Posted on 07/18/2014 11:46:36 AM PDT by Star Traveler
It is somewhat difficult to believe, but on Thursday afternoon we were all discussing reports in the foreign press that at 6 a.m. Friday a ceasefire would come into effect. Here we are, just hours later, and the IDF has launched an extensive ground operation in the Gaza Strip, with casualties on both sides, but especially among Palestinians. Dozens of rockets are still crashing into Israel.
What happened during those critical hours between the Israeli delegation’s return from ceasefire talks in Cairo and the IDF’s receipt of orders to enter Gaza? It seems that Israeli officials concluded that Hamas simply wants to continue fighting. Representatives of the Islamist organization in Cairo, headed by Moussa Abu Marzouk, presented a list of demands which made it clear to the Israeli negotiators that there was simply nothing more worth discussing.
It should be noted that for Hamas, the new Egyptian ceasefire proposal being discussed Thursday seemed similar to the old one, from Tuesday, with only a slight cosmetic change: namely, first stop the firing of rockets and only then negotiate the opening the Rafah crossing. Hamas, however, wanted more. The terror organization would primarily like to see the re-release of prisoners freed in the Gilad Shalit exchange deal, who were once again arrested in the IDF’s recent West Bank operation to find the killers of the three Israeli teenagers. It appears that Hamas also made demands designed deliberately to sabotage the ceasefire talks, such as a request to allow Gaza Palestinians to take part in Friday prayers at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesofisrael.com ...
Seems to me that all the Israeli’s have to do is advance as far as the tunnel entrances on the Gaza side and detonate them.
The news reports from the IDF and Netanyahu’s office says that at this time the IDF is advancing no further than about four kilometers across the border.
Good to hear... thanks for the information.
Bulldoze every standing building , detonate not only the tunnels but any water , sewer or buried utility .. make a wide uninhabitable zone ... give them an ultimatum .. and mean it.
Go for it! Launch a full-scale invasion and demand nothing less than unconditional surrender as the price of peace. Sure, Israel will take a lot of casualties, but the rocket attacks will be done away with permanently.
So it is almost unanimous. Hamas wants the IDF drawn in, and the broad consensus in Israel is that the IDF should move in deeper, not just to mitigate the threats of the tunnels but also to remove the threat of. Hamas and if necessary destroy Hamas altogether. Even left winger Tzipi Livni said today that “all options are on the table.”
It will be harder for Netanyahu to ignore his own people and kowtow to Obama as conservatives get louder in voicing their beliefs.
I don’t think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ignoring anything. In fact he said as much recently, when he said that he has to weigh many things before proceeding on any action and that also includes that region at large (namely the Middle East). Netanyahu says he is looking at the big picture and not just one thing.
That’s one thing that Netanyahu does, is carefully consider and weighs the bigger picture for Israel in the long run. And much of that statement was made in regards to the WHINERS Netanyahu has had to shake off his heels like RABID DOGS ... including one he had to fire ... :-) ...
bttt
That would require the Palestinians to act with honor. Something of which they have none. They would start sending rockets into Israel as soon as they had them to fire.
Here’s a running account of news reports related to these recent events with Israel and Hamas. If you want to catch up on the news accounts ... they are here ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/stisraelhamas/index
It’s listed from newest to oldest, so go to the bottom to start.
Israel should take this opportunity to permanently retake Gaza and the West Bank territories. Palestinians and any other groups that don’t like it should be told to go elsewhere.
Israel says Gaza ground operation aims to restore calm, not oust Hamas
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3181746/posts
Thousands of Israeli soldiers backed by tanks poured into the Gaza Strip on Thursday night, escalating a 10-day military operation to try to destroy Hamas’s weapons arsenal, rocket firing abilities and tunnels used to send terrorists from the Palestinian territory into Israel.
The goal of the ground operation was to restore security for Israel’s citizens by stopping Hamas attacks, Israeli diplomatic sources said, and not to reconquer Gaza and oust Hamas.
The high-stakes move was compelled by Israel’s growing exasperation over unrelenting rocket fire and followed the collapse of Egyptian-led efforts to broker a cease-fire. It also came after a failed attempt by 13 terrorists to infiltrate Israel earlier Thursday through a tunnel under the Gaza-Israel border near Kibbutz Sufa, only to be stopped by an Israeli strike at the mouth of the tunnel.
Israel’s security cabinet approved the ground offensive in principle on Tuesday, after Hamas rejected an Egyptian ceasefire proposal. The resort to ground forces received unanimous approval; centrist Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said she did not take the decision “lightly,” but had “no doubt” that it was necessary.
Israel’s Gaza incursion to focus on locating, destroying tunnels
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3181982/posts
The Israel Defense Forces are currently operating on the ground in several areas throughout the Gaza Strip, from north to south, a senior IDF office said on Friday morning.
After entering the strip at a number of points along the border on Thursday night, infantry and armored forces made their way to predetermined points in agricultural areas of the strip.
By morning they were on the outskirts of populated areas.
The immediate objective of the operation was for the forces to establish themselves in commanding positions, from which they could operate against tunnels running from the strip into Israel.
Before the ground incursion began, a senior officer in the GOC southern command said it would most likely be limited to a depth of three to four kilometers from the Israeli border, and would focus on locating and destroying tunnels. Such an operation, he said, could take between a week and two weeks.
On Thursday, the IDF received the cabinet’s approval to expand the mobilization of up to 18,000 reserve soldiers, and the military commenced drafting thousands of reservists overnight. If the military does call up the full number approved, the total number of troop mobilized due to Operation Protective Edge will number over 70,000 troops.
Qatar's state religion is Wahhabist and Salafist Sunni, the most fundamentalist, poisonous form. Qatar has become a terrorist state. The Saudis should be handling Qatar, but are only talking about blockades so far. It is in the Saudis' interest, and that of the entire region, to depose the Emir.
correction: Assad is Alawist.
Precise bombing with bunker busters should work. They seem to have good intel on ground.
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