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That nine of the 10 Israeli servicemen who died in the counter-terror operation against Hamas Monday, July 28, were killed on Israeli soil was a wake-up call for Israel’s war leaders. It meant that Hamas had used the 22 days of combat to carry the contest from its own home ground into Israel by grabbing the tactical advantage of surprise. The Nahal Oz encounter was a tragic microcosm of the current face of Operation Defensive Edge. The tunnel, from which a band of Hamas infiltrators jumped out – and about whose existence the IDF admits to have known – ran...

IDF chiefs have asked the government for a clear decision on whether to expand their counter-terror operation in the Gaza Strip which entered its 22nd day Tuesday - or terminate it. This was reported by a senior IDF officer Tuesday. He put it this way: “Decide now whether we go in or out.” DEBKAfile: This comment reflects the mounting criticism in the IDF high command of the government’s slowness in reaching a decision about the next stage of the operation against Hamas. This irresolution, they say, exposes the troops to danger and point to the 10 fatalities the IDF suffered...

Israel expands counter-offensive In the past 48 hours, Israel was pressured to accept its fifth “humanitarian” ceasefire in Gaza by President Barack Obama, US Secretary of State John Kerry, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Chairman of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu came close to folding, whereas Hamas saw the truce as applying only to Israel and therefore used it as a call to arms. The slogan Israel broadcast: Quiet will be met with quiet and fire with fire, was seen by Hamas as a sign of Israel weakening. This impression was confirmed on Sunday when...

Israel Monday rebuffed the UN Security Council’s call for an immediate and humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. In a call to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Binyamin Netanyahu said that the text relates only to the needs of “a murderous terrorist organization which attacks Israeli civilians.” It fails to address the harm inflicted on Israeli citizens and Hamas’ misuse of UN facilities for launching attacks on those citizens. Netanyahu delivered his reply as Hamas renewed rocket attacks at noon Monday, with Israeli resuming air strikes on rocket targets towards evening.

Israeli ministers, who on Friday unanimously rejected US secretary’s offer, reported to describe him as ‘negligent, incapable of handling the most basic matters’ Israeli government sources on Saturday night accused US Secretary of State John Kerry of “completely capitulating” to the demands of Hamas and its champion Qatar in drafting the Gaza war ceasefire proposal that Israeli ministers unanimously rejected on Friday. The unnamed sources, quoted by Israel’s Channel 2 TV, said Kerry “dug a tunnel under the Egyptian ceasefire proposal” — which Israel accepted and Hamas rejected last week — and presented the Israeli government with a text that...

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Three people were seriously injured from rocket fire in Be'er Sheva on Monday, including two teenage sisters. The sisters, ages 10 and 13 respectively, were hit by shrapnel after a rocket landed in a Bedouin village close to Be'er Sheva. They were admitted to Soroka Medical Center shortly after the attack, according to Walla! News. One, 13 year-old Atil Alwakili, is in moderate condition; the other, 10 year-old Mar'am, is fighting for her life after suffering from shrapnel wounds to her stomach. An 81 year-old disabled man was also seriously injured in the attack. Magen David Adom (MDA) and Ichud...

Seventy thousand Gazans from Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah were in the dark Sunday night after a Hamas rocket hit the power line that supplies electricity to those places. It's not clear when Israel Electric Company workers will be able to repair the system, but they are apparently in no rush to do so. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has asked the IEC not to risk the lives of its employees in trying to restore power to the affected sector in Gaza, an operation that could take hours. As Operation Protective Edge enters its seventh day, many Israelis are demanding that...

Sirens sounded in the Tel Aviv area on Friday morning at approximately 10:45 a.m., in what Hamas claims to be its first attack targeting the Ben Gurion International Airport. The Iron Dome anti-missile defense system shot down three rockets over the Tel Aviv area, according to the IDF Spokesperson's Office. However, shrapnel from the intercepted rockets has fallen in multiple places throughout the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, including one near a gas station; no injuries or damage have been reported. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, boasting that this is the first time they have specifically targeted Ben Gurion Airport,...

Four satellites for O3b Networks, a company which provides broadband connectivity to the developing world, are ready for launch Thursday on top of a Russian Soyuz rocket from the European-run spaceport in French Guiana. Liftoff is set for 1855:56 GMT (2:55:56 p.m. EDT). Rocket: Soyuz 2-1b Payload: O3b F2 Date: July 10, 2014 Time: 1855:56 GMT (2:55:56 p.m. EDT) Launch Site: ELS, Guiana Space Center, Sinnamary, French Guiana Live launch coverage at the link! ArianeSpace Launch Press Kit

A home in Sderot damaged by a rocket Reuters A rocket fired by Gaza terrorists on Wednesday night, shortly before 1:00 a.m. exploded near a home in the city of Sderot and caused it minor damages. The rocket hit a local power line and caused blackouts in parts of the city, but there were no reports of physical injuries. Two other rockets exploded in open areas in the Shaar Hanegev region. There were no physical injuries or damages. The latest rocket fire follows a barrage of at least 20 rockets that were fired at southern Israel on Wednesday. A...

Conversion of a Rocket Man: Charles P. Morse by Charles C. "Chas" Morse * God providentially used several key events to draw my father, Charles Phillips Morse, to salvation and into the ministry as a creation pioneer in the late 1960s when a six-day biblical creation was largely disbelieved. On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy delivered a shocking speech before a special joint session of Congress describing his ambitious goal of sending Americans safely to the moon before the decade’s end. Little did Kennedy know that his space scheme was a cog in the Master’s plan to relocate...

NASA's first spacecraft dedicated to measuring carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere, a critical new data-gathering project for scientists and policy-makers, is awaiting launch Wednesday morning on a Delta 2 rocket. The launch of NASA's OCO-2 has been rescheduled for Wed, July 2, at 2:56 a.m. PDT (0956 GMT) from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. Rocket: Delta 2 Variant: 7320-10C Payload: OCO-2 Date: July 2, 2014 Time: 2:56 a.m. PDT (5:56 a.m. EDT/0956 GMT) Site: SLC-2, Vandenberg AFB, California Watch the launch like at the link above or here or here or here or here starting at 12:45 a.m. PDT/3:45 a.m. EDT, Launch...

Terrorists from Gaza launched a salvo of rockets towards the Eshkol Regional Council on Tuesday, during the very hours that hundreds of thousands attended a funeral in Modi'in for the three teens who were abducted and murdered by Hamas terrorists on June 12. Reports indicate that the rockets, whose number remains unclear, all fell in open territory causing no injuries or damage. Security forces are searching the area to locate the rockets after residents reported hearing several explosions. The "Color Red" rocket warning siren was not sounded. At least four mortar shells were fired from Gaza in the assault according...

NASA's first spacecraft dedicated to measuring carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere, a critical new data-gathering project for scientists and policy-makers, is awaiting launch Tuesday morning on a Delta 2 rocket. Liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California is set for 2:56 a.m. PDT (5:56 a.m. EDT; 0956 GMT). Rocket: Delta 2 Variant: 7320-10C Payload: OCO 2 Date: July 1, 2014 Time: 2:56 a.m. PDT (0956 GMT) Site: SLC-2, Vandenberg AFB, California Watch the launch like at the link above or here or here or here or here starting at 12:45 a.m. PDT/3:45 a.m. EDT, Launch Updates: To keep up...

NASA engineers in Hawaii readied a 3.5-ton flying saucer-shaped test vehicle for a 23-mile-high balloon ride Saturday, followed by a rocket-powered climb an additional 11 miles for a high-speed flight through the extreme upper atmosphere to test an inflatable entry body and a huge supersonic parachute for eventual use at Mars. The LDSD project aims to develop and test two sizes of inflatable drag devices and a large new, supersonic ringsail parachute. Credit: NASA Flying at four times the speed of sound in the thin air near the edge of space, the test vehicle was expected to experience conditions similar...

MOSCOW — The first launch of Russia's new space rocket after two decades of development was aborted Friday moments before its blastoff, as President Vladimir Putin was watching via live feed. [....] Last month, the launch of Russia's Proton-M booster also ended in failure, and the same type of rocket also failed at launch last July, leading to the loss of three navigation satellites.

Rocket: Falcon 9 v1.1 Payload: Orbcomm OG2 F1 (6 satellites) Launch date: Sunday, June 22, 2014 Launch time: 5:24 p.m. EDT/2:24 p.m. PDT (2124 GMT) Launch window: 54 minutes Site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral, Florida Live launch coverage: At the link or watch it here http://www.spacex.com/webcast/ Delayed (from September, November, April 30, May 10, 27, June 11, 12, 15, and June 20, 21) several times by SpaceX due to a first stage helium leak and Orbcomm due to a potential defect in one of their satellites. On June 20th a launch attempt was scrubbed due to a fluctuation in pressure readings...

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Teen finds WWII-era bazooka rocket, brings it to local authorities on his moped A 16-year-old boy in Austria was at Wallersee, a large lake approximately 10 miles from the city of Salzburg, when he came across something peculiar – an old, rusted object. He picked it up, threw the item in his backpack, and then headed off on his moped to find some police officers. If he knew what he was carrying, however, he wouldn’t have been quite so cavalier. As the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reports, it was a World War II-era anti-tank missile. The BBC, pointing to a...