Free Republic

Israeli forces have cut the Gaza Strip in two, surrounded Gaza City, and are tightening the noose around the reported nerve center of Hamas. Before the ground invasion began on October 28, Israel pounded the strip with artillery and air strikes, killing scores of terrorists and their leaders. Many have hidden in the matrix of tunnels, which has been an operational concern for the IDF. They’re booby-trapped. It’s nearly impossible to see, and some tunnels are 250+ feet underground. So far, Israel has been able to make inroads, but some 30-40,000 Hamas terrorists remain embedded in the strip like ticks....

BEIRUT (AP) - United Nations peacekeepers were dispatched Friday to evacuate about 350 Lebanese soldiers and police detained by Israeli forces in Marjayoun after Israeli soldiers swept into the southern Lebanese town, the UN command said. Two armoured vehicles from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, a 2,000-member peacekeeping force deployed in southern Lebanon, headed to Marjayoun, which Israeli forces occupied on Thursday, "to facilitate" the withdrawal of the Lebanese force to government territory in the north. But the UN unit, which made it to the Marjayoun barracks, was unable to leave with the Lebanese force because the roads out...