No Peace Deal: Gaza Militants Defy Ceasefire With Iran's Support

Predictably, we are now able to see Iran's influence in the region becoming more clear:

Heavy Palestinian Bombardment Of 15 Israeli Towns Greets Egyptian Truce Bid

Tuesday, July 15, Hamas fired 20 rockets from the Gaza Strip in the three hours after the ceasefire proposed by Egypt was due to go into effect at 9.a.m., after flatly rejecting it. The Israeli security cabinet did endorse Cairo’s proposal to mediate the conflict with the Palestinian extremists, but warned that if they continued to fire rockets, Israel would hit back with “all possible force.”  

In Cairo, Hamas official Mussa Abu Marzuk took responsibility for eight of the post-“truce” rockets, most of which landed on Ashdod, slightly injuring one woman. Iron Dome intercepted four.

The first rockets hit Eshkol before 9.30, soon to be followed by a steady stream at Sderot, Ashkelon, Kiryat Malachi, Shear Hanegev, Gan Yavneh and Eshkol. As the Hamas official spoke, a rocket hit Netivot and Israel TV reporters at Shear Hanegev interrupted their broadcast and scurried to safety in a shelter.

At 12:30 p.m. Rehovot, Ness Ziona and Kibbutz Givat Brenner were targeted, then sirens blared on Mt. Carmel, in Haifa, Zichron Yaakov and Ain Hashofet and at 13.05 p.m. in the inland towns.

And the day was still young.

 It was obvious from the first that the Egyptian bid to enforce a comprehensive truce before summoning the parties to Cairo to discuss a substantial deal - on the lines published Monday night in Cairo - had no legs. It was artificially cobbled together by Israel and Egypt with no reference to the initial aggressor, Hamas and its pro-Iranian ally Jihad Islami. Had they been consulted, some sort of dialogue might have developed and led to a bilateral ceasefire, however fragile.

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.
The Obama administration was also advised of that hand behind the trickle of rockets fired this week from Lebanon and Syria at Western Galilee and the Golan. It was the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian, PFLP-General Command, whose chief Ahmed Jibril has made his organization an operational branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Al Qods Brigades.

Israeli spokesmen have carefully refrained from putting these incidents together, all leading to Tehran, and inferring a well-orchestrated master plan afoot against the Jewish state that would not be put off by an unsustainable truce.

Over 35 Rockets Rain Down On Israel After 'Truce'

According to the IDF, at least 35 rockets have been fired on Israel since 9:00 am Tuesday, when an Egyptian-brokered truce was meant to come into effect. A direct hit was scored on a house in Ashdod but no one was injured. Two rockets were intercepted around 1:00 p.m. over the Shefelah coastal plain region.
Between 10:00a.m. - 11:00 a.m., four rockets hit open areas outside the Eshkol region. No injuries nor damage were reported. Sirens rang in the Eshkol region, Ashkelon, and communities near Gaza.
Between 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., the Iron Dome shot down at least two missiles over Ashdod, and sirens rang in Sderot, Sha'ar HaNegev, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Hof Ashkelon, Beit Raban, Gan Yavne, Kannot, Kiryat Malachi, Be'er Tuvia, and the Eshkol region.
Since 12:00 p.m., sirens have sounded once again in Sderot, the Eshkol region, the Shefelah, Ashkelon, Ashdod and S'dot HaNegev; rocket fire is also spreading northward, with sirens in Rehovot, Yavne, Zihron Ya'akov, Carmel, Haifa, and Menashe. At least two rockets have hit in Eshkol; no injuries or damage reported. 
Since 1:00 p.m., sirens have sounded in Shefelah and in Ashdod. 

Gaza Militants Defy Ceasefire Bid With More Rockets

At around 11:20 am, Code Red sirens blared through Ashkelon, Sderot, Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council, Ashdod, Kiryat Malachi and the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council. Rockets exploded in the yard of an Ashdod house causing damage to the structure, and in Sha'ar HaNegev, causing damage to a chicken coop. Several people were treated for shock in Ashdod. Hamas claimed responsibility for the rocket fire to Ashdod. The Iron Dome intercepted at least 6 rockets in this barrage.

Don't Believe The Hype

Contrary to the opinion of some senior Israeli officials, Hamas doesn’t seem to be in a panic or on the verge of collapse. Far from it: Most people who come into contact with Hamas these days are under the impression that the organization doesn’t want to stop the fighting without a significant achievement.

What could constitute a significant achievement?

A senior Hamas member said his organization will insist upon the release of those former prisoners who were set free under the Gilad Shalit deal but then rearrested after the abduction and killing of three Israel teenagers in June. In Israel they won’t rush to accept that idea.

In the meantime, Israel is cementing its own position. The gist of the messages passed from Jerusalem to various emissaries traveling along the Tel Aviv-Cairo-Doha line was that Israel has no intention of agreeing to a ceasefire that won’t guarantee the removal of existing rockets from Gaza and an end to Hamas’s ability to manufacture new ones.

It is hard to imagine a scenario wherein Hamas would agree to such a condition. And even if it did agree, it is doubtful that it would last for long – and therein, perhaps, lies the biggest problem: Without a significant change in the reality in the south, it will only be a matter of time before the next round of fighting in Gaza.

Netanyahu Threatens To Step Up Gaza Op

Israel’s cabinet said Tuesday morning it would accept an Egyptian proposal for a ceasfire with Hamas, after seven days of fighting, but Hamas was quick to reject the offer, resuming rocket salvos across the country. Earlier, two rockets hit the city of Eilat at Israel’s southernmost tip on Monday night, lightly injuring four people in the first attack on the city since the Gaza campaign began. In Gaza, Israeli attacks overnight brought the death toll in the Palestinian enclave to 192. The Times of Israel is liveblogging events as they unfold through Tuesday.(Monday’s liveblog is here.)

‘If Hamas rejects truce, Israel is free to act’

Science and Technology Minister Yaakov Peri tells Ynet that “we are not looking for wars and conflict, but if someone answers the Israeli government’s clear signals with missile fire, he assumes an extremely heavy responsibility upon himself and on his citizens.”

The former Shin Bet head also indicates that if Hamas rejects the ceasefire, “the State of Israel is free to act with almost no limits.”

Turkish PM accuses Israel of ‘state terrorism’

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses Israel of committing “state terrorism” in its deadly air offensive on Gaza, his latest tirade of criticism against the policies of the Jewish state.

“Israel is continuing to carry out state terrorism in the region. Nobody, except us, tells it to stop,” Erdogan tells members of his ruling party in parliament, accusing Israel of perpetrating a “massacre” of Palestinians. “To what extent will the world remain silent to this state terrorism?”

Hamas Says No

Israel accepted an Egyptian-backed proposal for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas early Tuesday morning, agreeing to stop its raids on targets in the Gaza Strip in exchange for a halt in rocket fire from the coastal enclave.

However, the proposal was quickly rejected by Hamas as “not acceptable.”

A diplomatic official in Jerusalem said that Israel would “respond forcefully” should Hamas reject the deal and continue firing rockets.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said the Palestinian group rejected the proposal.

Abu Zuhri told The Associated Press that “this proposal is not acceptable.”

Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, rejected the offer as “surrender,” pledging to “intensify” its attacks on Israel.

Hamas Rocket Technology Moving Up

Palestinian rockets have regularly inflicted psychological terror and disrupted commerce in Israel, rather than militarily causing physical injury to many Israelis. The launching of a Syrian made Khaibar-1 rocket on July 8th that nearly reached Haifa means that no Israeli target is now out of rocket range from Gaza. 

The July 8th missile that struck the coastal town Hadera -- 30 miles north of Tel Aviv and 70 miles from the Gaza Strip -- was a Khaibar-1 rocket (also known as M-302t). According to NBC, Israeli Defense Forces Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said “We understand that there are several other tens of these rockets within the Gaza Strip that can potentially reach that long distance.”

Commandos discovered under a cargo of bags of Iranian cement, crates filled with M-302 heavy rockets. The M-302s were built in Syria and have a range of between 65 to 130 miles depending on the number of rocket sections configured.

This advance gave Hamas the ability to reach Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Dimona. Since Hamas was unable to launch in large numbers in a “blizzard,” they could not threaten to overwhelm IDF defenses and cause large numbers of Israeli casualties. But the Fajr-5 gave Hamas the ability to disrupt commerce in the major Israeli cities as people constantly sought bomb shelters when air raid sirens sounded.

Also see:

UN seeking To Intervene In U.S. Border Crisis

 Representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHRC, are “intensely discussing in meetings” the possibility of extending U.N. protection to the thousands of Central Americans crossing the U.S. border with Mexico illegally by defining them as “refugees” who are seeking asylum from political and domestic violence in their home nations, WND has confirmed.

Officials privy to the U.N. discussions have explained to WND it’s “a tricky situation,” because the Central American immigrants are not part of any group the U.N. has designated as victims of political or religious persecution.

A UNHCR official confirmed Monday to WND via email that a 10-nation meeting in Nicaragua of ministers of the interior from the U.S., Mexico and various Central American countries was held Thursday and Friday.

The ministers, according to preliminary reports obtained by WND, concluded the Central American illegal aliens are “refugees” deserving international protection under the auspices of the U.N. as they seek asylum in the U.S. The ministers cited the U.N.’s 30-year-old declaration on the rights of refugees.

Attending the meeting were UNHRC representatives, as well as representatives of SICA, the El Salvador-headquartered non-government organization known in English as Central American Integration System. The group was endorsed by the U.N. General Assembly in a resolution Dec. 10, 1993, to create regional bodies and institutions authorized to interact with the U.N. officially in an effort to unify Central American states politically and economically.

On Monday, the UNHRC in Colombia notified WND the U.N. would issued a press release Tuesday afternoon on last week’s 10-nation meeting in Nicaragua, after receiving comments from SICA and the host country.

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