Friday, August 1, 2014

Game Changer: After 2 Soldiers Killed, One Seized During 'Truce', Israel Debates Widening Gaza Operation




This update comes from the Times of Israel:





[And of course, knowing biblical prophecy, we wouldn't expect to see 'the nations' support Israel - even after an incident like this, and of course this turns out to be true again (see last paragraph of this article)]






Israel was seen likely to intensify its military campaign against Hamas and other Gaza terror groups in the wake of a suicide attack and subsequent abduction of an Israeli officer Friday morning, carried out in breach of a truce. But as Israel’s leaders convened in Tel Aviv late Friday, it was not clear whether ministers would decide to redefine the mission of Operation Protective Edge to include the toppling of Hamas, or continue efforts to locate and rescue the missing soldier and widen the ongoing limited campaign to destroy Hamas’s terror tunnels and degrade Hamas infrastructure in the strip.
“Hamas and the other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip will bear the consequences of their actions,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US Secretary of State John Kerry during a phone call early Friday afternoon, a few hours after a Hamas suicide bombing and attack near Rafah during which two Israeli soldiers were killed and 2nd-Lt. Hadar Goldin of the Givati Brigade was apparently captured. Israel will “take all necessary steps against those who call for our destruction and perpetrate terrorism against our citizens,” Netanyahu told Kerry.

Kerry later condemned an “outrageous” violation by Palestinian militants of the Gaza ceasefire he helped to broker. He demanded that Hamas move to “immediately and unconditionally release” the missing Israeli soldier.



Israel’s security cabinet was convening at 6:30 p.m., and discussing how to react to the day’s events and, more specifically, whether to expand the offensive or stick to its original objective – restoring sustained quiet to Israel’s citizens while dealing a harsh blow to Hamas terrorist infrastructure.

Israel’s security cabinet was convening at 6:30 p.m., and discussing how to react to the day’s events and, more specifically, whether to expand the offensive or stick to its original objective – restoring sustained quiet to Israel’s citizens while dealing a harsh blow to Hamas terrorist infrastructure.


Netanyahu appeared bitter in the conversation with Kerry. According to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, he told Kerry that “despite his joint statement” with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, according to which “assurances” had been received from Hamas and the other terrorist organizations in Gaza regarding a ceasefire from 8:00 a.m. Friday morning, the Palestinians “unilaterally and grossly violated the humanitarian ceasefire and attacked our soldiers after 9:00 a.m.”


Late Thursday, Kerry and Ban had announced that the UN’s Middle East envoy, Robert Serry, “received assurances that all parties have agreed to an unconditional humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza.”
The Israeli soldiers were attacked more than one hour after the humanitarian ceasefire had gone into effect at 8:00 a.m. “As a result of this attack, two IDF soldiers were killed and there is a suspicion of that another soldier was kidnapped – this happened after the ceasefire went into effect,” Netanyahu told Kerry.

Last Friday, Kerry was harshly criticized by Israeli officials and journalists for a ceasefire proposal – or a draft of it, as US officials later said — he submitted and which the Israeli cabinet unanimously rejected. The text he sent to Jerusalem was seen in Israel as strongly in Hamas’s favor, without taking into account Israel’s security concerns.


Justice Minister Tzipi Livni hinted Friday at Israel’s readiness to expand Operation Protective Edge. “Hamas paid and will continue pay a heavy price,” she wrote on Facebook. “And if it wasn’t sufficiently clear to anyone yet, now the world knows who’s responsible for the destruction and the blood of civilians in Gaza.”

The cabinet’s most hawkish members — Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett — have in recent weeks called for harsher action against Hamas, demanding Israel topple the terrorist government there and reoccupy the Gaza Strip. The blatant breach of the ceasefire on Friday morning could potentially convince other cabinet members to consider this option as well, as more and more Israelis get the impression that Hamas is clearly not interested in reaching a ceasefire.

Former Mossad chief and Labor MK Danny Yatom argued Friday that Israel should no longer accept ceasefire agreements before it can be confident that its mission has been fully accomplished. “They crossed all the lines,” he said of Hamas.



The former commander of the Gaza Division, Maj. Gen. (res) Israel Ziv likewise said Friday morning’s events “brought to its end” the understanding of the need for, and the will to attain, a ceasefire in the immediate future.
“I believe we will now face a new strategy by the Israeli government,” he told reporters in an Israel Project conference call. The attack proved that Hamas “is not there,” in terms of its desire for a ceasefire, and that Israel will, therefore, “have to adjust” and “to move ahead.”


The IDF “has several plans,” said Ziv, a former head of the army’s operational branch, adding that while the plans may stop short of a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip, the army could well increase pressure on the urban areas in the days ahead.
He did not dismiss out of hand the notion of an offensive around Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where the Hamas leadership is said to be hiding, but said the first step would likely be an ultimatum to the parties to the ceasefire talks in Cairo, to pressure Hamas to return the missing soldier without preconditions.

While White House spokesman Josh Earnest called the abduction a “barbaric violation” of the ceasefire agreement, and said it merited international condemnation, it seemed unlikely that the international community would be supportive of a dramatically expanded Israeli ground operation in Gaza, especially one that would cause further civilian casualties. The fact that two soldiers were killed and one abducted during what was supposed to be a humanitarian ceasefire was being seen in Israel as grave provocation. But outside Israel’s borders this would likely not be considered a legitimate reason for a major escalation of the IDF’s military campaign in Gaza.




Self-Inflicted Massacre At Gaza Continues, Series Of Hamas False Flags Exposed


[This is a very long article with several videos; all worth watching and reading. Below is just a snapshot of this overall article]


The evidence here is irefutable and it sheds a very revealing light on so called “alternative media” scam artists who participate in the ongoing hysterical campaign headed by British propaganda organs  in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Gaza. [Previously reported: False Flag Busted: Hamas Murders 25 Gazans, Blames it On Israel].



Hamas over the past few days has executed more than 30 Palestinians suspected of aiding Israel in the Gaza Strip, the Palestine Press News Agency reported Monday.
The Palestinians news outlet quoted Gazan security sources saying Hamas killed dozens of suspected collaborators in the northern Gaza neighborhood of Shejaiya last week, the Times of Israel noted.
The Palestinian media report confirms a KleinOnline’s exclusive report last Thursday that Hamas killed at least 25 Palestinian civilians in Shujaiyeh it suspected of collaborating with Israel.
The KleinOnline article quoted sources close to both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad groups as saying most of the extra-judicial killings of suspected collaborators took place during a brief “humanitarian” cease-fire four days earlier.
The so-called collaborators were accused of leading Israeli troops to smuggling tunnels and providing intelligence on Hamas’ infrastructure inside Gazan cities.
The sources told KleinOnline that Hamas publicly blamed the killings of the Palestinian suspects on Israel, claiming the civilians were murdered Sunday during an Israel Defense Forces “massacre” in the Shujaiyeh neighborhood of the Gaza Strip.
The sources further said the civilian suspects murdered by Hamas were publicly celebrated by Hamas as martyrs killed by the Jewish state.
After the IDF’s operation in Shujaiyeh nine days ago, in which the IDF says it targeted Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure, Israel agreed to a two-hour humanitarian cease-fire facilitated by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The stated purposed of the lull in fighting was to evacuate Palestinian casualties.
During the cease-fire, the IDF said Hamas violated the agreement by shooting at IDF soldiers. Nonetheless, Israel extended the cease-fire another hour.
Israel lost 13 soldiers during the Shujaiyeh operation. Hamas claimed Israel killed at least 66 Palestinians, mostly civilians, in that operation. Israel says most Palestinian casualties were gunmen.




The self-inflicted massacre at Shijaiyah




I decided to not wait until the Israel Defense Forces released an official statement about what happened in the Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza City on July 30, 2014. You’ll see for yourself that the self-inflicted massacre at Shijaiyah should never have happened. Hamas is entirely to blame.
Every news outlet on the planet is calling this “an air strike on a crowded/busy market street” and a deliberate followup attack on the ambulances that came to help. Both accusations are entirely bogus.
A short, low-quality video shows the first “strike.”


The photojournalist in the blue helmet is a twenty-three-year-old Palestinian man named Rani Rayan. He was one of the seventeen killed. Initially it looks as though a bomb or missile hit, but that isn’t the case.
This longer video shows the mayhem. There are some fairly gruesome scenes, as well as the sounds of fourteen explosions.


At 3:54 in that video, a bearded man goes into a long diatribe over the body of Rani Rayan. I could make out the word “Amriki,” so he’s blaming the US.
The state of reporting from Gaza is so abysmal due to the Hamas death threats against journalists that it took me hours to find out what had really happened. I pretty much knew, but I wanted to present ironclad corroborating evidence so that BagNews or Ali Gharib wouldn’t be able to dismiss this post as the mere ravings of a man who sees the ghost of his dead cat.
Just about every single news story says “The Israelis bombed a crowded market street in Shijaiyah” or “a busy market street in Shijaiyah” during a four-hour truce. Here’s a typical recounting of events.
‘Bloodbath’ as Gaza market hit by deadly strikes
Witnesses at the Shijaiyah market said a series of strikes hit at short intervals whilst people were shopping during the partial ceasefire announced by the Israeli military earlier today.
The military have not commented on the strikes.
The area next to a petrol station was hit and a fire engulfed the densely populated area near the market. Then more strikes hit the market directly, according to local reports.
It’s only after much, much, much searching that one finds three crucial details omitted from the overwhelming majority of the stories.
2. The open-air market was closed at the time, therefore the Palestinian assertion that it was crowded or busy with shoppers is a lie. Listen to the narrator at :30 in the video. You can see with your own eyes that this isn’t a crowded or busy market, nor were there 160 wounded.

UPDATE:

Imagine that! After I posted this piece, the Telegraphchanged the voice over, omitting the observation that the open-air market was closed. That doesn’t matter. Look at the empty lot for yourself: NO VENDERS, NO CROWDS. There was NO STRIKE ON A CROWDED MARKET. I wonder if Hamas threatened the Telegraph’s reporters in Gaza?

What a surreal experience. As I was looking for new corroboration that the market was closed, articles were changing between the moment I clicked the link and the page opened. It was like the Michael Douglas movie Disclosure, where he’s inside the virtual computer, and the files are disappearing before his eyes. The Telegraph’s cached articles have been removed, so somebody thought it was really important to conceal the fact that the market was closed.
Using Google Translate, I tried every language, including Arabic. Finally I began searching for specific sentences. None of them gave me any results. The information that the Shijaiyah market was closed on July 30, 2014, had been entirely scrubbed from the Internet.
Except…for in one YouTube video, which I found by searching the sentence “The market was not open at the time.”


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