Posted on 07/18/2014 8:35:00 AM PDT by Star Traveler
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
Those tunnels are like undergroung sausages - packed full of crazed Jihadis.
Fry them up !!!
Dogs are curious animals, particularly over anything freshly dug or burried. Well, he started digging at these mounds of dirt with cables. There were hundreds of them all in linear patterns. After pulling and pulling, I pulled out a "Blasting Cap". Well it turns out the best way to make a backhoe's job a lot easier to dig about 500, 50' X 50' X 20' deep basement foundations was to blast it all to hell and turn the rock to gravel.
Why not just bury explosive charges about 30' down about every 100 feet and just set off the charges? Every tunnel, cave, void, etc.... will just collapse.
I read this the other day ...
— — — — —
Uncovering Gazan tunnel routes is critical, says prominent geologist and defense expert
http://www.jpost.com/Enviro-Tech/Uncovering-Gazan-tunnel-routes-is-critical-says-prominent-geologist-and-defense-expert-363327
Langotsky said the tunnels are being dug in a very professional manner, and the hundreds of tunnels that run under the Gaza Strip don’t seem to pose any threat of land collapse.
“The Hamas are very professional in the tunneling business...”
he warned. “Whatever they are doing is very impressive.”
“I tried to emphasize that we are talking about a longterm threat, not a short-term threat,” he said. Not only is the threat long-term; it is longrange in terms of geography, with possible tunnel threats along the Egyptian and Lebanese borders.
Before becoming capable of destroying these tunnels, the Israeli security system first needs to discover their locations and routes, he said.
— — — — —
The newspaper that contains this article is more leftwing by orders of magnitude than the New York Times. It has a circulation of about 30,000 in Israel and lots of international BDSers and other Israel haters.
There is broad consensus in Israel that this is the time to eliminate Hamas as a credible threat to Israel. Obama, through John Kerry, is bullying Israel into limiting the operation to destroying a few tunnels. Netanyahu has bent to Obama’s pressure repeatedly. Without the pressure exerted on him by rightwingers like Danny Danon, Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu’s policies at this time would be close to those of Tzipi Livni. She is the former conservative turned leftwinger whom Netanyahu appointed to negotiate with the Arabs. Thankfully, the conservatives are aligned with public perceptions.
Only leftwing trolls argue that the tunnel destruction at the border is sufficient.
Well Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be a left wing troll, since he’s the one informing everyone about that goal ... LOL ...
He is held on a tight leash by the Obama administration. They don’t trust him because he is conservative by background and because they perceive that he supported Romney against Obama for re-election.
There are two possibilities. Either Netanyahu has abandoned his conservative impulses and really become a Kadima-lite kind of leftist, which I don’t believe, or —
He is responding to pressure. His father (may he rest in peace) once questioned whether Netanyahu would have the gumption to be the Prime Minister and stand his ground.
Obama once told a group of senior executives that he was the only one standing between them and the mob. The best thing that lovers of Israel can do is to call vocally for a more comprehensive resolution of the attacks by Hamas, so that Netanyahu can explain to the Americans that he has to do more. If true conservatives shut up, as one leftwing troll has been requesting non-stop through this forum, then they will be making it easier for Obama to squeeze Netanyahu into curtailing actions that the vast majority of Israelis, and probably Netanyahu himself, believe would be best.
... LOL ...
Here’s the same information about the primary goal being the tunnels from Fox News ... :-) ...
It was the “left wing troll” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who announced it ... LOL ...
— — —
Netanyahu said the military’s primary goal would be to destroy underground tunnels used by Hamas to attack the Jewish State. The announcement came hours after Israeli ground troops and tanks struck more than 100 terror targets in Israel’s first major ground offensive in Gaza in just over five years.
— — —
Here is an article from the Times of Israel, a basically middle-of-the-road news source that you have cited before veering to Ha’aretz. It explains the enormous pressure coming from John Kerry. http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-restrict-gaza-operation-to-precise-action-against-tunnels/
Here is a blog of the war from that newspaper confirming that Obama himself just spoke to Netanyahu and demanded that he minimize harm to the Arabs (see the entry from 19:25): http://www.timesofisrael.com/as-conflict-with-hamas-goes-into-day-11-israel-launches-gaza-ground-offensive/
As I said, the Obama administration has Netanyahu on a tight string. The best thing that we who love Israel can do is to fortify him from the right.
... LOL ...
If you think that Obama has Netanyahu on a leash ... you’re living in a world inside your own head ... LOL ...
Obama has been put “out of the loop” by Netanyahu ... :-) ...
If Israel really wants to do it right, it should wire the whole area up with listening devices.
They need to find the underground bunkers where the Hamas leadership is hiding, and incinerate them alive.
Obama would not have called Netanyahu today if he were not able to squeeze Netanyahu.
The US has enormous influence over Israel. To name the most obvious, the Iron Dome is a co-developed project and Israel just had its supplies replenished by the United States.
The best thing that lovers of Israel can do is to continue to give Netanyahu the strength to resist being squeezed too hard.
... LOL ...
Israel has very good intelligence on the ground in Gaza. That is how they are able to hit cars containing terrorists with only minimal collateral damage to others.
ground penetrating radar!!! fire them up!!
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t squeeze ... :-) ...
Until they dig more.
What a bunch of crap.
The West Bank network is better. Israel has many Arab Jews who have ancestry in Iraq and other Arab nations. They speak Arabic and look fairly Arab. Darker skin etc than European derived Israelis. Also some shared genetics with Arabs due to living among them for centuries. Traditionally when a Jewish woman is raped by a non-Jew this baby is kept and brought up as Jew. They make good spies. But used much more often (my opinion) are paid Palestinian informants. Used in Gaza and the West Bank
Israel has disengaged from Gaza unlike the West Bank. So Gaza spy-ops are not as good as West bank
Yes, exactly!
Unless Israel is able to eliminate Hamas’ ability to dig more tunnels, this war will be like wiping out a hornet’s nest by killing those insects that are flying around outside. It just won’t work and won’t even provide any long-term quiet for Israel.
Israel has to do much more.
I agree with some of what you said.
In the past there used to be many first-generation Israelis who came from Arab countries (many of the Sephardim). One of Israel’s greatest spies was a Jew from an Arab country who gathered intelligence in Syria.
Most reasonably young Sephardic Jews in Israel never have been in Arab countries in their adult lives and it would be difficult for them to fake being from those locations.
I think that the rape scenario is of minimal significance. Also, I am not sure that rape victims generally are raised as Jews. Serously, I am not sure that women’s consent is an important factor in Arab marital relations, and therefore I am not sure whether rape is a factor in their culture.
It is sad and true that Israel left the Gaza strip nearly a decade ago, in 2005, and there are no Israelis in the area, as there are in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”). The Gaza Strip is very small, though. Its border with Egypt is just 6.8 miles long, and the northern border with Israel is even smaller. The Arabs are concentrated in cities, especially Gaza City, and Israel has very sophisticated listening devices.
In addition, Hamas has run a totalitarian regime in Gaza. If you remember, when Hamas took over there were stories of the Hamas terrorists throwing opponents to their deaths out of upper windows in office buildings. In that environment I believe Israel has had some success identifying collaborators from the Arab cohort who want peaceful and at least somewhat more democratic lives.
At least I haven’t heard any meaningful complaints from among Israelis about a lack of intelligence data from Gaza.
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