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2014 Gaza Conflict

2014 Gaza Conflict183 posts
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21 Jul, 2014

U.S. travel warning

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The State Department warns U.S. citizens of ‘the risks of traveling to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza due to ongoing hostilities’ and advises deferring non-essential travel.

The security environment remains complex in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, and US citizens need to be aware of the risks of travel to these areas because of the current conflict between Hamas and Israel. Travelers should avoid areas of Israel in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip due to the real risks presented by small arms fire, anti-tank weapons, rockets, and mortars, as attacks from Gaza can come with little or no warning

The U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv is working on reduced staffing and providing only emergency consular services, however is says it is not evacuating U.S. citizens out of Israel

No time limit

Israel0 Comments

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon says there is no time limit on Operation Protective Edge and that the campaign could continue until rocket fire ceases from Gaza. Addressing a parliamentary committee:

If needed we will recruit more reservists in order to continue the operation as long as necessary until the completion of the task and the return of the quiet in the whole of Israel, especially from the threat of the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu: They call for destruction of Israel

Benjamin NetanyahuGazaHamasIsrael0 Comments

Netanyahu tells Blitzer that Hamas and Islamic Jihad call for the destruction of Israel and for the killing of Jews, rather than for legitimate political aims:

I think it – I think the international community has to – once this is put in place, we really have to undertake a program to demilitarize Gaza and to change the situation, because it’s unacceptable.  What makes it unacceptable is Hamas and Islamic Jihad. These people are the worst terrorists, genocidal terrorists.  They call for the destruction of Israel, and they call for the killing of every Jew wherever they can find them.

700 tons of concrete in each tunnel

Benjamin NetanyahuGazaHamasIsrael0 Comments

Netanyahu tells Blitzer that Hamas has used tens of thousands of tons of concrete, which could have gone towards building other facilities for the community such as schools, into tunnels to attack Israel instead.

You know what they did with that, Wolf?  They put 700 tons of concrete into each one of these terror attack tunnels to penetrate Israel.  Now, we have discovered dozens of them.  So you’re talking about tens of thousands of tons of concrete, instead of going for the benefit of the school, the population, is going for terrorism against Israel.

Netanyahu: Hamas leaders divided into two

Benjamin NetanyahuGazaHamas0 Comments

Netanyahu tells Blitzer that there are two different groups of Hamas leaders, neither of whom are particularly concerned about the fate of Palestinian civilians. The military wing:

I mean, the Hamas leaders are divided into two.  Those who are under – in underground bunkers in Gaza, they don’t care.  Let the people there, you know, with the rocketeers and with the attack tunnels, let them die as Israel tries to surgically take them out.  But they’re safe underground, the military leaders.

He says Khaled Meshaal, the leader of the political wing, understands even less what the conflict is like for people with no option of leaving Gaza:

And then they have got the political leader, this guy Khaled Meshaal, who is roaming around five-star hotel suites in the Gulf states, having the time of his life, while his people, while he’s deliberately putting his people as fodder for this horrible terrorist war that they’re conducting against us. So this has to stop.  And I think many people in Gaza understand that Hamas is destroying Gaza, destroying their lives.

Netanyahu: ‘Brutal, cynical, heartless enemy’

Benjamin NetanyahuGazaIsraelIsrael Defense Forces0 Comments

Netanyahu tells Blitzer that Israel seeks to protect its citizens using its weapons, while Hamas has no interest in protecting civilians and uses its weapons to draw fire onto the Gaza Strip:

We develop anti-missile systems to protect.  We use an anti-missile system to protect our civilians.  They use their civilians to protect their missiles.  That’s the difference.  So, against such a cynical, brutal, heartless enemy, we try to minimize civilian casualties.

Netanyahu: ‘We don’t obliterate them’

Benjamin NetanyahuGazaIsraelIsrael Defense ForcesWolf Blitzer0 Comments

Netanyahu says that Israel doesn’t ‘obliterate’ Palestinian civilians and has no battle with anyone other than Hamas, but that the brutality results from Hamas’ tendency to place rocket launchers near civilian targets – a tactic which he says is intentional.

People would say in the United States, as they’re telling me, obliterate the people.  We don’t obliterate them.  We don’t want to – we don’t have any battle with the Palestinians in Gaza.

He adds that having the right to self-defense also means being able to use it:

I appreciate the support we have received from President Obama and many world leaders for Israel’s right to self-defense. But others are saying, yes, you have the right of self-defense, as long as you don’t exercise it.  What can a country do?  What would you do?  What would the people of the United States do if – if your cities were rocketed now, 2,000 rockets falling in American cities?

Reoccupation is ‘excessive military plan’

Benjamin NetanyahuIsraelIsrael Defense ForcesWolf Blitzer0 Comments

Netanyahu tells Blitzer that reoccupation of the Gaza Strip would be an ‘excessive military plan’ and that nobody in Israel’s government wants to go to that extent, but doesn’t appear to completely rule out the possibility of retaking the territory:

I support taking whatever action is necessary to stop this insane situation…Just imagine – I mean, imagine what Israel is going through.  Imagine that 75 percent of the U.S. population is under rocket fire and they have to be in bomb shelters within 60 to 90 seconds.  So, I’m not just talking about New York – New York, Washington, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Miami, you name it.  That’s impossible.  You can’t live like that.  So I think we have to bring back, restore back a reasonable, sustained quiet and security.  And we will take whatever action is necessary to achieve that.

When Blitzer asks if that includes possibly reoccupying Gaza:

Nobody wants to go to excessive military plans, but what is happening here is excessive.

Netanyahu: Hamas baits Israel into killing civilians

Benjamin NetanyahuGazaIsraelIsrael Defense ForcesWolf Blitzer0 Comments

Netanyahu tells Blitzer that Hamas baits Israel into killing civilians in order to create ‘telegenically dead’ victims that they can use to influence public opinion in the 2014 Gaza conflict:

What choice do we have?  We have to protect ourselves.  So we try to target the rocketeers.  We do.  And all civilian casualties are unintended by us, but intended by Hamas.  They want to pile up as many civilian dead as they can, because somebody said they use – it’s gruesome.  They use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause.  They want the more dead the better.

Hamas ‘weaponizes’ women, children, animals

Hamas0 Comments

hamas_female_bomberPhotos published by PJ Media apparently show 14 ways in which Hamas ‘weaponizes‘ women, children and animals, including children’s television shows referring to the ‘occupiers,’ children throwing stones and women and children dressed as suicide bombers. Accompanying text:

‘Gave rockets to Hamas’

HamasIsraelUNRWA0 Comments

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency says it has handed over rockets found in one of its schools in Gaza to local police, raising the possibility it may have returned the armaments to a security force under the control of Hamas. UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness says the rockets were taken away by the local police bomb squad, which he says reports to the Palestinian government in Ramallah.

According to longstanding UN practice in UN humanitarian operations worldwide, incidents involving unexploded ordnance that could endanger beneficiaries and staff are referred to the local authorities. Local authorities fall under the government of national consensus in Ramallah. They pledged to pass a message to all parties not to violate UNRWA neutrality

However, internal security forces including local police are thought to report to the territory’s Interior Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas and the Qassam Brigades. A Senior Israeli official:

The rockets were passed on to the government authorities in Gaza, which is Hamas. In other words, UNRWA handed to Hamas rockets that could well be shot at Israel.

Sources: ratings behind Nightly News absence

Ayman MohyeldinNBC0 Comments

While commentators including Greenwald take the view that social media – both Mohyeldin’s usage of it and the response to NBC’s decision to pull him from the assignment – is driving NBC’s decisions, NBC sources offer a more mundane view:

Everyone’s looking for a conspiracy and missing the real story, which is a news division making mistakes through ratings nervousness

The sources say News President Deborah Turness initially considered using Mohyeldin as an eyewitness reporter for the Nightly News segment on the deaths of four boys on a beach in the 2014 Gaza conflict but is disappointed in his ‘tracking,’ or narration of the package, and gave the script to senior foreign correspondent Engels. Nightly News competes with ABC’s World News for the top Nielsen ratings spot. Network source:

The producers are so paranoid about the ratings, they’ll do anything to stick with the faces viewers know and trust — so that would be Richard over Ayman […] Plus, there is no tolerance if a story is fed in and doesn’t live up to expectations

‘Shabbath has ended, nation is behind us’

Golani BrigadeIsrael Defense ForcesRasan Alian0 Comments

Alian tells his soldiers that they have the support of Israel, as the elite unit joins the ground campaign of the 2014 Gaza conflict with a mission to ‘remove Hamas’ terrorist infrastructure and restore quiet to Israel.’

The Shabbath has just ended. Our nation is behind us, and it has great expectations for Golani. It expects us to weaken Hamas. I am certain that the Golani Brigade will succeed in this mission. Go ahead. Over.

Golani Brigade Commander: "Our Nation is Behind Us"

13 killed

Golani BrigadeIsraelIsrael Defense ForcesRasan AlianDeathDeath CountInjury0 Comments

A total of 13 Golani Brigade soldiers are killed in a single morning of operations in Gaza while brigade commander Col. Gen. Rasan Alian is moderately wounded in an exchange of fire and hospitalized in Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba. A timeline released by the Israel Defense Forces:

1:05 a.m., an armored personnel carrier catches fire after an explosive device is set off under it. Seven soldiers are killed. Reportedly, the APC was not fitted with armor that could withstand this type of blast.

1:30 a.m., a soldier is killed when two soldiers get into a firefight with terrorists.

5:45 a.m., another Golani force gets into a firefight with terrorists. Two soldiers are killed.

8:50 a.m., three soldiers are killed when a Golani squad is caught inside a burning building.

Golani in action in Gaza

Two Americans killed

Israel0 Comments

steinberg_facebookStuart Steinberg confirms that his 24-year-old son Max is killed fighting for the Israel Defence Forces. Steinberg, whose family lives in Southern California’s San Fernando Valley, was a sharpshooter for the Golani Brigade. According to the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Max first visited Israel in June 2012 together with his younger brother and sister, via the ‘Birthright’ program which aims to attract young Jewish adults from abroad to travel to the country. He attended Pierce College and El Camino Real High School in Southern California. After visiting Israel, he decided to return and join the IDF in December 2012, and was living in Beersheba.

Separately, the IDF says in a statement that 21-year-old Sgt. Nissim Sean Carmeli has been killed in combat in the Gaza Strip. Deputy Consul General Maya Kadosh says Carmeli was from South Padre Island, Texas.

Clashes at French protest

FranceIsrael0 Comments

France Gaza ProtestSeveral hundred protestors in the northern suburb of Sarcelles break away from an otherwise peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstration and attack two synagogues as well as setting fire to cars and pillaging stores. The demonstration in the northern suburb of Sarcelles, home to a large Jewish community, is held in defiance of a ban which also extends to Paris and the Mediterranean city of Nice after a previous day of protests also resulted in violence. Jewish group CRIF says that the Sarcelles synagogue has been attacked while in nearby Garges les Gonesse, Molotov cocktails are thrown at another synagogue and start a small fire that is quickly extinguished. The group says that the violence shows anti-Semitic incidents are increasing:

It is time to treat it as a form of terrorist deviation

Military: deadliest day

Israel0 Comments

The Israel Defence Forces suffers its heaviest loss in a single day since the 2006 war in Lebanon as 13 soldiers are killed in Operation Protective Edge clashes in Gaza. The military says seven of the soldiers are killed when militants detonate an explosive device against their armored personnel carrier, three die in clashes as armed forces face hundreds of Hamas fighters, and three are trapped in a burning building. A senior official speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv on condition of anonymity, in line with army rules:

It was a real battle there. They were hiding in the apartments, shooting at the Israeli soldiers from the apartments, from the houses, from the windows.

Kerry: ‘Hell of a pinpoint’

John Kerry0 Comments

John Kerry is captured by a Fox News microphone expressing apparent frustration about the high civilian toll in Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, while also criticizing Hamas leaders as ‘intransigent’ for their rejection of an Egypt-brokered ceasefire deal and defending Israel’s actions as self defense. On a cellphone call with his chief of staff, Jonathan Finer:

It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation. It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation. We’ve got to get over there. Thank you, John. I think, John, we ought to go tonight. I think it’s crazy to be sitting around

Clarifying the comments with Fox News Sunday interviewer Chris Wallace:

It’s very, very difficult in these situations. I reacted, obviously, in a way that anybody does with respect to young children and civilians

Netanyahu: international support

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Netanyahu says Israel has the support of the international community for Operation Defensive Edge, as Obama and Cameron express U.S. and UK support for the campaign even as the death toll rises to 476 in Gaza, including 120 killed in a single day. He says:

We are carrying out a complex, deep, intensive activity inside the Gaza Strip and there is world support for this […] very strong support

He adds that troops could end their campaign ‘fairly quickly’ if Israeli demands are met.

Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon on what Hamas must do to fulfill Israel’s demands:

Demilitarise Gaza