First Druze commander
Rasan Alian becomes the first Israeli Druze to command the elite Golani Brigade and only the second non-Jewish commander in Israel Defense Forces history. He has previously served as commander of Battalion 51, the Reconnaissance Battalion and deputy commander of the brigade and also served in the Kfir Brigade as commander of the Duhifat Battalion. His most recent role is commander of the 36th Division on the Golan Heights. His eldest brother has served as a combat soldier, and his two younger brothers are serving as operations officers in different parts of the IDF. One of them, Basam Alian, has served as a battalion commander in the Givati Brigade.
Operation Protective Edge starts
The Israel Defense Forces launches Operation Tzuk Eitan or Protective Edge. Airstrikes begin on selected targets in the Gaza Strip after 80 rockets are launched in a single day, and sirens are heard as far as as Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh and Gush Etzion announcing another barrage of 30 long range rockets is on its way in as the operation gets underway. The Israel Air Force begins dropping leaflets in various neighborhoods, telling residents to evacuate as it targets the homes of senior Hamas members.
#IDF has commenced Operation Protective Edge in #Gaza against #Hamas, in order to stop the terror #Israel's citizens face on a daily basis
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 7, 2014
13 killed
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.
‘Shabbath has ended, nation is behind us’
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.
July 20.The Golani Brigade enters Gaza on a mission: remove Hamas’ terrorist infrastructure & restore quiet to Israel http://t.co/UeIm2RQ89F
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 22, 2014
Netanyahu: Hamas baits Israel into killing civilians
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.
Reoccupation is ‘excessive military plan’
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: ‘We don’t obliterate them’
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?
Netanyahu: ‘Brutal, cynical, heartless enemy’
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.
‘Tens of thousands’ at funeral
Israel’s Army Radio reports many as 20,000 attend the funeral of First Sgt. Nissim Sean Carmeli, the American-Israeli lone soldier killed in the Gaza strip during Operation Defensive Edge, and other media report as many as 18,000. Haifa’s main soccer club, Maccabi Haifa, which Carmeli supported, invites people to the city’s military cemetery to ‘come give final honors to a hero who was killed so that we can live.’
Sean Carmeli was a lone soldier and we don’t want his funeral to be empty […] That’s the least we can do for him and for our people.
16-year-old combatant captured
A 16-year-old Palestinian combatant is treated in Ashkelon’s Barzilai Hospital after being captured when emerging from a cross-border tunnel. Israel Radio describes him as being in moderate condition and says he was unconscious when hospitalized. A group of Hamas fighters dressed in Israel Defense Forces uniforms enters Israel near Kibbutz Nir Am and kills four IDF soldiers in a jeep before the Israeli squad returns fire, killing 10, while a second group crosses into Israel via a tunnel exiting near Erez, across the border from Beit Hanoun city, and clashes with IDF leaving several Gazans dead and no Israelis hurt. It is not stated which group the 16-year-old was part of. The report adds that IDF soldiers being treated in Israeli hospitals for combat wounds say they have encountered 13- and 14-year-old Palestinian children running at them wearing suicide-bomber explosive belts.
Will return
Commander Col. Rasan Alian says he will return to complete the elite Golani Brigade’s mission in the 2014 Gaza conflict after he is moderately wounded in an exchange of fire.
I want to go back to Gaza, and get to as many terrorists as possible
On heavy losses sustained by the unit:
I’d like to send a big hug to the bereaved families. I did not have a chance to meet them. We stand with them. They are strengthening us
Gaza tunnel network attack possible
An Israeli military official and politician say the Gaza tunnel network is ‘immense’ and creates a threat of a ‘mega-attack.’ Israel Defense Forces Capt. Eytan Buchman:
All of Gaza is an underground city, and the amount of infrastructure Hamas built up over the years is immense. There are tunnels, extended bunkers, weapons storage facilities, even within urban areas
Economy Minister Naftali Bennett:
There is a world of weapons tunnels penetrating into Israel, creating the possibility of a mega-attack
30,000 at lone soldier funeral
More than 30,000 people pay their respects as Israel Defense Forces lone soldier Max Steinberg is laid to rest on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, with Israelis lining streets in Jerusalem in response to online drives to attend the 24-year-old California native’s funeral. 29-year-old Lod resident Eli Stern:
I came to support the family after hearing on the social networks that most of his family were not in the country. I do not know him, but I felt I had to be here, for his parents who come from abroad to feel all the people standing behind them, and that Max did not fall for nothing
John Kerry:
That’s a remarkable statement – we’re very grateful
Two killed in West Bank protest
Two people are killed and at least 90 injured as a protest involving an estimated 10,000 people breaks out in violent clashes with soldiers and border police at a checkpoint in Qalandiya, between Jerusalem and Ramallah. Israeli forces go to heightened alert and mobilize different units in and around Jerusalem to ‘deal with disturbances.’ Army spokeswoman:
There are thousands of rioters there. They are rolling burning tyres and throwing Molotov cocktails and fireworks at soldiers and border police.
Missiles ‘strike Hamas leader’s home’
Two missiles fired by the Israel Defense Forces are said to strike the home of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which is empty at the time. No casualties are reported. His son, Abdel Salam:
The Israeli enemy struck our house twice.
95% of Israelis support Protective Edge
The Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University find in a poll that 95% of Israelis support Operation Protective Edge as “just” and only 4% or less say that the Israel Defense Forces has used excessive force in the 2014 Gaza conflict:
Over the course of the surveys, Israeli Jewish public opinion has been consistently almost unanimous in its definition of Operation Protective Edge as justified – an average of 95% (96%, 92%, and 97% over the course of the three surveys).
The Home Front Command is given an average grade of 9.1, 8.6, and 9.1 on a scale of 1-10, with one being very poor and 10 being very good, while the performance of the government was rated as 8.0, 6.3, and 8.0.
Access to U.S. arsenal
The Pentagon confirms that Israel has been allowed to draw tank shells and illumination rounds from a cache of U.S. arms and equipment stored on Israeli soil. Known as the War Reserves Stock Allies-Israel program or WRSA-1, the billion-dollar reserve was established as part of expanded mutual cooperation during the 1980s and can be accessed with U.S. approval, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service the last time Israel was allowed to tap the stockpile was during the 2006 Lebanon war against Hezbollah.
86,000 reservists
An Israel Defense Forces official says the military has called up an additional 16,000 reservists on day 24 of Operation Protective Edge, in order ‘to give the army the time needed to complete the mission.’ This brings the total number called up during the campaign to 86,000.
We’ll decide today where to place them and in which commands
1,374 Palestinian, 59 Israeli deaths
The Palestinian death toll reaches 1,374 on day 24 of the 2014 Gaza conflict as at least 10 people are killed in Israeli strikes and three more die of existing injuries, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra says. Fifty-six Israeli soldiers have died in fighting and rocket fire has killed two Israeli civilians and a Thai migrant worker inside Israel.
Passes $225 million Iron Dome bill
The U.S. Congress passes a $225 million funding bill for Iron Dome ahead of the five-week summer break for lawmakers. The House of Representatives 395-8 vote in favor follows unanimous Senate approval and the bill now goes to President Barack Obama, who requested the money and is expected to sign it into law. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) on the Senate floor:
We will stand with you on the battlefield; we will stand with you in the court of public opinion, and we’re going to push back against the United Nations.