This may be the Straw that broke the Camel’s Back!
OPERATION ARM PIT IN GAZA STRIP!
September 11, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
The Kassam attack, described in the Jerusalem Post article that follows immediately, may be the long awaited final provocation which invokes a violent response from Israel. I will be surprised if they let this one go with just a slap on the wrist.
Begin Jerusalem Post Article
Thirty-six wounded in Kassam attack near IDF military base
JPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST
September 11, 2007
Thirty-six soldiers were wounded after Palestinians fired a Kassam rocket into Israel on Monday night.
*(After we prepared this Blog we received an update indicating the number of wounded might reach 70).
The rocket struck inside an IDF basic training camp in Zikim, located one kilometer north of the Gaza Strip. The Kassam landed next to a tent in which a group of soldiers were sleeping.
The severity of wounds received by the troops, both male and female, varied between them.
All of the wounded were evacuated to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon and Soroka Hospital in Beersheba.
Twenty ambulances were alerted to the scene, south of Ashkleon, where they are accompanied by two helicopters responsible for evacuating the wounded.
The Nasr Salah al-Din Brigades, the Palestinian Resistance Committee’s armed wing, claimed responsibility for the attack. The IDF, who confirmed the attack, said that the rockets were fired from Beit Hanun.
End Jerusalem Post Article
The Gaza Strip, since the days of the Philistines in Saul and David’s day, has been a part of Israel producing the smell of an arm pit without any type of deodorant.
Israel has never been quite sure what to do with it, but would love to be rid of the problems that have come out of it down through
the ages. It does appear from the three articles which follow, one from last week, and one to begin this week, that Israel is going to step up retaliatory actions against Hamas for increasing rocket attacks and kidnapping attempts, now coming out of the Gaza Strip.
Begin DEBKAfile Article 1
Barak: We are heading for a major ground operation to stamp out Palestinian missile attacks and curb the Hamas military buildup
September 6, 2007, 7:03 AM (GMT+02:00)
This statement came Wednesday from Israel’s defense minister at a meeting of security chiefs after a special defense cabinet session on ways to halt the Qassam missile barrage from Gaza.
DEBKAfile’s military sources say the first part of the operation has begun.
Wednesday, Sept 5, Israeli forces were present in N. Gaza in sufficient strength to catch and destroy 11 missile launchers ready to go, which DEBKAfile also reports Iranian smuggling rings had spirited into Gaza through Sinai.
Tuesday, DEBKAfile disclosed exclusively that Israel had warned Egypt that it was left with no choice but military action to recapture the Philadelphi route bordering Egypt to halt this illicit traffic – part two of the operation. The decision followed the upsurge of missile fire against Sderot and the Egyptian forces’ discovery in Sinai of several dozen 240 mm Katyusha rockets, the first addressed to Hamas and Jihad Islami of the type used by Hizballah to blast northern Israel last year. The rockets were found in a cache with 2.7 tons of explosives.
DEBKAfile’s military sources disclosed that the message delivered Monday, Sept. 3, meant Israeli armed forces were standing by for an order to recapture the Philadelphi route running along the southern Gaza border with Egypt.
From Gaza, these rockets can reach the southern approaches of Beersheba, not just the towns of Ashkelon and Netivot.
According to intelligence input, the rockets were intended for immediate use by the two Palestinian groups. This information convinced Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, defense minister Ehud Barak and chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi that radical military action can no longer be delayed.
They decided that the Philadelphi route – evacuated by Israel two years ago with the rest of the Gaza Strip – would have to be retaken.
DEBKAfile’s military sources add that Israel sent the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas an abbreviated version of the warning to Cairo.
The message to Egypt contained full operational details to emphasize that Israel has no wish to infringe on Egyptian sovereignty. It left an opening for President Hosni Mubarak to avert the Israeli operation by ordering Egyptian security forces to take full control of the Egyptian-Gaza border sector. Senior Israeli officials strongly doubt this will happen and expect it to be left to the IDF.
They are taking into account that all the Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip will be led by Hamas and Jihad Islami in a violent response to Israel’s capture of Philadelphi by emptying their missile stocks on Israeli towns and villages in addition to Sderot.
Tuesday, Sept. 4, therefore, defense minister Barak extended the “special situation” decree governing the border region around Gaza by 48 hours.
This emergency decree grants the IDF’s Southern Comm and competence over civilian affairs, such as opening
and closing schools, medical facilities and factories, the evacuate of civilians if warranted by the security situation, and authorizing war damages to institutions, businesses and private citizens.
At the end of 48 hours,
the defense minister will request a further extension, possibly for a month, from the government, followed by the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee.
Begin The Daily Star Article 2
Olmert promises ‘relentless’ attacks in Gaza Strip
Monday, September 10, 2007
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that his army will press forward with its attacks against the Gaza Strip “without hesitation,” a day after Israeli commandos disguised as Hamas forces captured a leader of the Islamic group. Israeli media said the Hamas leader, Muhawesh al-Khadi, was involved in the capture of an Israeli soldier last year and could have information about the serviceman.
“This ongoing, relentless activity will continue and will be carried out without hesitation,” Olmert told his Cabinet, one day before scheduled talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to try to prod along peacemaking efforts ahead of a planned visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “All those who are involved in terror activities and all those who send terrorists and all those who command terrorists, will be hit. We will reach them every place.”
Israel has been grappling with how to deal with Palestinian rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, which is almost daily.
The Israeli Army frequently conducts air strikes and brief ground incursions it says are aimed at halting the rocket attacks. Last month, such strikes killed three children in the Gaza Strip.
Olmert’s Security Cabinet last week ruled out a large ground operation in Gaza, but is considering cutting off electricity, water and/or fuel supplies to the 1.4 million residents of Gaza in an effort to force the Hamas rulers of the territory to stop the rocket launchings.
In the operation Friday night, Israeli troops penetrated about 2 kilometers into southern Gaza and snatched Khadi, Palestinian officials said on condition of anonymity. The Israeli Army’s spokesman refused to comment.
Palestinian officials said the Israeli forces, disguised in Hamas security uniforms, waited next to a pickup truck with its hood up, pretending to repair the vehicle, on a road that Khadi was traveling on. He was taken to Israel by helicopter, the officials said.
Khadi is believed by Israel to have been involved in the operation to capture Corporal Gilad Shalit in June 2006 when fighters from Hamas and two affiliated groups tunneled into Israel from Gaza. Shalit remains in captivity.
Begin YNet News Article 3
Strategic response to Qassams
Repeated Gaza operations will reduce Palestinian motivation to fire rockets
Yitzhak Ben-Israel
The situation in Sderot is intolerable. Every day, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fire Qassam rockets at western Negev residents and particularly at Sderot. The casualty toll is indeed low, yet the disruption of day-to-day life is intolerable. We cannot expect residents to continue living normally when a rocket may land on their heads at any given moment.
The deliberate firing on civilians is a war crime, and it would suffice to note Islamic Jihad’s announcement last week that the massive fire was “a gift for the opening of the school year.” Against this backdrop, we should be asking why Israel refrains from resorting to military force against the rockets.
I assume that the hesitation to use force stems from considerations pertaining to the cost and benefit analysis of a military operation in Gaza:
First, we do not possess technology capable of intercepting the rockets in midair. The defense establishment has indeed decided to develop such technology, yet its operational deployment will only happen years from now. Until that time, an end to the rocket fire could only be achieved by entering the Strip and taking over several kilometers that would push back the launchers beyond the Qassam range.
Such takeover is possible, but it would come with a casualty toll (for both sides, and particularly for the Palestinians). The nature of this area, which is densely populated, would lead to casualties among civilians regardless of IDF efforts to minimize such deaths.
We can assume that the world will back the weak side and Israel would lose further points in the international public opinion arena.
Secondly, because we do not wish to stay in the Strip, we will have to depart after we clear the launching sites. And what then? Terror groups will apparently be able to return to the sites and renew the rocket fire. The overall balance sheet of such military operation does not seem overly positive.
Yet I believe that the “balance sheet” presented above, although it is accurate in terms of the physical reality, is misleading. Our opening position should not be to seek ways that would physically prevent the rocket fire (as noted, such modus operandi is unavailable.) Rather, we should start a process that would increasingly minimize the rocket threat, until it is curbed almost entirely.
Long-term strategic vision needed
Such a process is impossible under circumstances whereby the State of Israel hesitates to use force, even if the short-term balance sheet does not justify such move. We must change our way of thinking and reshape the rules of the game.
Let’s assume that we embark on a ground operation in Gaza (with the aim of eventually returning the troops to our territory) where we sustain casualties and cause many casualties to the other side.
Let’s also assume that following a certain period of calm to be achieved through this operation, the rocket fire will be renewed. We would always be able to repeat the operation and enter the Strip, time and again.
Terror groups would be able to embark on a new round of rocket fire-Israeli military operation-period of calm-rocket fire time and again. Yet the experience we accumulated over the past 60 years, as well as common sense, show that every decision to embark on a new round would become increasingly difficult for them and be met with increasing resistance by the Palestinian population, which would recall the results of the previous round.
The accumulated deterrence to be acquired this way has been one of the most basic fundamentals of Israel’s security doctrine since its inception. The long-term strategic vision should overcome the short-term tactical balance sheet in this case.
Ultimately, the situation is rather simple: There is no way to curb the activity of fanatical organizations that do not even recognize our right to exist unless we use force. The use of force, in and of itself, even if it comes with a price, and a heavy price at that, is the only way to create a process that will culminate in the minimization and possibly end of indiscriminate rocket fire on our civilian population.
The writer, a major-general (res), is a Kadima Knesset member
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