As the southern border continued to heat up Thursday, with intermittent rocket fire striking southern Israel, residents were advised to stay within 15 seconds of bomb shelters.
Over 15 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip Thursday evening, leaving one soldier lightly injured.
Palestinian sources said Israel had issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Hamas to halt the fire or face a massive Israeli strike. The ultimatum was conveyed to Hamas leaders via Egyptian intelligence, they said.
An hour before the evening rocket barrage, Hamas said that in the event of an escalation, Israel would “be surprised” by its rocket arsenal and range.
Whether or not a larger IDF operation is imminent, the build-up is a message to Hamas — under pressure from the shuttering of its border with Egypt, a multi-year siege on its Israeli border and a collapsing economy in the Strip — that escalation could spell significant damage for Gaza and its rulers.
Rocket fire from Gaza damaged two buildings in Sderot on Thursday morning. No injuries were reported. One of the rockets hit the side of a building that contains a preschool, but did not explode. The area was closed off to passersby, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld tweeted on Thursday morning, as police sappers removed the unexploded warhead.
Israel’s Iron Dome system shot down two rockets fired from Gaza fired in the direction of the southern town of Netivot early Thursday morning.
Dozens of rockets have been fired at Israel from Gaza in the last two days. More were fired in the days before. At yet Israel is still imploring, “Hold me back!”
Over and over, threats are issued by senior Israeli officials — some anonymously, some by name — but there is nothing underpinning them.
Hamas keeps on firing, well aware of the situation: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, and Chief of the General Staff Benny Gantz do not want a wide-ranging military confrontation with Gaza. Hamas smells this fear, and so the rockets continue to fall — albeit only in the Negev for now — in order to indicate that it is not capitulating to Israeli pressure or to its threats.
On Thursday night, Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades held a press conference at which it presented its own “hold me back” approach. The armed wing’s spokesman, Abu Obaida warned that “one stupid move” from the enemy would lead Hamas to hit “a bank of targets the enemy does not expect.”
He added: “We have plans that would enable us to manage a confrontation against the Zionists, and we can surprise the enemy and its allies. The enemy should understand that its aggression in the West Bank, its abuse of prisoners, and its repression and blockade of Gaza — all are fuel to ignite protests so long as these acts of aggression continue.”
On Thursday afternoon, a senior military source conveyed the message to Hamas, in the course of a discussion with journalists, that Israel does not want escalation. In a neighborhood such as ours, this was likely interpreted as weakness.
Encouraged by Israel’s hesitant stance, Hamas has continued to fire intermittently at Israeli cities in order to be seen as “the defender of the Palestinian people.”
The problem is that this equation has shifted in recent days. It may be that Hamas has come to feel that it has nothing to lose — given the crisis over payments still owed to its people in Gaza, and the overall decline in the Gazan economy. And the fact that Hamas clearly feels Israel is scared of getting re-entangled in Gaza which has produced the belief that it can fire on Israel and get away with it.
Late Thursday, Palestinian sources were claiming that Israel has conveyed an ultimatum, via Egyptian intelligence: If the rockets don’t stop within 48 hours, Israel will hit Gaza hard.
But it is doubtful that, even if that ultimatum passes unheeded, the Israeli leadership will want to launch a wide-ranging assault on Gaza, and risk missiles on Tel Aviv.
Prime Minister Benjamnin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel was ready for two possible outcomes to the ongoing rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.
“One possibility is that the fire will stop and the quiet continues,” Netanyahu said. “The other is that the fire continues and then the increased forces that are in the south will act forcefully. The safety of our citizens is first and foremost.”
Netanyahu’s comments came as terrorists in the Gaza Strip continued to fire volleys of rockets at southern Israel.
Over 15 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip Thursday evening, leaving one soldier lightly injured.
Palestinian sources said Israel had issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Hamas to halt the fire or face a massive Israeli strike. The ultimatum was conveyed to Hamas leaders via Egyptian intelligence, they said.
An hour before the evening rocket barrage, Hamas said that in the event of an escalation, Israel would “be surprised” by its rocket arsenal and range.
“We promise that one stupid move your leaders make will constitute sufficient ground to turn all of your towns, even those you wouldn’t expect, into targets and burning cinders,” said Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing. Israel may initiate the escalation, “but it doesn’t know how it will continue and how it will end,” he said.
The IDF beefed up its ground forces around the Gaza Strip on Thursday, as tensions continued to rise along the southern border region; and in East Jerusalem, where the recent killing of a Muslim teenager, in an alleged revenge attack over the killings of three Israeli teens, triggered widespread riots on Wednesday.
As Gazan rockets and missiles continued to hit Israel on Thursday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned that if quiet in the region was not restored, the beefed-up IDF units amassed there will act “with power.”
“The security of our citizens comes before anything,” he said at a speech at the annual Fourth of July celebration at the US ambassador’s residence in Herzliya.
Together with his warnings to Hamas, Netanyahu – who arrived at the event directly from security deliberations in Tel Aviv that focused on the escalating violence in the South and the volatile situation in Jerusalem – was unequivocal in his condemnation of the murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, the east Jerusalem teen killed on Wednesday morning.
Regarding the situation in the South, Netanyahu said that Israel was prepared for two possibilities.
The first was that the rocket fire on Israel would stop, and as a result Israel’s counter-attacks would stop. The second possibility was that the fire continued, in which cases the IDF – which on Thursday reinforced its presence near the border with the Gaza Strip – would act with full strength.
Israel was fighting with determination against Hamas, and that organization has paid a heavy price over the past three weeks in the West Bank, with hundreds of activists arrested, and almost all its institution closed, the prime minister said. In Gaza, the IDF has hit “dozens” of targets in recent days, he said.
1 comment:
We just wanted to send some special thoughts and prayers to all of those being hit by the hurricane and it's side effects.
We hope you stay safe and are thinking of you all. May everyone have a good holiday weekend in Gods goodness and blessings.
God Bless!!
GG
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