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Israel v. Hamas, Day 4

by: Clyde Middleton   posted: 2008-12-30 09:12:00
Viewed 702 times. 0 Comments.

WELCOME Conservative Grapevine readers! Thank you, John, for naming us the website of the day!


Palestinian escapes with his mistress to avoid becoming a Hamas "reservist."

Links to previous updates found here. Subsequent updates found here.

The overnight for us - morning and early afternoon for them (US ET +7) has been quiet on the wires. No mention of new offenses since the 0200 bombing raids. Is Israel switching to a psychological theme of night-time bombing? Will update the ground-force status as that comes out, but remember the several kilometer area around the amassed IDF has been declared a Military Zone - no press.

UPDATE 132. 0400 in Israel. Wires and Israeli newspapers quiet in the overnight. All articles devoted to previous daytime activities of Hamas launches and Israeli responses.

UPDATE 131. Interesting article on IDF wargames to prepare for alternative versions of Gaza occupation.

UPDATE 130. A ceasefire is not just stupid - it's dangerous. Got that right.

J'Post has a scrolling headline (no article yet): Those missiles at Beersheeba - the battery and cell are done ... that is, the missile supply and the terrorists done gone boom! This tells us that the overnight bombing raids have begun at least an hour earlier than yesterday (it's a little after 1:00 AM local now).

UPDATE 129. Day 4 is over in Israel - it's 2300 hours local. Seemed to be a day of closing off Gaza by bombing the tunnels heavily. Lots of Hamas government buildings also targeted. The Ha'Aretz ticker at 2244 hours flashed this: MK Ariel: Cut off Gaza communication so media won`t know Palestinian side. Perhaps isolation is the route. Israeli troops have virtually encircled the Strip - land and sea. How about electronic jamming of the entire Strip? It's only 139 square miles - 25 miles long by 4 to 7.5 miles wide. Can't be comfortable for Hamas, particularly with lots of Arabs sitting it out.

Yesterday's action began at 0200. We'll see what the next few hours bring, and those immediately thereafter.

UPDATE 128. 35 Hamas rockets litter empty fields. Israel ready to enter. This has got to be a frightening sight: Israeli tank, infantry, armored and artillery units are massed outside the northern, central and southern Gaza Strip awaiting orders to go in.

Hamas promises "surprises." So far, only Israel has surprised. Ever read The Haj, by Leon Uris? Get it for a penny over shipping on Amazon. It will really explain the Arab mentality to you.

UPDATE 127. Out of the mouths of children come wisdom: A young Arab girl whose family members were killed Sunday in Gaza says in a TV interview, "I say Hamas is the cause of all wars."

UPDATE 126: All the chatter about a 48-hour ceasefire means nothing. Israel knows full well that Hamas will use that time merely to regroup.

So the issue becomes why the WH efforts to find a sustainable solution short of the destruction of Hamas? Is this another slight of hand similar to Israel opening the border just before the air assault began?

UPDATE 125. The articles keep popping up without deviation, so we may as well recognize it as today's focus: The tunnels into Egypt are being bombed heavily. This will effectively cut off Hamas. Starve the patient; control the blood flow through humanitarian aid; kill off the cancer.

Seems to also be more targets: The army said that the IAF struck 30 additional targets over the course of Tuesday, including seven Grad and five Qassam rocket launchers, rocket launching cells, rocket launching sites, weapons manufacturing facilities, Hamas outposts and armed terror operatives.

UPDATE 124. IDF opens a YouTube channel. Check it for the latest in terrorist smackdowns!

UPDATE 123. Observation. I love the absence of things. Notice how quiet the Hez Heads in Lebanon are? I think they see the Arab writing on the wall - Hamas is to be sacrificed. Also, on Debka's rolling headlines is mention that the Defense Minister in Jordan allowed a pro-Hamas/anti-Israeli demostration - and have now been replaced.

UPDATE 122. Gotta love these two paragraphs. Reverse the order - read the 2d one first: IAF aircraft on Tuesday evening were bombing smuggling tunnels along the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt, Palestinian sources reported. / Earlier, Al Jazeera reported that Egypt had closed the border crossing at Rafah for fear of an impending Israeli air strike. Hunh. Wonder how they knew to close it before the air strike came?

With all the rockets and missile Hamas has, with the number of tunnels from Egypt into the Strip, it is just impossible to believe that the Palestinians did not know what has been going on. Then they vote these clowns into power. I just cannot find sympathy for the "Palestinian plight." You don't kill your parents and beg the court for mercy because you're an orphan.

UPDATE 121. Get some popcorn and sit back. Ten minutes of breaking things and killing bad guys:

UPDATE 120. Full text of article: Rockets fired by Palestinian terrorists on Tuesday evening impacted in Ashdod and in Ashkelon, Channel 2 reported. / There were no initial reports of casualties. The beatings will continue, Hamas, until ... well, you know the rest.

UPDATE 119. Hamas' worst nightmare is not the Israel bitch-slapping it is taking, but reasoned Arab voices turning against them: The Arab elites, comprising statesmen, academics, journalists and businesspeople, may preface their criticism with references to Israel's "crimes," but a significant facet of this class - it would be simplistic to label them "moderates" - appreciates that Hamas is to blame for what is taking place in the Gaza Strip. / Moreover, their hearts may tell them to bankroll Hamas, but their brains tell them that the fanaticism, political intolerance and social backwardness championed by the Islamists pose a profound threat to the Arab future.

UPDATE 118. When the "world" can explain this, then maybe we can talk ceasefire: DEBKAfile's military sources report that Hamas still has some 6,000 missiles in its armory, of which some hundred are the high-grade Iran-made Grad Kayusha rockets. / Their range of up to 40 km enables them to target three-quarters of a million Israelis and five major southern towns. This stock survives after Israel wiped out 45% of Hamas' missile arsenal and most of its heavy 120mm mortars in three days of massive air strikes.

UPDATE 117. Nice try, MSM: Israel on Tuesday shunned world appeals for a truce, massed forces on the Gaza border and warned that its deadly assault on Hamas could last for weeks as jets pummelled Islamist targets for a fourth day. / Despite the devastating aerial pounding that has killed at least 363 Palestinians, Hamas militants continued to fight back, firing deadly rockets deep inside Israel. / Children again fell victim to the Jewish state's "all-out war" on the Islamist Hamas movement, with two sisters dying when a missile slammed into their donkey cart in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun.

If Hamas stops firing rockets and missiles, Israel will consider stopping bombing - "consider," not "stop."

The UN and the Arab World are deeply guilty for this outcome. They sat back and watched as Israel lived in fear. No more, boys and girls. Sit back, get some popcorn, and try to enjoy the show.

UPDATE 116. Fellow FReeper posts on the SS Minnow's attempt to sail to Gaza. Seems the Israeli Navy had a thing or two to say about their intrusion into a war zone.

UPDATE 115. Israel all a twitter: Israel's New York Consulate will hold a "live citizen press conference" over Twitter on Tuesday hosted by David Saranga, consul for media and public affairs at the consulate. / But the Tuesday event, to be held between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Israel time, is "the first time that a government is holding such a conference on Twitter," the consulate said in a statement. / Twitter users can take part in the event by going to: http://www.twitter.com/IsraelConsulate and directing their messages to @israelconsulate and including the tag #AskIsrael. / Questions will be answered on Twitter, with a link to IsraelPolitik http://www.israelpolitik.org/ ) if the answer exceeds Twitter¹s maximum length of 140 characters.

UPDATE 114. This is the liberal line in this world: Assad "underlined the necessity for halting the Israeli massacres which are being committed against the unarmed Palestinian people, lifting the unjust siege on them and opening all the crossings permanently," the news agency said.

So far, at least Egypt, the incoming EU president, Germany, and the US have had the testicular fortitude to state clearly the opposite. But do notice - Assad is spouting the Hamas line word for word. Putz.

UPDATE 113. Long-Range Grad Missile Used, but no mention of age. It's a Russian-made missile, and Hamas has used them before. Now, however, they are within ten miles of Tel Aviv.

Debka is reporting in the scrolling headline that 15 rockets have been launched out of Gaza today.

This is begging for a ground offensive. But Israel will not allow the surprise tactics from Lebanon to work.

UPDATE 112. Egypt is pumping the credentials of the Palestinian Authority. Egypt will open the border ONLY IF the PA runs it - no Hamas. I wonder if Hamas' rather stupid public statement of smuggling thousands of tons of explosives (Update 109) had anything to do with it.

The incoming EU presidents supports Israel. Veyr clearly spoken. Remarkable man. Makes the UN's Ban seem like a driveling idiot.

Links to previous updates found here. Subsequent updates found here.

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