Intense Gaza Battle Ready to End 2008
Events of December 30, 5:55 PM to 11:36 PM
Listed In THREE EXCERPTS From DEBKAfile Reports
Excerpt 1
Three Israelis killed, 32 injured
in 100 Hamas missile attacks
Monday
DEBKAfile Special Analysis
December 31, 2008, 5:55 PM (GMT+02:00)
On Day 3 of Israel’s Gaza operation, Dec. 29, Hamas hit back hard with volleys of rockets and missiles at points closer to central Israel than ever before. The three Israelis killed were IDF career officer, Sgt. Maj. Lutfi Nasr e-Din, 38, from Daliat Hacarmel, at Nahal Oz, a woman motorist, Irit Sheetrit, 39, mother of four, who sought shelter in the Ashdod bus terminus, 30 km from Gaza; and earlier in Ashkelon, Hani al-Mahdi, 27, a construction worker from the Bedouin Negev village of Ar’ur.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Monday, Hamas had recovered sufficiently from Israel’s air offensive to bring out its new Iranian Grad rockets to expand their range up to 40 km and launch them over the heads of the hundreds of Israel tanks, armored cars and artillery piled up outside the gates of Gaza and awaiting the order to move in.
At the Nahal Oz facility, in addition to the fatality, seven soldiers were injured, one critically, by incoming Palestinian mortar fire.
Hamas’ night barrage also struck Ashdod, Ofakim, Yavne (25 minutes drive from Tel Aviv), Netivot, Ashkelon, Sderot, Shear Hanegev. Ashkelon was battered day and night. The last round targeted school yards, kindergartens and bus stations. Ofakim, like Yavne, was hit for the first time by 3 missiles and suffered five injured.
Following this barrage, the Homeland Command extended the radius of schools that would not reopen Tuesday, Dec. 30, after the Hanukkah holiday from 20km to 30km. A quarter of a million Israelis are now on active missile alert around the clock.
Overnight, the Israeli air force pounded the Hamas-ruled government compound in Gaza City, hitting the prime minister’s office, and the foreign, finance and interior ministry buildings and Hamas command centers. The Palestinians report 10 people killed, raising their death toll in three days to 360.
All senior Hamas officials and commanders are ensconced safely in underground bunkers with their weapons caches.
Following this barrage, the Homeland Command extended the radius of schools that would not reopen Tuesday, Dec. 30, after the Hanukkah holiday from 20km to 30km. Beersheba, Gedera and Kiryat Gat are braced for attack.
A quarter of a million Israelis are now on active missile alert around the clock.
Overnight and early Tuesday, the Israeli air force pounded the Hamas-ruled government compound in Gaza City, hitting the prime minister’s office, and the foreign, finance and interior ministry buildings and Hamas command centers. The Palestinians report 10 people killed, raising their death toll in three days to 360. All senior Hamas officials and commanders are ensconced safely in underground bunkers with their arms caches.
They can only be dug out by special forces and armored units on the ground.
The crucial battle of Gaza is therefore still to come, as indicated by Israel’s deputy chief of staff Maj. Gen. Israel Harel, when he warned Monday that the hardest part of the campaign is still ahead.
Hamas tacticians pin their hopes on the overcast, rainy conditions forecast for the rest of the week to slow Israeli air attacks, delay an incursion, and further intensify their cross-border missile onslaught.
Homeland Front, police forces, 200 ambulances, 2 medical helicopters and hospitals are on alert around the clock at all targeted locations. Hospitals in central Israel are also on the ready.
Excerpt 2
Day 4 of Israeli operation: Israel military, Shin Bet deny recommending 48-hour truce
DEBKAfile Special Analysis
December 30, 2008, 7:33 PM (GMT+02:00)
According to earlier reports, Israeli leaders were considering a two-day truce proposal for which France is pressing. Tuesday night, Dec.
30, the IDF spokesman issued a strong denial of any such recommendation by the military or the Shin Bet.
As the rate of Hamas launchings climbed to 35 Tuesday night, Israel conducted a second round of air strikes against Hamas’ smuggling tunnels on the Philadelphi border with Egypt.
Egyptian locked the Rafah crossing.
In Hamas’ first public statement, a masked spokesman read out a “Jihad Letter, which said: “The sea of Gaza will run dry before Hamas surrenders” If Israeli attacks continued, he said Hamas would bring more Israeli towns under fire.
President Shimon Peres said Tuesday that the Gaza campaign would be hard and long. He praised the military’s precise adherence to its plan.
The quantity of hardware up Hamas’ sleeve provides a clue to how hard and long Israel’s operation against Hamas is likely to be.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Hamas still has some 6,000 missiles in its armory, of which some hundred are the high-grade Iran-made Grad Kayusha rockets.
Their range of up to 40 km enables them to target three-quarters of a million Israelis and five major southern towns.
This stock survives after Israel wiped out 45% of the Hamas missile arsenal and most of its heavy 120mm mortars in three days of massive air strikes.
At the firing level maintained by Hamas Monday, Dec. 29 – roughly 100 missiles and rockets hit Israeli locations – the Palestinian group can keep going for another 60 days – if its stocks remain hidden underground.
To alter this equation, the armored and infantry forces concentrated around the Gaza Strip will have to intervene.
The expected ground incursion had not happened by Tuesday evening, Dec. 30.
Hamas’ Monday barrage was a turning point in the conflict; it was then that the Palestinian terrorists began to rally from three days of harsh aerial punishment.
A repetition was threatened Tuesday night, using the cover of dark from Israel’s air strikes.
By evening 35 missiles had been fired against Sderot, Ashkelon, Netivot and the new locations of Kiryat Malachi, Beer Tuvia and Rahat, after Monday’s barrage left three Israelis dead and 32 injured.
An Israeli officer told DEBKAfile that even a small incursion of 1-2 km inside the Gaza Strip might ease the missile pressure on civilian towns and villages, by making Hamas units focus on self-defense instead of launching missiles.
On Day 3 of the conflict, Hamas overcame the havoc Israel’s electronic warfare wrought to its communications system by deploying runners using every means of transport, from bikes to donkeys, to maintain connections within their force.
Hamas’ most pressing problem now is morale.
The top level of Hamas, government heads and commanders, including their “chief of staff” Ahmed Jabari and chiefs of divisions, battalions and companies, are hunkered down in underground bunkers, afraid to surface for fear of being struck down by Israel bombers alerted by Shin Bet intelligence spotters. Resentment of this is growing in Hamas ranks, including the missile crews who operate in the open and whose numbers have swelled the death toll rising now to 365. Civilians are also bitter at being forced to house operatives and missiles and exposing themselves to collateral damage.
By the end of the Day 4 of the conflict, there was no sign of Hamas leaders breaking or seeking a truce. Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert too said the first three days were only the first of many stages of the planned operation.
Excerpt 3
First rockets hit Beersheba, Israel calls up 2,500 more reservists
December 30, 2008, 11:36 PM (GMT+02:00)
This call-up order raises the number of reservists Israel has mobilized for the Gaza operation to 9,200. Beersheba, capital of the Negev and 40 km from Gaza, was attacked for the first time by two improved Grad rockets Tuesday night, Day 4 of the Israeli operation. One hit an empty nursery school. There were 34 shock victims hospitalized.
Beersheba is the largest town (250,000 population) and the most distant from Gaza ever to come under rocket attack.
Israeli artillery opened cross-border fire on potential rocket sites inside Gaza. Hamas kept up its missile and rocket attacks against an expanding circle of Israel towns, 35 by nightfall.
Israeli tank, infantry, armored and artillery units are massed outside the northern, central and southern Gaza Strip await
ing orders to go in. Tuesday, Dec. 30 – Day 4 of Israel’s Gaza offensive, Beersheba, capital of the Negev, was attacked for the first time by two missiles Tuesday night, one hit an empty nursery school. Israeli artillery opened cross-border fire on potential rocket sites inside Gaza.
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