vessel fired toward a building about 50 yards (meters) from Haniyeh's house, where a generator supplies electricity for the prime minister and his neighbors in Shati, a beach-front refugee camp in Gaza City. It was not clear if Haniyeh was home at the time.

In Israel, a rocket hit a four-story apartment building in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi on Thursday, killing two men and a pregnant woman. A 4-year-old boy and two babies were wounded in the attack.

Many Gazans stayed indoors and streets were largely empty, though there was no sense of widespread panic. Some said Hamas should take revenge, even at the price of further Israeli retaliation.

"If Israel strikes us, we have to strike back," said Ahmed Barakat, a 33-year-old laborer from Gaza City attending the Jabari funeral. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

In Jerusalem, thousands of mourners attended the funeral of Mira Scharf, a 26-year-old mother of three who was killed in Thursday's rocket strike in Israel. Israeli media said she was pregnant and had recently returned to Israel from New Delhi to give birth.

In central Tel Aviv, Adrian Cisser, a 35-year-old electrician, was in a bicycle shop when an air raid siren went off.

"People on the street started running," he said. "The public shelter nearby was locked so we just stayed in the shop, and two minutes after it started we heard this big bang."

Cisser said he had gotten a preliminary call from the army and expects to be called up for reserve duty next week.

In the southern Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion, where a Hamas rocket landed in an empty field, a siren sent people rushing for shelter.

"There is panic in our house and we can hear shouts from the street," a resident who gave her first name, Lital, told the Israeli news site YNet. "Children were running away, trying to find shelter. It was very stressful. I am shaken up."

From Israel's perspective, Hamas escalated the fighting with a pair of attacks in recent days, an explosion in a tunnel along the Israeli border and a missile attack on an Israeli military jeep that seriously wounded four soldiers.

An Israeli ground offensive could be costly to both sides. In the last Gaza war, Israel devastated large areas of the territory, setting back Hamas' fighting capabilities but also paying the price of increasing diplomatic isolation because of the high civilian casualty toll.

The current round of fighting is reminiscent of the first days of Israel's three-week offensive against Hamas that began in December 2008. At the time, Israel also caught Hamas off-guard with a barrage of missile strikes and threatened to follow up with a ground offensive.

However, much has also changed since then.

Israel has improved its missile defense systems, but is facing a more heavily armed Hamas.

Netanyahu, who has clashed even with his allies over the deadlock in Mideast peace efforts, appears to have less diplomatic leeway than his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, making a protracted military offensive harder to sustain.

The White House came out in support of Israel on Thursday, with spokesman Jay Carney saying there is "no justification" for rocket fire from Gaza and urging militants to stop "cowardly acts."

However, the regional constellation has changed dramatically since the last Gaza war. Hamas has emerged from its political isolation as its parent movement, the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood, rose to power in several countries in the wake of last year's Arab Spring uprisings, particularly in Egypt.

On Thursday, the Egyptian president ordered his prime minister, Hesham Kandil, to lead a senior delegation to Gaza on Friday in a show of support for Hamas. Morsi has called Israel's campaign against Hamas "unacceptable" and has recalled Egypt's ambassador to Israel in protest.

Gaza crisis: Israel's Barak calls up army reservists

Israeli trucks have transported tanks and other armoured vehicles towards Gaza

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has authorised the call-up of 30,000 army reservists, amid speculation about a possible ground offensive on Gaza.

The announcement came after Palestinian militants fired rockets from Gaza 70km (45 miles) north towards Tel Aviv.

Egyptian PM Hisham Qandil is to travel to Gaza on Friday in a show of support.

Fighting has intensified since Israel killed Ahmed Jabari, the military leader of the Islamist group that controls the territory, on Wednesday.

At least 18 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, including children, and three Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rocket fire into southern Israel.

'Unacceptable aggression'
By Thursday night, Hamas said it had fired more than 350 rockets from Gaza, of which Israel said 130 had been intercepted by its Iron Dome missile defence system.

But in Tel Aviv, residents took cover after air raid sirens alerted them to a missile threat for the first time there since 1991. One missile landed in an uninhabited area while one is thought to have landed in the sea.

The armed wing of Islamic Jihad said it had fired an Iranian-built, Fajr-5 rocket - which has an estimated range of 75km.


The focus of the Israeli night-time television news was the possible widening of this conflict to affect the country's biggest city and main commercial centre, Tel Aviv, where alarms sounded earlier.

There were no reported injuries but two rockets, apparently with a longer-than-usual range, landed nearby.

With national media also reporting the movement of Israeli troops towards Gaza and the authorisation of the call-up of reservists, there are growing signs of a further escalation in fighting.

Life on hold in Israel towns
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said targeting Tel Aviv would "exact a price that the other side will have to pay".

Late on Thursday, BBC correspondents in Gaza reported several massive explosions and missile fire in and around Gaza City as Israeli strikes continued.

There were also reports of buses of Israeli troops - and trucks loaded with tanks and armoured personnel carriers - heading towards the coastal enclave.

Israeli television stations said the build-up suggested an incursion was planned, but military officials said no decision had been made.

The Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, condemned what he called Israel's "ferocious assault" against the territory.

"We here in Gaza will remain steadfast and unshaken," he said in a televised statement. "We are all confident in our intrepid resistance fighters who are now deployed on the front."

Many of the Palestinians killed in Gaza during the last two days by the Israeli aerial and naval bombardment were members of militant groups, but civilians - including at least four children - were also among the dead. They included 11-month-old Omar, the son of Jihad Misharawi, a BBC Arabic picture editor.

The three Israeli civilians who died - two women and a man - were killed on the top floor of a block of flats in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi that suffered a direct hit by a rocket.

Egypt's new Islamist President Mohammed Mursi called the Israeli bombardment "unacceptable aggression" and said it would affect stability in the region.

The BBC understands that Cairo is actively trying to mediate between Israel and Hamas over the fighting.

The United States, Israel's key ally, has urged Egypt, Turkey and European powers who have contact with Hamas to urge it to stop rocket attacks from Gaza, saying the onus was on Hamas to stop the violence.

Arab League foreign ministers are set to discuss the violence later on Friday.

Israel's aerial and naval bombardment of the Gaza Strip is its most intense assault on the Palestinian territory since it launched a full-scale invasion four years ago.

[hava007]

"once again", that's the key...for me at least. blah blah...

[DrVolin]

How many kids have to die or be maimed? I just don't understand. If grown ups want to kill each other, that's their problem. We should give them an island somewhere. Fuck them.

[hava007]

i guess it depends which children, but on the whole it sounds like croc (tears).

Rocket falling in Tel Aviv, throws me back 20 years or so, to my glorious times in DC during the scud attacks on Tel Aviv, while gnawing teeth under the weight of some old geezer "for the cause" (iraq invasion ?), while now, not in Tel Aviv, but due to old age, I guess, spared the role of the token "mideastern socialite"...

in perspective, well, I guess the conservatives lost their touch, but instead, the gazans are serving as plan d (a - support romney get him pres b- create havoc in Lybia; c sexually drag the military/CIA into war; if all fails - bomb gaza).

yawn ? well, thank god I can sleep at nights...

[Wombaticus Rex]

How many kids have to die or be maimed? I just don't understand.

All of them. That is not a facetious answer, that's an actual strategic imperative when you define your enemy ethnically.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Via: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... -calm.html

Assassinating the Chance for Calm

By Gershon Baskin

Shortly after the return of Gilad Shalit, I drafted a proposal to the Government of Israel and Hamas to enter into a long term ceasefire arrangement based on the assumption that, for the time being, neither side was interested in engaging in renewed warfare. The assumption was well founded and based on the experience that I gained directly in helping to arrange a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza after the terrorist attack across the Sinai border in August 2011, while the Shalit negotiations were taking place.

Repeated rounds of rocket fire over the following year yielded the same results with both sides seeking a ladder to step down and avoid full escalation, which would not bring any political or military gains. Since that time, with the exception of the last round of violence two weeks ago, the rocket fire from Gaza was launched after a pre-emptive Israeli strike against terror cells. Based on Israeli intelligence information, pre-emptive strikes were conducted primarily against cells from the Islamic Jihad and the popular resistance committees. Hamas almost always sat on the sidelines and allowed the other factions in Gaza to shoot their rockets until the price in human life became too high. At that point, Hamas urged the Egyptians to intervene to secure a return to calm. In the last rounds, Hamas, under pressure from its public, joined in the shooting of rockets—but it almost always aimed its rockets at open spaces in Israel and their damage was minimal. It was clear to all involved that Hamas was not interested in escalating the situation and for its own reasons and agreed to impose the ceasefire on all of the other factions, and on itself.

The key actor on the Hamas side was Ahmed Jaabari, the commander of Ezedin al Qassam, the military wing of Hamas. When he was convinced that Israel was ready to stand down as well, Jaabari was always ready to take the orders to force the ceasefire on all of the other factions and on Hamas.

Both Israel and Hamas had decided months ago not to take action on my proposed ceasefire option, which included within it a mechanism that would prevent Israeli pre-emptive actions and would enable Hamas to prove that it was prepared to prevent terror attacks against Israel. Both sides responded very seriously to the proposal, but without any signal that there was an openness on the other side, neither was willing to advance the possibility for testing it.

Several weeks ago, I decided to try once again and, through my counterpart in Hamas, we both began speaking to high level officials on both sides. A few days ago I met my counterpart in Cairo and we agreed that he would draft a new proposal based on our common understanding of what was required to make it work.

Yesterday morning, hours before Israel assassinated Ahmed Jaabari, my counterpart in Hamas presented the draft to Jaabari and to other Hamas leaders. Senior Hamas leaders on the outside had already seen it and had instructed him to check the reactions to it in Gaza. I was supposed to receive the draft yesterday evening to present to Israeli officials who were waiting for me to send it to them.

That option is now off the table. Jaabari is dead and so is the chance for a mutually beneficial long term ceasefire understanding. Why did Benjamin Netanyahu do it? The cynical answer already offered by Aluf Benn in Haaretz is elections consideration. Cast Lead was also conducted before elections. Hitting Jaabari, according to Netanyahu’s thinking, would help him in the upcoming Israeli elections. Perhaps this is true, perhaps not.

It seems to me that some of the commanders of the Israeli army have been very frustrated that the previous agreements to return to calm left Israel in a weaker position, with Hamas calling the shots. They have been calling to rebuild Israel’s deterrence. Let them in Gaza feel the pain of a serious Israeli attack and then they will think seven times before shooting more rockets, is what they proposed. In the last days there has been a lot of talk from politicians, military experts and officers to return to the policy of “targeted killings.” This, they claim, would make the Hamas leaders hide for their lives and stop shooting at us. These military geniuses failed to realize that what never worked in the past will not work now either.

Now millions of Israelis and Palestinians are living under the terror of attack. Many more Gazans will be killed than Israelis, but is this a worthy achievement that we can be proud of and that will guarantee our long term security? I don’t think so.

I can only imagine that the assassination of Jaabari has bought us the entry card to Cast Lead II. This time, the experts say, “Let’s finish them off. Let’s do the job that we didn’t do last time. Let’s do a regime change.” Well, I ask: what then? Do we really want to reoccupy Gaza, because that will be the consequence of a regime change. I don’t believe that Netanyahu wants re-occupation. So if that is not what he wants, he must be aware that, on the morning after, we will still be living next to Gaza, which still be run by Hamas. They are not going away and the people of Gaza are not going away.

The assassination of Jaabari was a pre-emptive strike against the possibility of a long term ceasefire. Netanyahu has acted with extreme irresponsibility. He has endangered the people of Israel and struck a real blow against the few important more pragmatic elements within Hamas. He has given another victory to those who seek our destruction, rather than strengthen those who are seeking to find a possibility to live side-by-side, not in peace, but in quiet.

[seemslikeadream]

Well Mr. Krysos I believe you owe every one of my dear friends on this board an apology, especially me. Not only did you come here spouting off accusing RI members of not caring but I had made my OP a day before your tirade, you didn't even read the first page where you would have found TWO threads about the Palestinians, way more informative than the scant info that you spent your precious time posting about a day late and a dollar short.

so next time.....