IDF TURNING OUT LIGHTS!
THE PARTY IS AL MO
ST OVER!
IDF TURNING UP HEAT IN GAZA,
So quieter days can be Expected!
Hamas forces want time to Recover,
Israelis NOW Successful IN Endeavor!
Islam will finally begin to be very Clever,
Using “peace and safety” trap door Lever,
Time of calm will lull Israel into false Security,
At which time Islamic nations will spring a Trap,
And Israel will be abruptly awakened from A Nap,
At attack time twixt 2010 & 2015 TO STAY ON Map!
January 14, 2009
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
IAF strikes some 60 Hamas targets in Gaza overnight raids
January 13, 2009
Yaakov Katz, JPost.com staff and AP , THE JERUSALEM POST
The IAF attacked some sixty targets in the Gaza Strip overnight Tuesday, Israel Radio reported. The targets included 30 terrorists smuggling tunnels, weapons storage facilities and rocket launch squads.
Israel Radio reported that the IDF was turning up
the heat on Hamas Wednesday morning, with ground forces progressing slowly to prevent civilian casualties.
According to Palestinian reports, one of the targets hit over night was the old Gaza city hall, which has been used as a court building in recent years
The 1910 structure was destroyed and many stores in the market around it were badly damaged, they said.
The Jerusalem Post could not confirm the report.
On Tuesday, the IDF pushed deeper into Gaza City and launched pinpoint raids in the southern Strip as Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced that his top aide would head to Cairo to try to secure a cease-fire that could end Operation Cast Lead.
Defense officials told The Jerusalem Post that Egypt had made progress in its talks with Hamas and that the head of the Defense Ministry’s Diplomatic-Security Bureau, Amos Gilad, would head to Cairo on Thursday to evaluate the cease-fire proposal and present Israel’s conditions.
The officials said Jerusalem was hoping to secure a guarantee from the Egyptians that
they would invest resources and efforts in stopping the weapons smuggling from Sinai into the Gaza Strip under the Philadelphi Corridor.
One Israeli proposal, supported by the IDF, calls for the erection of a barrier surrounding the Egyptian side of Rafah, to be manned by Egyptian soldiers who will not allow weapons smugglers into the town. Israel has proposed a barrier consisting of two fences surrounding the Philadelphi Corridor and encompassing Egyptian Rafah, which would be accessible by a single road controlled by the military.
The idea was suggested several years ago by then-National Security Council head Giora Eiland.
“If the Egyptians provide us with guarantees that the smuggling will stop, the operation could be over by the end of the week,” a top defense official told the Post. “It is all up to the Egyptians right now.”
Gilad will hold talks on Thursday with Egyptian Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman, and one of the issues will be an Egyptian request to increase the number of soldiers it has deployed along the border from 750 to several thousand. Gilad has expressed fierce opposition to the request, but other defense officials in Israel said Tuesday that the request to relax the troop limits set by the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty needed to be considered.
“It is unclear why Amos Gilad is so adamantly against allowing Egypt to increase its force along Philadelphi,” one official said. “If this is what the Egyptians want, then why not just give it to them?”
While diplomatic activity picked up speed on Tuesday, the IDF continued to push deeper into Gaza City as reservist units took over responsibility for several areas in the Strip. At least 50 Hamas gunmen were killed since Monday evening.
Rocket fire also dwindled, with some 15 rockets and mortar shells striking Israel – the lowest since Operation Cast Lead was launched on December 27 – by Tuesday evening.
“The operation is continuing on its 18th day with the aim of restoring quiet for southerners and curbing weapons smuggling,” Barak said Tuesday. “We are working on both these goals, with an eye on diplomatic initiatives.”
Lt. Aharon Karov from the Battalion 890 of the Paratroopers Brigade was critically wounded by an explosion inside a booby-trapped home in northern Gaza during a early-morning operation. Two other soldiers sustained light wounds, and by evening, the officer’s condition had slightly improved following an intensive and complicated operation.
Karov, a resident of Karnei Shomron, was called up to join the fighting in Gaza a day after his wedding, less than two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, the IDF commenced heavy shelling of targets on Gaza City’s outskirts early Tuesday, as soldiers continued to push deeper into the urban center.
Ground troops battled Palestinian gunmen in a densely populated Gaza City neighborhood.
Military sources said the objective of Operation Cast Lead – weakening Hamas and restoring Israel’s deterrence – had not yet been accomplished, and that the army would continue its push into Gaza City to hunt down Hamas operatives and infrastructure.
The purpose of deepening the operation, officials said, was to increase the pressure on Hamas and to buy time to see if the Egyptian proposal materialized into a cease-fire.
Overnight in northern Gaza, Hamas gunmen fired at troops from a mosque. The soldiers returned fire, and the IAF then bombed the mosque’s courtyard after spotting the armed men.
The air force bombed some 60 targets overnight, including seven weapons storehouses, 15 Kassam launch pads and 10 Hamas outposts.
On Tuesday, an additional 50 targets were hit, including 30 tunnels.
Begin Excerpt 2 from Houston Chronicle via Associated Press and World News
Egypt pushes Hamas to accept truce
By SALAH NASRAWI Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
January 13, 2009, 3:51PM
CAIRO, Egypt — Egyptian mediators pushed the militant Palestinian group Hamas to accept a truce proposal for the embattled Gaza Strip in talks Tuesday, while the U.N. secretary-general headed to the region to join diplomatic efforts for a cease-fire.
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has backed the Egyptian truce proposal to halt the fighting, now in its third week. Before leaving New York for the Egyptian capital on Tuesday, he urged Israel and Hamas to accept a U.N. cease-fire resolution and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“To both sides, I say: Just stop, now,” Ban told a news conference Monday. “Too many people have died.” He said Hamas militants who have been firing rockets into southern Israel “must stop, they must look to the future of the Palestinian people.”
The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday unanimously supported Ban’s efforts after he briefed the council behind closed doors.
Tuesday’s talks between Hamas and Egyptian officials in Cairo were the latest in intensive diplomatic efforts. In Damascus, the Turkish prime minister’s top foreign policy adviser, Ahmet Davutoglu, met for the third time in two days with Hamas’ exiled political leader, Khaled Mashaal.
But so far, the push has yielded little public progress.
Hamas’ deputy leader Moussa Abu Marzouk told Al-Jazeera TV that the Egyptian proposal is not acceptable as it stands. Hamas has “amendments” for it and if “taken into consideration, it will be a framework for moving toward a solution,” he said.
A Palestinian official close to Hamas said the previous round of Egypt-Hamas talks on Sunday were “stormy.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing closed-door talks.
Israel’s point man to the cease-fire talks, Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad, is slated to come to Cairo Thursday, Israeli Defense Ministry officials said Tuesday. Gilad had put off the trip for days, saying the time was not yet ripe.
Defense officials say that depending on what happens in Cairo, Israel will decide whether to move closer to a cease-fire or launch a new, even tougher stage of its offensive. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing sensitive policy matters.
The U.N. Secretary-General won’t meet Hamas officials or go to Gaza during his trip, which also includes Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian-controlled West Bank, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and Kuwait.
During the Sunday negotiating session, Egypt’s top mediator, intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, told Hamas to accept Egypt’s truce proposal without amendments or Hamas will be considered responsible for Israel’s continuing offensive in Gaza, the Palestinian official said.
On Tuesday, the Hamas delegation held a new round of talks with Suleiman and Egyptian officials. Later, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak left on a previously unannounced trip to Riyadh to meet with his ally, Saudi King Abdullah, to discuss the cease-fire efforts, Egyptian officials said.
The talks come as Israeli ground troops pushed deeper into Gaza City in their 18-day offensive, in which more than 900 Palestinians have been killed, half of them civilians. Israel says its assault aims to stop Hamas rocket attacks, saying it will stop only when there are guarantees the rocket fire and smuggling of weapons into Gaza will stop.
Hamas demands an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, a halt to the offensive and the opening of border crossings into the tiny Mediterranean coastal territory, which Israel and Egypt have mostly kept sealed since Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007.
How those crossings are to be opened, however, is a major sticking point. Egypt has called for international monitors at the borders to prevent smuggling, although not on the Egyptian side of the border, and there is also talk of such monitors being tasked with ensuring the cease-fire. Hamas has so far rejected any international monitors and demands a role in controlling the border crossings, which Egypt and Israel refuse.
Qatar has called for an emergency summit of Arab League heads of state on Friday in Doha to discuss the Gaza crisis.
Arab League head Amr Moussa said 13 members have agreed to attend. However, at least 14 members must agree for a summit to be called.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia have rejected the idea, suggesting Arab leaders hold talks in Kuwait on Sunday ahead of a previously planned economic summit.
Associated Press writer Edith M.
Lederer contributed to this report from the United Nations.
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