UN PROTESTS DAY AND NIGHT
CANNOT NOW STOP THE GAZA FIGHT
ISRAEL’S NOW DOING BY MEASURED MIGHT,
CAUSE NEW ROCKET RANGE HAS MADE IT RIGHT.
THESE THREE ARTICLES DESCRIBE THE GAZA PLIGHT,
PRODUCED BY QASSAMS CAUSING LOTS OF NEGEV FLIGHT!
Begin DEBKAfile Article
Ofakim is third Israeli town to join Hamas missile targets Sunday
March 2, 2008, 8:58 AM (GMT+02:00)
A Palestinian missile hit Ofakim, a town of 30,000, situated 12-15 km east of Gaza and south
of Beersheba, Sunday, March 2, crashing into the Salli mausoleum, but causing no casualties.
Defense minister Barak stated that Israel would fight Hamas in Gaza until it was forced to halt its missile-rocket war against Israeli towns and villages. The goal would not be attained in two days and more escalation was to be expected, Barak said. Regarding the Palestinian Authority’s suspension of peace talks, the defense minister said the PA had only itself to blame for the current crisis by letting Hamas terrorists to throw it out of Gaza eight months ago.
Saturday night, the Israeli air force demolished the building housing Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh’s office in Gaza City. Haniyeh was absent; he and the rest of the Hamas leadership have gone into hiding.
DEBKAfile’s military sources reported earlier that the IDF command received intelligence of Hamas plans to top
their missile jihad by infiltrating terrorists into Israeli cities through secret tunnels running under the Gaza-Israel border. Palestinian suicide bombers are also to be unleashed against Israeli troops fighting in northern Gaza; Hamas is at the same time determined to keep up its heavy missile and rocket barrage against Israeli civilian towns and villages.
Saturday night, Israeli forces therefore continued to pound Hamas targets without let-up, including air strikes against Khan Younes and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip
and al Bureij camp further north.
Another 10 Palestinian gunmen were killed, raising the day’s Palestinian death toll to close to 70. They included a number of civilians, including children.
In Jebalya, a Palestinian truck loaded with 160 missiles, rockets and mortar shells was blown.
Hamas is counting on a combination of multiple-casualty terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers with a continuous rocket blitz to bring Israel to its knees and force the IDF to end its incursion into Gaza.
Israeli leaders, for their part, expect the heavy Palestinian cost in life and demolition of the Hamas’ government and military infrastructure to terminate their missile offensive.
Saturday night saw stepped up Palestinian terrorist activity on the West Bank.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report an explosive device blew up in the hands of a terrorist preparing to hurl it at an IDF patrol south of Hebron.
He was seriously injured.
Gunshots were aimed from Beit Jala at Mt.
Gilo, at the southern edge of Jerusalem.
An armed Palestinian was driven off when he tried to attack a military police checkpoint near Shuafat in northern Jerusalem.
Pesagot near Ramallah came under gunfire.
This series of attacks is estimated by Israeli security chiefs to be the start of a systematic terrorist offensive in and around Jerusalem.
Begin Arutz Sheva Article 1
Ashkelon Katyushas Came From Iran Via Egypt
25 Adar 5768, 02 March 08 04:58
by Ezra HaLevi
(IsraelNN.com) Israel’s Foreign Ministry says the Grad-type Katyusha rockets fired at Ashkelon came from Iran and may lead Israel back to Gaza.
“In the past 24 hours, over 15 heavy rockets were fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza against Israel’s southern port city of Ashkelon,” a Foreign Ministry dispatch to journalists and diplomatic staff said. “The 122 mm Grad rockets (also known as Katyushas), are a type of standard military artillery weapon produced in the former Soviet bloc and by other states deploying non-Western arms. It is manufactured to military standards, by a conventional arms industry, and is equipped with a weapons-grade high explosive fragmentation warhead.”
The Foreign Ministry pointed the finger at Tehran. “The Grad rockets fired today were apparently smuggled into Gaza from Iran via Egypt through tunnels and the breached Rafah border fence,” the dispatch stated. “Israel has repeatedly warned neighboring states and the international community about the arms buildup taking place in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Today’s attacks constitute a regretful yet unequivocal proof of the veracity of Israel’s warnings.”
Prior to the implementation of the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza and northern Samaria, anti-expulsion activists placed posters all around Ashkelon proclaiming that the withdrawal would herald missiles on the port city and advising resident to oppose the move or prepare for the attacks. Thursday’s missiles slammed into the campus of Barzilai Hospital, destroyed a family home in one of the city’s neighborhood, made a large crater in one of the city’s streets and stuck the municipal cemetery.
The Foreign Ministry statement ended with an acknowledgement echoing the predictions of Gaza’s Jewish evictees: that Israel will have no choice but return to settle the region. “Israel left the Gaza Strip over two years ago, with no intention of ever returning,” the statement said. “Yet, the continued escalation of Hamas terrorism emanating from Gaza, purposely targeting Israeli civilians, is liable to leave Israel with no choice.”
Begin Arutz Sheva Article 2
UN Chief Condemns Israel’s ‘Excessive Force,’ Olmert Lashes Back
25 Adar 5768, 02 March 08 05:05
by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, speaking before Sunday morning’s weekly Cabinet meeting, staunchly defended Israel’s anti-rocket offensive in Gaza, and delivered a retort to various international elements that offered criticism.
“I do not recall that I heard from those who now criticize us,” Olmert said, “when Israeli citizens in southern Israel were attacked.”
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon said over the weekend that Israel was using “excessive force” in its battle against the Kassam and Katyusha rocket launchers and terrorist infrastructure.
The UN’s Security Council itself was slightly more balanced, releasing the following statement after a weekend session on the fighting in Gaza: “The Security Council is concerned over the loss of life, and calls upon both sides to respect international law and cease violent acts.”
“It must be remembered,” Olmert said in responding to the criticism, “that the State of Israel is simply protecting its residents in the south. No one has the moral right to preach to Israel. Israel must take the elementary steps of protecting its citizens against rockets.”
“We will take action against the terrorist organizations at the time and to the degree that we will decide,” Olmert said. “We will act against those who dispatch the terrorists and against those who harm us. No one will be immune.”
The prime minister noted that the current round of violence began on Thursday, when Israel successfully bombed a van holding five terrorists “on their way to perpetrate a major terrorist attack. Fortunately, this attack was thwarted.”
Speaking later with fellow Kadima party members, Olmert made sure to emphasize other aspects: “We will not be dragged along by hot-heads, and I will not allow an imbalanced attack that will look good in the short range, but will cause damage to the State of Israel in the long range. I say this to those who propose that we destroy neighborhoods with the people in them.”
Knesset Members of the Likud visited Ashkelon on Sunday morning and recalled that Yitzchak Rabin had said, “We know all the scare-stories of the Likud. They promised [when the first Oslo agreement was signed, in 1993] that there would be Katyushas from Gaza. It’s been a year already that Gaza is mostly under PA control, and there haven’t been any Katyushas, and there won’t be any… The Likud is simply scared to death of peace – they are ‘peace scaredy-cats’ – and for this reason is reacting in a truly childish manner.”
With tongue in cheek, Likud MK Michael Eitan said of the party’s visit to Ashkelon, “This is a meeting of the ‘peace scaredy-cats’ with the ‘sacrifices of peace’ [another phrase attributed to Rabin, referring to the price in blood Israel will be expected to pay for peace – ed.].”
“Yes, today we are very afraid,” Eitan said, “just as we were then, from the ‘peace’ of the Olmert government. Today, the residents of Sderot and Ashkelon are sacrifices
of the Oslo process. Tomorrow, the residents of Gush Dan [the greater Tel Aviv area] will pay the price of the concession process that Olmert is leading.”
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