The Gaza Strip is on the brink of a large-scale Israeli military intervention.
The current round of escalation started on November 11 when a covert unit of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) opened fire at a patrol of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing, in the town of Khan Yunis inside the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) supported the retreating IDF unit by airstrikes. At least 7 Palestinians, including Nur Barake, a deputy commander of an elite unit of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and a lieutenant colonel of the IDF were killed in the clashes. Another IDF service member was injured.
In response to the raid, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades launched at least 17 projectiles at Israeli targets east of Gaza. 3 of the rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome. The IDF described the Palestinian retaliation as an act of the terror and claimed that its covert operation in Gaza was not aimed at killing or abducting anybody, but “to strengthen Israeli security”.
The incident triggered a mass hysteria within Israeli media and political leadership, with multiple reports and statements calling for a wider military action against Hamas. Over the past few weeks, the IDF has concentrated a notable ground force, including battle tanks and other military equipment, near the Gaza contact line amid similar statements from top Israeli officials calling for an invasion in Gaza.
In the evening, of November 12, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades kicked off a new round of rocket strikes on Israeli targets by launching at least 80 projectiles. The IDF responded by a massive airstrike on the Gaza Strip. In the framework of this effort, the IDF intentionally destroyed the building of the Al-Aqsa TV network to undermine the Palestinian media capabilities in the conflict.
By November 13 morning, Palestinian armed groups have launched over 370 rockets at different targets across Israel, including some on the coast of the Dead Sea. They avoided to strike the most populated areas in central Israel, but warned that if the IDF continues its actions they can do this. Additionally, a unit of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades also targeted an IDF bus with anti-tank guided missile.
According to the IDF, about 100 of 370 rockets were intercepted. Meanwhile, the IDF has continued its massive strikes on Gaza claiming that up to 100 military targets have been destroyed so far.
The IDF is actively deploying additional troops and battle tanks near Gaza and if the situation continues to escalate the ground operation may be launched in the nearest future.
Gaza has gaz. Nutty Yahoo wants it. Last time the Nutty Yahoo spent 100 Israeli lives trying to get the Gaza gaz. The highest rate of casualty in the IDF for years — and no gaz. So the IDF forced Nutty Yahoo to pull out. But the Yahoo still itches for Gaza gaz; part of his pension plan. So the Yahoo has sent in his pension enforcers again. The Nutty score this time: As of today, 1 young Israeli soldier dead, one captured (wearing a dress!??).
Nutty is really nuts, wanting his troops to fight a Stalingrad type ground war in a dense urban area like Gaza. Why doesn’t he just bomb and drop white phosphorus from a safe distance, like his predecessors Tzippy Livne and Ehud Olmert did? They killed just as many Gazans but suffered hardly any casualties. Does he really need a signature from the Gaza town council to make his Gaza Gaz Grab legal?
” Last time the Nutty Yahoo spent 100 Israeli lives …. ” When did tat happen, on which occasion ? Could you give link to that, pls.
Operation Protective Edge (NatanYahoo) 67 Israeli soldiers were killed:
https://imeu.org/article/2014-israeli-attack-on-gaza-one-year-later
Operation Cast Lead (Livne & Olmert) Only 10 Israeli soldiers were killed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_War_(2008%E2%80%9309)
As I said at the time, Nutty Yahoo is being extraordinarily reckless with the lives of his troops. Why does he insist on a ground invasion? I have given my answer: the Logistics of Gaza Gaz require Israeli boots on the ground until a puppet Gaza Council can be “persuaded” to sign Palestinian gas rights to a Yahoo-friendly company.
A new “Operation Protective Edge”?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict
Gaza 2014 before and after the Israeli terrorist attack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkLZEQ6ACz8
Do they have a name for this military campaign yet? Last time it was called “protective edge”.
A few years ago it was called “cast lead”. I looked it as I didn’t know what it meant. Cast lead refers to the jewish game of dreidel, usually made of lead. It’s basically a four sided top, played at Hannukah symbolising the “overturning of the natural order or sequence of events”.. “to deliver the many into the hands of the few, to deliver the strong into the hands of the weak”…https://www.google.cl/amp/s/www.haaretz.com/amp/jewish/.premium-gyration-nation-the-weird-ancient-history-of-the-dreidel-1.5344849
This is an openly genocidal regime.
An Israeli government minister, (“Justice!”) called for Palestinian mothers to be killed so no Palestinian children could be born. The Times of Israel, a national newspaper, called for the Palestinian people to be exterminated at concentration camps in the desert. Two rabbis published a book called “The King’s Torah”, calling for the murder of Palestinian children.
“Does hope lend strength or weaken a man?”
From A.S., Gulag v.1, The Supreme Measure
As an American, it is my impression, that we have plenty of hope in our future (or, we could if we cared to). But I dare say that the Palestinians have gone beyond this kind of hope.
Hariri calls himself ‘father of Sunnis’ in Lebanon, slams Nasrallah’s comments
https://mobile.almasdarnews.com/article/hariri-calls-himself-father-of-sunnis-in-lebanon-slams-nasrallahs-comments/
“I am the father of Sunnis in Lebanon and I know what serves their interest,” he stated.
The Lebanese Premier would conclude his speech by referring to himself in third person and stating that he will not be defeated.
“Saad Hariri will not be defeated, despite repeated attempts throughout the past 13 years,” he concluded.”
This delusional israelo-saudi suka-boi is an embarrassment to Sunnis everywhere. No doubt his primary task from his zionazi-gay masters was to prepare the way for an israeli takeover of Lebanon, a task Hizbulla denied him, and the quisling is now in a pout.
Well done report from Southfront.
“a lieutenant colonel of the IDF were killed in the clashes.”
A special forces lieutenant colonel, that’s gotta hurt. :-D
Galloway, writing at RT, also on point:
Gaza burns hotter than Hollywood but there’s nobody to put the fires out – George Galloway
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/443868-israel-gaza-strike-palestinians/
“The world is fixated by the forest fires in Hollywood burning down stars’ mansions. With supreme irony some of them belong to those who helped raise millions of dollars for the Israeli Army which is now burning the hovels of Gaza.
The Hollywood warriors have insurance of course, and other homes too, sometimes many of them. The hovel-dwellers of Gaza have neither.
The brave firefighters of California are well-equipped and have the wind of hope of millions of well-wishers at their backs. There are no firefighters in Gaza.
The hovels of Gaza are unfortunately well-known to me, since long before Hamas even existed. In fact I saw Hamas be born, and Israel was the midwife. I was a comrade of Yasser Arafat then the Chairman of the secular PLO, an Arab nationalist, whose executive committee consisted of Arab nationalists and Moscow-aligned leftists like the PFLP led by the late Dr George Habash.
Israel feared this then zeitgeist in the Arab world so they turned, as the British had earlier in seeking to undermine Egypt’s President Nasser, to the Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood, a client of the British in Egypt had brothers in Gaza of course. Those brothers became Hamas with the full cooperation of Israel.
I saw with my own eyes the open development of Islamism in Gaza, a catspaw against Arafat and the PLO. While the gaols (and the graveyards) were full of PLO men, the roads were choc-a-block with Islamist society vehicles. Communities were served by Islamic schools, hospitals & civic-society institutions of all kinds. Permitted, encouraged, sometimes financed by Israel. It was divide and rule in perfect harmony.
Of course, that was nearly 40 years ago and none of the leaders of Hamas then are still alive – by one means or another. The Hamas Israel thought it was developing as a client long-ago outgrew that role and is now a formidable fighting force which can be slaughtered from the air of course (along with anyone nearby) but on the ground, face to face, not so much.
Whilst a ceasefire was in place and peace talks were taking place in Cairo between Israel and Hamas, Netanyahu sent a special forces commando undercover into Gaza to assassinate a Hamas military commander and in the accompanying firefight an Israeli commander was slain. And all hell broke loose. As I write the dogs of war are unleashed and havoc has ensued.
Increasingly accurate Hamas missiles have been fired with greater accuracy and quantity. Israeli warplanes are bombing and rocketing like there was no tomorrow (with an unlimited guarantee of more from Donald Trump). This week the Palestinian television station Al Aqsa was eviscerated in an air-strike about which the Israeli government boasted on Twitter. Like Yugoslav TV in Belgrade, like the Al Jazeera TV station in Baghdad, the slaughter of tea-ladies, make up departments, camera-operators and of course journalists has elicited only stony-silence from Western media outlets.
The fourth estate, rightly scandalized by the kidnap, torture, murder and dismemberment of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, is unmoved by the dismemberment of Palestinian journalists.
The media solidarity, triggered by Donald Trump withdrawing the White House credentials of CNN journalist Jim Acosta, who none of us had ever heard of, working for a station that none of us ever watches, was impressive. The withdrawal of the life’s blood of TV make-up ladies hasn’t even made the news, especially on CNN.
For them as with the other Western fake-news machines, the clock starts ticking when Israel says it does and when Israel “responds”. That the response is a response to a provocation matters not a jot or tittle.”
The Short War With Gaza Exposed Israel’s Weakness
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/11/short-conflict-with-gaza-exposes-israels-weakness.html#more
The Palestinian command published a video of … a Kornet anti-tank guided missile (ATGM). Israeli army is extremely afraid of such missiles. The arrival of these weapons in the besieged Gaza will be a serious concern.
The Palestinians also launched over 460 artillery missiles and mortars within 25 hours. This by far exceeds the firing rate during Israel’s 2014 [turkey shoot] war on the Gaza strip. Some of these missiles had a larger range then previous models. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense systems … is questionable…. Each Iron Dome missile costs $65,000 while a mortar round or rocket costs a few hundred dollar. Many of the Palestinian rockets reached their targets in the Zionist settlements Ashkelon, Netivot, and Sderot. Israel announced only two hits on missile launching cells.
The rival Palestinian groups in Gaza [this time] operated under a central command. This time all groups worked from a common operations room. None released… information that would help Israel’s intelligence.
It was Israel that practically begged to return to the ceasefire. Egypt led the negotiations:.. IDF chief of staff, the head of Military Intelligence, the head of the Shin Bet, the head of the Mossad, and the head of the NSC— supported the Egyptian request for a cease-fire.
…
“If we had intensified the attacks, rockets would have been fired at Tel Aviv,” senior cabinet officials said.