Headlines in Israel claim miracles are protecting the Jews during the Gaza Strip ground war, with one headline proclaiming that Hamas terrorists are complaining about God changing the direction of rockets in mid-air.
Hamas terrorist astounded
Category: Israel/Hamas conflict
Operation Defensive Edge – now a War?
There are now 75,000 IDF soldiers in Gaze with the goal of demolishing the numerous tunnels Hamas worked to create during the last 5 years.
“We know that Hamas terrorists are operating underground, and that’s where we will meet them,” the IDF said in a statement, as Israel’s ground operation to find and destroy the tunnels got underway. The IDF said it has already found 13 tunnels across Gaza, with 34 access points.
Hamas commanders believe they can fight on for several weeks at least to defend their tunnels, the civilian population be damned. Khaled Mashaal has reportedly continued to spurn calls for a ceasefire coming not only from Egypt but also from the Arab League.
Due to the size of the military operation, Israeli commanders are now calling it a war.
…..each task force, the size of half a division, is an integrated amalgam of air, armored, artillery and engineering forces, capable of operating almost autonomously in field combat. The buildup of the last 24 hours has expanded Israel’s fighting strength in the Gaza Strip to a total of 75,000 men, the largest ever fielded in this territory. Because of its scale, Israeli leaders are referring to Defensive Edge as a war rather than an operation.
Hamas has close to 100,000 fighting men, but they are clearly no match for the modern, advanced IDF. Why does Hamas continue to reject ceasefire proposals and draw Israel deeper into the Gaza territory? Do they have an ulterior motive? Is Hamas devising a plan that will involve its neighboring Arab factions and countries for an all out assault on Israel??
As the fighting continues, the world expands its show of hatred for Israel.
Jewish community braces itself ahead of Friday’s Al Quds Day March, which will be ‘so extreme’ even some far leftists are boycotting
Operation Defensive Edge breaking update
Israel mobilizes another 50,000 reservists
DEBKAfileJuly 19, 2014, 11:11 PM (IDT)
Saturday night, as fighting intensified in the Gaza Strip, the IDF announced the call-up of another 50,000 reservists.
Operation Defensive Edge – The Ground Invasion
The Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip has officially begun.
The first hours of Israel’s Operation Defensive Edge ground phase against Hamas were marked by heavy artillery and air pounding to soften up the terrain as the ground forces went in Thursday night, July 17. The troops advanced in two heads – one north to Jebalya and Beit Lahiya and the other south, where it went into action initially against Khan Younes and Rafah. The densely populated Gaza City has not been broached as yet.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told a special cabinet meeting Friday that the IDF is preparing to expand its operation in the Gaza Strip. “Terrorist tunnels can’t be destroyed just be air power,” he said. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said the operation will go on for as long as needed. “Those seeking to disrupt our lives must pay the price.”
Meanwhile the Palestinian relationship with Egypt seems to be changing.
Thursday night, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shokri said that Hamas was responsible for what was happening. He said, “Had Hamas accepted the Egyptian proposal (for a ceasefire) it could have saved the lives of at least 40 Palestinians.” Shokri said that Hamas was at fault for the IDF’s need to enter Gaza in a ground operation. He accused the Palestinian Islamists of harming not only Palestinian interests but also Egypt’s national security by associating with Turkish steps to undermine Cairo’s efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The West Bank Palestinian’s are now looking to Turkey to produce a ceasefire negotiation.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was to head to Turkey on July 18 to push a ceasefire in Gaza after Egyptian-mediated negotiations stalled and Israel launched a ground operation.
Cairo has been the hub of intense negotiations to end the 11-day conflict between Hamas and Israel, after the Palestinian militants in Gaza rejected an initial Egyptian truce proposal.
Egypt, under recently-elected President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has moved to isolate Hamas, accusing it of backing insurgents on its own territory.
It has worked instead to bolster the role of Abbas – its ally based in the West Bank and rival to Hamas – in reaching a deal to end the conflict
Hamas ultimately wants the Rafah Border Crossing to the Egyptian Sinai opened which is currently closed by Egypt in their promise to “help” Israel. Opening this border crossing will allow Hamas to survive and ultimately allow for other insurgents including possibly the IS (Islamic State) to enter into the attack on Israel via the Sinai Peninsula.
Hamas may be aiming its missiles at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but Israel was ultimately a hostage in the Islamists’ effort to get closer to Cairo.
Hamas wants this in order to bring an end to the blockade on Gaza, open the Rafah Border Crossing, and in many ways to ensure its own survival……..
The bottom line is that the key to solving the current escalation was — and remains — in Egypt’s hands, not in those of any other Arab or international party. Hamas demanded the opening of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza from almost the first minute of the operation. Egypt rejected the idea immediately, as long as Hamas stands on the Palestinian side of the crossing. But Cairo has emphasized that, if there are Palestinian Authority forces under Mahmoud Abbas deployed there, it has no objection to opening the crossing.
Operation Protective Edge Update July 17th
It is interesting to note that no one has coined a term or name yet for the 10 days of fighting between Israel and Hamas. Is it a war or just a military operation at this point. Hamas has shot hundreds of rockets into Israel while the IDF Air Force has executed hundreds of airstrikes.
Hamas tried sending a commando team through a tunnel snaking under the Gaza border for a large-scale terrorist attack or kidnap early Thursday, July 17. As the group of 13-30 started coming to the surface inside Israel opposite the southern Gaza Strip, it ran into heavy IDF fire. Some were killed; the rest turned tail to escape through the tunnel and reach home. Israeli helicopters bombed the tunnel which exploded, and went on to scour the area around the Gaza Strip for more attempted incursions, through the honeycomb of secret tunnels Hamas has sunk for terrorist attacks and kidnaps.
debkafile quotes Israeli and Western military experts as estimating that the prospects of an Israeli ground incursion into the Gaza Strip are now more real than the chances of a ceasefire. There is little substance to the reports that Hamas and Israeli delegations are in Cairo to discuss various drafts of a ceasefire accord.
The question being asked now is why, after 10 days of trading Israeli air strikes for Palestinian rocket attacks, the IDF has not destroyed the Hamas war room, the seat of its command and control center for directing the war and launching rockets, instead of striking the vacant homes of Hamas high-ups.
In the absence of a clear battlefield victory, headlines are appearing like this one: “Hamas Has Already Won Its Rocket War With Israel.”
IDF: Forces prepared for ground action
The army spokesman stated Wednesday night after it was announced that another 8,000 military reservists had been called up that “the forces were being prepared for a ground move.”
That brings the total active reserve count up now to at least 48,000……
A Cup of Trembling
Hamas rejected the Egyptian proposed cease fire between Israel and the Palestinians. Within hours of the proposal, Hamas pounded Israel with rocket after rocket.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon ordered the Israeli Air Force to resume strikes over Gaza Tuesday afternoon, six hours after a ceasefire proposed by Egypt, accepted by Israel and rejected by Hamas, was due to go into effect. During those hours, dozens of Hamas rockets raked town after town and village after village.
Early Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry was already heading to Cairo to take the lead in the Egyptian initiative when he was ordered by Washington to turn around and make tracks for home.
President Barack Obama had no wish to stand in line with Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu behind their highly speculative initiative.According to our sources in Washington, the real reason the White House pulled Kerry out of another certain fiasco in the nick of time was incoming intelligence that Tehran had ordered its Palestinian pawn Jihad Islami to ignore the ceasefire and keep on shooting from Gaza. This left Hamas no option but to follow suit.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said Tuesday that “the State of Israel must go all the way”, and called on Israel to prosecute Operation Protective Edge to the “very end.”
Speaking at a press conference, Liberman said “the world must give us full diplomatic backing to go all the way. And by ‘go all the way,’ I don’t mean to deliver a blow. We must lead and end this operation with the IDF ruling the entire Gaza Strip.
Hamas had officially rejected the proposed ceasefire from the beginning, while militants from Sinai, Syria and Lebanon joined the fray overnight. Also overnight, two more rockets from Lebanon hit northern Israel, as did a missile fired from war-torn Syria. It marked the first time Israel had been simultaneously attacked on four fronts – Gaza, Sinai, Lebanon and Syria.
Turkey’s PM lashed out at Israel.
Israel’s approach to the Palestinians is no different to the mentality of Adolf Hitler, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said, accusing Israel of committing “systematic atrocity and state terror” against the Palestinians since 1948. While he welcomed Egypt’s initiative for a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, Erdoğan said a cease-fire was not enough and stressed that Israel should “immediately lift the illegal embargo on Palestine.”
Israel is quickly becoming a “cup of trembling”.
http://www.sott.net/article/253675-Attacks-on-Gaza-Strip-spark-anti-Israel-protests
Zechariah 12:2
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
Crafty Counsel
Hamas continues to pound Israel with rockets while half of the Israeli population are now living in bomb shelters. Hamas is trying to inflict the most damage possible.
On Tuesday, Consul General of the State of Israel David Siegel told TruthRevolt Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro that over half of Israel’s population was currently hunkered down in bomb shelters thanks to the spate of rocket attacks from Hamas in the Gaza Strip. “It’s a very difficult night in Israel. Roughly half our population, around 4 million people are in bomb shelters tonight,”
“No country would ever tolerate even one of these missiles, let alone 150 in a day.” Siegel confirmed that Israel was drafting 40,000 reserves. “We offered quiet for quiet,” Siegel said. “They saw that as weakness. Again, they’ve miscalculated Israel’s intent…You’re going to see over the next few days a very significant operation.”
July 10th – The IDF is on the move against Hamas.
The air force also hit 118 underground rocket launchers, including infrastructure designed for medium- and long-range rocket fire against Israel.
The response to the conflict from the world is very telling. One totally oblivious to the times we are living in.
“The international community is totally disinterested. Yes, there were a few press releases from [UK Foreign Secretary] William Hague and a few others, but generally the world doesn’t show any particular interest in this,” the official told The Times of Israel. “They’re either very tired of [the Israeli-Palestinian conflict], or their attention is elsewhere, or they want to go on a summer vacation and don’t think this story is important enough.”
The US no longer stands by Israel.
Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank is wrong and leads to regional instability and dehumanization of Palestinians, a top American government official said Tuesday in Tel Aviv, hinting that the current Israeli government is not committed to peace.
In an unusually harsh major foreign policy address, Philip Gordon, a special assistant to US President Barack Obama and the White House coordinator for the Middle East, appealed to Israeli and Palestinian leaders to make the compromises needed to reach a permanent peace agreement. Jerusalem “should not take for granted the opportunity to negotiate” such a treaty with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has proven to be a reliable partner, Gordon said.
But yet Gordon goes on to say:
“The United States will always have Israel’s back. That’s why we fight for it every day at the United Nations,” Gordon said. But as Israel’s greatest friend and strongest defender, Washington should be allowed to ask some fundamental questions, he added.
Specifically, Gordon went on: “How will Israel remain democratic and Jewish if it attempts to govern the millions of Palestinian Arabs who live in the West Bank? How will it have peace if it’s unwilling to delineate a border, end the occupation and allow for Palestinian sovereignty, security and dignity? How will we prevent other states from supporting Palestinian efforts in international bodies, if Israel is not seen as committed to peace?”
No country on earth wants peace more than Israel.
Looking for that Blessed Hope! 