HOW MUCH LONGER WILL ISRAEL WAIT?
April 16, 2008 – 6:05 AM CST
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
The first article from the Jerusalem Post give s
a portrayal of an event which is provocation enough for a major operation.
The three consecutive excerpts from DEBKAfile make it clear that some sort of action other than passive must be taken by the Knesset. Unless something more drastic than what was practiced over the last several months against Hamas, they will become more and more aggressive.
Hamas believes in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. If you pull all their teeth, they have nothing to retaliate about or which to trade. It is Israel’s fear of irritating the United States and international opinion that has been the restraining force holding them back.
I wonder how long the American public would react passively if such actions were pressed on them by a terrorist organization. Hamas uses international opinion to the hilt, creating counterfeit situations themselves to draw more sympathy for them to make Israel look like a monster.
Begin Jerusalem Post Article 1
Three soldiers killed, two wounded in Gaza ambush
Yaakov Katz, JPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST
April 15, 2008
Three IDF soldiers were killed and two others were wounded Wednesday after coming under heavy fire from Palestinian gunmen while patrolling the border with the Gaza Strip.
Givati soldiers were patrolling the border near Kibbutz Be’eri when they spotted a number of armed Palestinians moving towards the border in what appeared to be an attempt to infiltrate into Israel. The soldiers then crossed into Gaza to engage the Palestinians, but fell into a well-planned ambush and came under heavy gun and rocket fire.
Three soldiers were killed and two were wounded in the attack – one moderately and one lightly.
The fighting continued throughout most of the morning.
One of the soldiers who was killed was identified as Sgt. Matan Ovdati, 19, from Patish.
The two wounded soldiers were evacuated to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba.
Hamas took responsibility for the attack, and vowed to continue attacks against Israel.
“We will continue to conduct many operations against the occupation, and continue to set ambushes of death its cowardly soldiers,” Hamas said in a flier which was published following Wednesday morning’s attack. “IDF soldiers going into Gaza have four choices: to be killed, captured, seriously wounded, or become psychologically traumatized.”
According to reports, the gunmen managed to escape.
Earlier Wednesday, Palestinians reported that six people were killed during IDF operations in Gaza.
Hamas reported that four of its gunmen were killed and three were wounded in exchanges of fire with IDF troops. Elsewhere, an Islamic Jihad commander was targeted by an IAF missile while he rode a motorcycle in the Jabalya refugee camp. It was not clear who the sixth man was.
Meanwhile, an IDF soldier was moderately wounded when he
was shot by a Palestinian sniper during ongoing counter-terror operations near Khan Yunis. The soldier was evacuated to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba.
Also Wednesday morning, eight Kassam rockets were launched into Israel from Gaza. The rockets fell in open areas and did not cause any damage.
On Tuesday, Givati Brigade and Armored Corps troops operating in the Kissufim area fired at a Kassam launching cell, and confirmed hitting it, the IDF said. The soldiers came under heavy mortar and anti-tank fire. No troops were wounded.
The army said that IDF soldiers shot several other armed Palestinians in the battle.
Gaza residents said IDF armored vehicles hit and damaged a mosque. The army said the mosque was full of explosives and exploded during an exchange of fire between troops and gunmen located inside.
In addition, an Israeli home was hit as Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, near the Gaza border, came under heavy mortar fire. No one was wounded, but the roof sustained mild damage.
Begin DEBKAfile Article 2
Gaza Palestinians shell senior Israeli officers touring battered border communities
April 13, 2008, 3:11 PM (GMT+02:00)
DEBKAfile’s military sources report OC Southern Command, Maj.
Gen. Yoav Galant, his aides and local security officers took cover when they came under heavy cross-border mortar fire from Gaza Sunday, April 13. None was hurt although the Palest inian aim was precise, start
ing as soon as the Israeli group inspecting security measures came with in sight. Four shells landed 40 yards away.
This is the third time in a month that increasingly aggressive Palestinian cross-border fire has targeted a high-ranking Israeli. Last month, a Katyusha rocket exploded in Ashkelon shortly after a visit by prime minister Ehud Olmert; on April 4, internal security minister Avi Dichter was targeted and his aide injured while leading a group of Canadians around Sderot and other Israeli communities harassed by Palestinian missiles.
Israel’s grip on the border fence and surrounding populations is under constant assault as Palestinian audacity increases and Israeli forces are restricted by policy-makers to showpiece operations on the fringes of the Gaza Strip, instead of tactically effective engagements.
These operations not only fail to halt Palestinian fire but have encouraged their gunmen to draw ever closer to the border barrier and improve their aim at Israeli targets with impunity.
Furious southern command officers told DEBKAfile that no army in the world would put up with its senior commanders’ exposure to attack insde their sovereign territory by a belligerent neighbor. They are forced to watch day by day as armed Palestinians take up forward firing positions and command a strip of Israeli territory up to one kilometer deep, condemning tens of thousands of Israeli civilians to life under constant fire.
Begin DEBKAfile Article 3
Exclusive: Israeli and Egyptian forces on high alert on Gaza borders over Hamas threats
April 13, 2008, 3:07 PM (GMT+02:00)
Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal voiced this threat Saturday, April 12.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the raid by Palestinian gunmen on the Israeli-Gaza fuel terminal – and murder of two of its employees, Oleg Lipson and Lev Cerniak – were meant to set the stage for a mass Hamas assault on the Gaza-Israeli border. Earlier this year, Hamas organized a “popular demonstration” of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who smashed their way through the Egyptian border to Sinai. After forcing Israel to close the fuel terminal, the Gaza population’s main source of fuel by its attack last Wednesday, Hamas plans to stage a mass protest against purported fuel shortages which is designed to end up flattening the border fence with Israel.
Our sources report that these shortages are a myth: Hamas has tons of heavy oil and petrol in stock, but reserves it for “military use.” The population is kept short and ripe for action against “the Israeli and Egyptian blockade” of the Gaza Strip.
Cairo had enough of this ruse earlier this year. This time, Egypt has beefed up its forces on the Sinai-Gaza border, built a high wall along the Philadelphi strip and warned any Palestinians attempting an illegal crossing that they would be “shot like rats.”
In addition to preparing for Hamas to smash through Gaza’s borders by means of civilian “protest marches,” Israel is braced for Hamas or its allied terrorist groups to try and secrete suicide bombers into Israel – either from Gaza or by using the terror teams still at large in Egyptian Sinai, where a terror alert remains in force, especially at the holiday resorts. Friday, the Israeli Negev – civilian locations and army bases – also went on alert after intelligence tip-offs were received of planned Palestinian terror attacks.
The hard-line Hamas leader Meshaal will capitalize on his forthcoming talks with ex-US president Jimmy Carter to play on his sympathies by accentuating the “plight” of Gaza’s Palestinian population and attributing its cause to Israel’s “collective punishment.”
Begin DEBKAfile Article 4
Israeli ex-general sharply criticizes official “defensive” policy as recipe for war
April 11, 2008, 8:22 PM (GMT+02:00)
Former OC Central Command and ex-defense ministry Dir.-Gen Ret. Gen. Shraga Biran said Friday, April 11, that Israel’s security problems will not be solved through defensive operations. In an unusually outspoken diatribe against current government policy by an apolitical military strategist, Biran warned that this defensive posture would lead inexorably to war, while strengthening Israel’s antagonists, Syria, Hizballah and Hamas.
He faulted the West as a whole for closing its eyes to Iran’s rising strength and nuclear aspirations.
DEBKAfile’s military sources hold up Israel’s military action in Gaza Friday to illustrate the point made by Gen.
Biran.
Following the murder on April 9 of two Israeli civilians at the fuel terminal supplying Gaza, Israel’s Givati Brigades, tank and engineering units, supported by combat helicopters advanced to between one and 1.5 km deep into the Gaza Strip and stopped short outside the El Bureij camp.
All day, they engaged fire with armed Palestinians who used rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine gun and mortars. The troops kept on dodging the fire without advancing.
Israeli helicopters hit Palestinian firing positions, killing seven gunmen and a child. In the afternoon the IDF spokesman accused the Palestinians of fighting from inside populated areas.
Two things happened in this engagement, according to DEBKAfile’s military analysts:
1. Palestinian forces had another chance to hone their combat skills by watching Israeli tank movements and learning how to defend themselves, before going on the offensive.
2. The Palestinian population practiced ways of supporting their gunmen.
It is a well-known convention that Hamas draws its forward front lines in and around Gaza’s urban centers, such as Gaza City and Al Bureij and uses the population as human shields.
The operation was mounted to exact a penalty from the Palestinian terrorists two days after their unprovoked incursion into the fuel facility and two murders. Instead of showing their deterrent mettle, Israeli combat forces had to make do with fighting from a distance and presenting Hamas with a demonstration of ineffectiveness. The presence of an Israeli force outside al Bureij did not deter the Palestinians from continuing to shell Nahal Oz, launching a missile at Erez and shooting at ID border patrols. Snipers again aimed at an Israel farm tractor working in the fields of Nir Oz, two days after the IDF embarked on an earlier operation to put a stop to the harassment of Israeli farmers from Gaza.
All in all, because of the excessive caution of chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi and his superiors, Israel has not only failed to halt missile attacks from Gaza but even mortar shelling and light automatic rifle by lone snipers.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner.
We are mak ing such material available
in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more detailed information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
You may use material originated by this site. However, if you wish to use any quoted copyrighted material from this site, which did not originate at this site, for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner from which we extracted it.