Israel Continues Gaza Bombing as hamas calls for day of wrath
Go Israel.
2 January, 2009, DW
Israel continued its relentless air raids against Hamas Friday, the seventh day of its Gaza offensive, as the militant group urged Palestinians to observe a “day of wrath” to protest the military action.
-Traditionally the minions are more violent after the Friday prayers. This call will result in problems on a grand scale. The minions are feeling helpless as Israel clearly has the upper hand and hamas has been exposed as weak, incompetent and powerless.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli army said the ongoing airstrikes were targeting Hamas rocket production workshops, a building storing “large amounts” of rockets, a tender carrying rockets and houses of Hamas activists.
She said the total number of targets hit since the Israeli government took the decision to carry out the strikes had risen to 700.
-Nice work, Go Israel!
The Holfe Mosque in the northern Gaza refugee camp of Jabaliya was also destroyed in the overnight airstrikes, with Israel saying it had been used as a “command centre” for Hamas militant activity.
-No doubt this will cause an uproar but muslims often disrespect mosques by both claiming them to be holy and by militarizing them. Any mosque with a weapon should be flattened, no question.
The Israeli Air Force also bombed another arms smuggling tunnel under the border with Egypt. More than 100 such tunnels have been bombed since Sunday, the military spokeswoman said.
-Git that? Over 100 tunnels obviously hamas was planning to escalate this conflict long before the Israelis decided to preempt their plans.
Hamas and other Gaza militant factions fired around 50 rockets into southern Israel on Thursday, but none were fired overnight, the spokeswoman said.
-Cowards; the minions know the Israelis can spot them easier at night and were afraid to go out.
At least 350 rocket attacks have been tracked down, but more may have been launched, the military said.
Hamas calls for revenge
Medical sources in Gaza say more than 400 people have now been killed there. The UN says at least 100 of them are civilians.
Four Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rockets fired into Israel since the campaign began on Saturday.
Hamas, meanwhile, called for a day of “wrath” to avenge the killing of Nizar Rayan, the most senior Hamas leader to be killed by Israel since Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi in 2004. Rayan’s house in Jabaliya was levelled by Israeli rockets Thursday.
-That scum was not worth of being used as a propaganda piece but they had to pick a reason and he was convenient.
Rayan, said to be one of Hamas’ more extreme members, had refused to evacuate his home and go into hiding as most other Hamas figures have done. Hamas leader Ismail Radwan, speaking on television, vowed to avenge Rayan’s death by hitting Israelis “everywhere.”
-What they are calling for is a global murder fest, they want muslims to attack any Jew any where. I hope that I am out and see one attempt to harm a Jew while I am nearby. It would warm my heart to be able to post stories of Americans shooting down minions to protect an innocent. Jews watch your back, they will not face you and attack
Radwan said that while the attacks “are intended to break our will, they won’t. This cowardly enemy must realise that he will regret these crimes against our people.”
The Israeli military imposed a one-day closure of the West Bank which began midnight as police took preventative measures against unrest during Friday’s Muslim prayers at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque.
-What everyone forgets is Israel has both nukes and fuel air explosives, they could erase gaza if they wanted. I think they are holding back to much. The world will side with palestine and against them so why not really put the hammer down?
Police limited entry to the Old City to Muslim men aged 50 or older from Israel or East Jerusalem who had Israeli identity cards.
Israel also announced it would permit around 400 foreigners living in Gaza to leave the war zone after receiving requests and coordinating with foreign embassies, Israel Radio reported Friday.
Merkel’s position criticized
Meanwhile, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected criticism Thursday of her forthright support for Israel during the recent conflict with Hamas. Merkel accused Hamas of terrorism in her New Year’s address.
-She has seen what trouble the minions can cause and knows why Israel is going to take out as much of hamas power base as it can.
The International League for Human Rights, a pacifist organization active in Germany, accused Merkel of “encouraging Israel to continue war crimes in the Gaza Strip” and demanded she pressure Israel into a ceasefire.
“If she does not, she will be guilty of increasing the spiral of violence,” the group charged.
-This group should move to Israel and see for themselves what an incoming rocket looks like.
Rolf Muetzenich, a deputy of the Social Democratic Party, which is part of Merkel’s governing coalition, also criticized the chancellor, saying: “It is not the right thing at the current time to discuss who is to blame.” He said the priority should be a truce.
But Muetzenich said he accepted that Israel was right to defend itself against Hamas attacks.
Ceasefire rejected
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Thursday Israel would continue its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza strip until it reached a point where “the operation exhausts itself” and militants no longer fired rockets at the Jewish state.
-I doubt the airstrikes alone will do that but at least they will teach hamas that there is a line and crossing it will mean retribution.
“It’s not a case of a timetable, but a case of targets, and each day we have to do a new situation assessment,” she told Israel’s Channel 2 news from Paris where she met French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
Asked if Israel was waiting for Hamas to surrender, she replied: “We are not waiting, we are acting, and each day we act we see more change on the ground.
-The more desperate hamas gets the more outrageous this will become, hamas will increase the calls for protests, suicides and murder. Expect to see more human shields and claims of innocents killed.
“There are still more targets to hit… and then there will be a point where we have to see whether this is the point where Hamas understands and the point where Hamas stops firing,” she said.
-Burn down the forests. Do not give them any areas to hide.
Livni flew to Paris for discussions on a French proposal for a 48-hour “humanitarian” truce to the fighting. Israel rejected the notion Wednesday. On Thursday, Livni said there was no need for such a ceasefire as Israel was allowing aid convoys into the area, despite its attacks.
-A good strategy on Israel’s part, no need to let up pressure, keep hamas worried about when and where the next missile will come. Terrorize the terrorists.
Doctor Bulldog & Ronin 
2 January, 2009 at 7:14 am
“day of wrath”
Is different from the normal 24/7 seething? How so?
2 January, 2009 at 7:45 am
Imagine life under these conditions: Living in limbo under a foreign occupier. Having no self-determination, no right of return, and no power over your daily life. Being in constant fear, economically strangled, and collectively punished.
Having your free movement denied by enclosed population centers, closed borders, regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, electric fences, and separation walls. Having your homes regularly demolished and land systematically stolen to build settlements for encroachers in violation of international law prohibiting an occupier from settling its population on conquered land.
Having your right to essential services denied – to emergency health care, education, employment, and enough food and clean water. Being forced into extreme poverty, having your crops destroyed, and being victimized by punitive taxes. Having no right for redress in the occupier’s courts under laws only protecting the occupier.
Being regularly targeted by incursions and attacks on the ground and from the air. Being willfully harassed, ethnically cleansed, arrested, incarcerated, tortured, and slaughtered on any pretext, including for your right of self-defense. Having no rights on your own land in your own country for over six decades and counting. Vilified for being Muslims and called terrorists, Jihadists, crazed Arabs, and fundamentalist extremists. Victimized by a slow-motion genocide to destroy you.
According to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, Israel has conducted state-sponsored genocide against the Palestinians for decades and intensively in Gaza. In a September 2006 Electronic Intifada article titled “Genocide in Gaza” he wrote:
“A genocide is taking place in Gaza….An average of eight Palestinians die daily in the Israeli attacks on the Strip. Most of them are children. Hundreds are maimed, wounded and paralyzed. (It’s become) a daily business, now reported (only) in the internal pages of the local press, quite often in microscopic fonts. The chief culprits are the Israeli pilots who have a field day,” like shooting fish in a barrel. Why not, they’re only Muslims, so who’ll notice or care.
International law expert Francis Boyle does and in March 1998 proposed that “the Provisional Government of (Palestine) and its President institute legal proceedings against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague for violating the” Genocide Convention. He stated that “Israel has indeed perpetrated the international crime of genocide against the Palestinian people (and the) lawsuit would….demonstrate that undeniable fact to the entire world.”
Israel is a serial human rights international law abuser. The UN Human Rights Commission affirms that it violates nearly all 149 articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention that governs the treatment of civilians in war and under occupation and is guilty of grievous war crimes. The Commission also determined that as an occupying power Israel has committed crimes against humanity as defined under the 1945 Nuremberg Charter.
Geneva, Nuremberg and other international human rights laws guarantee what Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: that everyone “has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Article 6 (1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also affirms it in saying that every “human being has the inherent right to life.” Official Israeli policy is to deny it to Palestinians under occupation, especially Gazans under siege.
2 January, 2009 at 7:55 am
It is no wonder that Hamas, with its recent barrage of rocket attacks on Israel, finally provoked a response from the IDF. More surprising is the lack of sympathy for Hamas in the Moslem world.
The civilian population of Gaza is disappointed with Hamas for failing to provide the kind of honest government and welfare services it promised in the 2006 Palestinian election. The Fatah-affiliated Palestinians of the West Bank despise Hamas because in 2007 it waged a civil war against Fatah, seized power in Gaza illegally, and subsequently frustrated Fatah’s efforts to negotiate peace with Israel. The Arab citizens of Israel ignore Hamas’s call for “resistance” against “the Zionist entity.” Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and most other Arab nations likewise side with peace-making Fatah.
The only Middle East countries rooting for Hamas, as opposed to the Palestinians, are Hamas’s two state sponsors: Iran and Syria. Those are the two least respected states in the region. Hamas also gets rhetorical help from its fellow terrorist group, Hezbollah. But so far, even those hate-filled fanatics have declined to join the fight.
Many Hamas militants may survive the current warfare in Gaza. But politically they are a dying breed. The sad fact for them is that most Moslems are sick and tired of terrorism.
Posted by: Jason R. | January 02, 2009 at 08:37 AM
2 January, 2009 at 8:03 am
Knowing the problem is half the solution. The reason Hamas began sending rockets is due to the prison their people have been forced to live in. It is true that Israel does not occupy Gaza, but they have encased Gaza into an area where they do not allow food or supplies to enter to these desperate people. A Prison. Israel controls the air above, the sea and the land surrounding this poor strip of land. They have been cut of from the rest of the world and basic human supplies. The tunnels are their only source to the outside world. If Israel would open up the gates, and treat these people like people, there would be no need for tunnels or aggression. These are desperate people, with no hope, a very dangerous combination! Recently, Condoleezza Rice announced the US is allowing Gaza students to enter the US to continue education. Israel forbade them to leave! Israel is the aggressor for suppressing human beings! There will never be peace in the region until Israel respects basic humanity. The world needs to wake up!
2 January, 2009 at 8:10 am
john rosenberg, imagine living with the threat of islam calling for your obliteration
via jihad, and with no recourse to negotiation.
Just google “hamas charter” to see what they plan for Israel …
(eg) mideastweb.org/hamas.htm
“Geneva, Nuremberg and other international human rights laws guarantee what
Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: that everyone “has
the right to life, liberty and security of person.””
Tell it to Hamas. I’m sure they’ll listen 🙂
2 January, 2009 at 8:12 am
* The reason Hamas began sending rockets is due to the prison their people have been forced to live in.
How did these prisoners acquire rockets? Sounds like the prison guards need to bone
up on their skills, unless someone is exaggerating, perhaps?
2 January, 2009 at 8:57 am
well, this is a lie. israel is not only alowing trucks to get in gaza, but provides food, water gas and electrisity, while hammas is shooting missels.
2 January, 2009 at 9:34 am
When I see hamas run to Syria and hide after starting a war with a stronger power, leaving their people alone, scared and defenseless. When I see babies dressed as suicide bombers and paraded around. When I see mothers worshiped as heroes because their children were stupid enough to blow themselves up for men to cowardly to send their own children. When I see palestinians fire unguided rockets capable of hitting only civilian targets. When I see palestinians vote and give these animals even more power, I could care less about the plight of palestine. They are savages, they could end this by simply surrendering and by following international law.
Clearly, the Israelis have to power to commit genocide. Clearly Israel could starve the palestinians, they could bomb them or burn them all out. They have not. Israel has shown more restraint in seven days than hamas has in the last seven years.
I have never heard of an Israeli firing a rocket into gaza. I never saw a single Jewish suicide bomber. I never heard an Israeli mother hold up her baby and brag that he would grow and kill palestinians.
The world has a little over 16 million Jews about half live in Israel. Somehow, this small numbers terrifies a billion and a half muslims. Are you kidding me?
Based on all evidence, Israel is in the right, spin your lies somewhere that you have at least a small chance of changing minds. Or better yet, tell the truth and support the Israeli’s.
2 January, 2009 at 10:01 am
Many countries, institutions, organizations, unions, even the media all condemn Israel’s air strike on Gaza through out the world. Some information is true, much is inaccurate, and a lot is taken out of context. This blog is for readers who don’t know the other side or maybe don’t have all the facts. Israel has had a rough ride since its establishment in 1948. This, of course, is very unfortunate, but everyone has their own justified truth. This is what makes this conflict so complicated. This is not black or white, moral or immoral, but a situation thats just a blur of all the truths. The internet, today, has been overloaded with anti-Israel content, concerning the air strike on Gaza. I feel like the other side needs to be explained:
Why: Israel has been constantly attempting peace through many methods. Not to get too far back in history, as at this point the present really is what matters, we will discuss, approximately, the last eight years. In at least the last seven over twelve thousand rockets have been fired into Israel. Hamas openly and proudly declares that its goal is the destruction of Israel, and it pursues this goal with no limits or end. In August 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza. It disengaged the Jewish settlements and its soldiers. Isn’t that what they have been fighting for, their independence? That is obviously not the case. Since then, the firing of missiles has only intensified. Hamas targets schools, nurseries, hospitals, homes, and basically any area that civilians attend to. Unfortunately, this is the Israeli reality- to live under constant attack. This time Hamas has blatantly ignored the UN Resolution 1850, which calls for it to cease terrorist activities and to recognize Israel. In just one day the south of Israel has received 80 rockets. A quarter of a million of Israel’s citizens is under constant fire. What can Israel do after making several appeals for them to stop? Israel has a right to defend itself.
All in all, watch this video and it will be all explained in moments.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4199526646739624778&hl=en
Who: Israel is at war with Hamas, and not the Palestinian people. A huge assumption and misinformation is flowing through many networks and media devices stating Israel’s assault on the Palestinian people. However, this is not true. Hamas is a terrorist organization and not a political movement which it claims to be.
Casualties: About four hundred are dead due to the air strikes. However, only sixty civilians are among the dead. Casualties, are very unfortunate and absolutely wrong and unjust. Is anyone aware though that Israel text messages all the residents of the area of the Hamas target- warning them and telling them to distance themselves? Not one other army in the world demonstrated such moral. Hamas, on the other hand, doesn’t even care about the Palestinians. The other day it killed two school girls in Beit Lahia. It fires rockets out of residential areas and than uses the Palestinians as human shields.
Targets: According to international law it is illegal to store weaponry on a non military base. Hamas stores weaponry in schools, hospitals, private residential homes, etc. The news shows the targeting of these places, but forgets to mention the weaponry, later used against innocent Israeli civilians, inside.
Goal: The goal of this operation is to drastically improve Israel’s security situation of hundreds of thousands of Israelis living in the south. For years, these people have been living under incessant fire of rockets and mortar bombs.
Time: This operation will only end when Israel’s security will change. No other country in the world would let its citizens live in bomb shelters for eight years. When children can play on a playground without worrying that a rocket will drop on their head or when parents can send their kids to nurseries without worrying that a rocket will fall (like it did in Be’er Sheba- thankfully during the night) than Israel will conclude this operation against Hamas.
Israel has a right to exist. Its citizens have a right to live. If Mexico started firing rockets into the U.S. what do you think the U.S. would do?
2 January, 2009 at 10:04 am
by the way, I totally support Ronin.
2 January, 2009 at 10:20 am
“by the way, I totally support Ronin”.
Thank you Y. Burlan,
Both for the additional information and the vote of confidence.
Doctor Bulldog and I do this because it is our passion to speak out and defend those that otherwise may not have a voice. We do not receive a single penny from anyone for our work and an occasional thank you carries a lot of weight.
Cheers,
2 January, 2009 at 10:52 am
Why do some continue to claim that the Palestinians are being held prisoner by the Israelis? I do not see how Israel is stopping the Palestinians from going to Jordan or Syria.
Another question ~ If Hamas cared about the Palestine people, wouldn’t they use their tunnels to bring in food and medicines instead of arms?
One more ~ Are other countries offering as much aide to the Palestinian people as Israel?
2 January, 2009 at 11:11 am
“day of wrath”
Hamas really does need to be careful what it calls for … the “wrath” they seek to
invoke may not come from “allah”, or Mo’s deluded followers.
2 January, 2009 at 2:26 pm
John Rosenberg, I don’t see you mentioning the main point of Hamas program: genocide of all the Jews living in Israel. For years Hamas shoot thousands of rockets against civilians. They deliberately shoot pregnant women and kids. Apply your reasonining to their bahaviour and see to which conclusions you will arrive.
Israel, take down all Hamas terrorists for the sake of humanity!