Operation Cast Lead: Day 21

And you thought that Hamas would actually agree to a ceasefire? Hamas continues firing rockets into Israel. You must not have been paying attention all these years. Khalid Meshaal, who leads Hamas from the safety and comfort of Damascus has said that Hamas will not accept any ceasefire. That's easy for him to say at this point since the bombs aren't dropping on his head for now. Meshaal wants the Arab world to cut ties with Israel and so far Bashar Assad agrees. That makes sense given that Assad is host to Iranian, Hamas and Hizbullah thugs and is a major reason that the terrorist groups have the weapons and technologies at their disposal.

Israel demands a halt to Hamas rocket attacks into southern Israel and internationally backed guarantees that Hamas will not rearm by smuggling weapons into Gaza.

"We will not accept Israel's conditions for a cease-fire," Mashaal told the summit. He said Hamas demands that "the aggression stop," Israeli troops withdraw and crossings into Gaza be opened immediately.

He insisted that Israel was to blame for the Gaza conflict.

Mashaal set down Hamas's view of the conflict, trying to fend off suggestions from Egypt and Saudi Arabia that its rocket attacks were to blame for sparking the Israeli assault.

Mashaal said Hamas refused to renew a six-month-old truce with Israel that ran out in December because the period of relative calm had not led to an end of the Gaza blockade.

"Did we do wrong, by rejecting a truce that let the blockade continue?" Mashaal said. "Don't the people of Gaza deserve to live free? ... They want to live free without blockade or occupation, just like all the Palestinian people do."

Left out of the so-called ceasefire is that Israel ceased fire, but Hamas didn't. Hundreds of rockets and mortars were fired by Hamas and Islamic Jihad from Gaza into Israel during that six-month period, and Israel only engaged in retaliatory strikes when Hamas increased the level of attacks in December.

The Turkish President wants to ban Israel from the United Nations. Funny, but where were his calls to ban the Palestinian Authority and Hamas from talks when they were engaging in terrorism against Israel? He was silent. Keep in mind that Erogdan has his own problems to worry about - namely Islamists who threaten to destablize his regime. He's playing to multiple audiences, but don't expect Turkey to cut off relations to Israel or cease its training with the Israelis anytime soon.

At the same time Israel is taking on Hamas in Gaza, Fatah is cracking down on Hamas in the West Bank. Are there going to be calls for the world to alienate Fatah? Fatah wouldn't be in a position to crack down on Hamas unless Israel was taking out Hamas leaders in Gaza. This is a direct response to Israel's operation in Gaza.

Gazans continue to believe that Hamas are heroes, and thousands turned out to mark the death of terror master Siam.

Siam, 50, was a high-profile figure in Gaza. A former head of Hamas special executive forces, he won the highest number of votes in the elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council; and was considered by many as the man who ended the Gaza anarchy by de facto ending the armed militias' frenzy, so common in the Strip until that time.

The defense establishment said Siam's brother Ayad and the head of Hamas' security organization in Gaza, Salah Abu Sharah, were also killed in the strike.

Siam was the most prominent Hamas figure targeted in Operation Cast Lead so far, and the most senior persona to be hit since the assassination of Hamas co-founder Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, in 2004.

Mohammed Nazzal, a member of Hamas' political bureau in Damascus said Thursday that "despite Israel's desire to annihilate Hamas' leadership, the factions will continue to defend Gaza Strip."

Hamas says that Israel has lost it in killing these terror masters even as Hamas swears vengance. If Israel truly lost it, Hamas wouldn't be operating anywhere in Gaza or Syria. Israel is still operating with more restraint than any other nation would dare.

Again, it's real easy for the terror masters in Damascus to sound tough when their lives aren't on the line and they are hosted by Assad in comfort. To them, Gazans who die are propaganda pieces in their unending war to destroy Israel.

What these statements also show is that Israel has started regaining the deterrence factor that it had lost by refusing to retaliate for the hundreds of rockets fired by Hamas into Israel during the six-month ceasefire along with the thousands fired at Israel in the months and years previous to now. Restraint was mistaken for weakness, and Hamas still needs to learn that lesson in a very harsh and real manner.

It's also relevant to diplomatic efforts to try and get Israel to discuss peace with Syria. Syria hosts terrorists like Hamas and Hizbullah, and yet we're to believe that Syria is serious about peace or that it seeks peaceful relations? Israel already has a cold peace with Syria - without the return of the Golan Heights. Returning the Heights would give Syria a strategic platform from which it could dominate Northern Israel, just as it did prior to 1967. Given Syria's cozy relationship with terror groups and UNIFIL's repeated failures, there's absolutely no reason to trust Syria's intentions or the UN's capabilities to thwart terror attacks on Israel.

UPDATE:
Hamas has to show that they're still in control (HT: ploome hineni at lgf), which is why they continue making bellicose demands. They're not in a position to make demands on anyone or anything, but here they are doing so and the diplomats are more than content to allow them the opportunity.

Also, note that no one is apparently demanding that Hamas release Gilad Shalit as a condition for Israel ending its Gaza operations. Where are the humanitarian gestures by Hamas? Again, we're seeing that conditions are being pressed for Israel, but not Hamas.

UPDATE:
Photo time:

Is that how you carry an injured Palestinian boy whose arm is bandaged? If anything, that would cause additional injuries. As you review the hundreds of photos of injured children, note that those carrying them are actually likely to make those injuries worse than claimed. If someone's arm is injured, you don't grab the person by that same arm.

Dead ambulances. Israel blamed for attacking poor defenseless ambulances, but let's not forget that Hamas has used ambulances in the past to carry their terrorists around town in the past to attack Israel.

Celebrating a mass murderer in Gaza. Thousands turn out to honor the mass murderer Siam.

Gee, we're supposed to listen to the OIS when they invite the Sudanese leader who's overseen the Darfur genocide to the table? I think not.

UPDATE:
What got into Israel?

"Hamas took a gamble. We thought, at worst Israel will come and do something from the air - something superficial. They’ll come in and go out. We never thought that we would reach the point where fear will swallow the heart and the feet will want to flee. You [Israel] are fighting like you fought in ‘48. What got into you all of a sudden?"

I'd say a healthy dose of realism and the survival instinct kicked in; dealing Hamas a death blow is necessary to Israel's survival, and the terrorists once again gambled and lost. They thought that Israel would do little in response to their rocket war, but Israel hit them hard and fast and with ruthless efficiency. The IDF also took care of aptly named Iran unit of Hamas:

The so-called "Iranian Unit" of Hamas has been destroyed, according to Gaza sources cited Thursday by the Haaretz daily. The sources said most of the unit's 100 members were killed in fighting in the Zeytun neighborhood of Gaza City.

The terrorists had been trained in infantry tactics, the use of anti-tank missiles and the detonation of explosives, among other skills, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard at Hizbullah camps in Lebanon's Beka'a Valley, as well as sites in Iran

UPDATE:
Hamas and Hizbullah are proxy armies for Iran, and the Hamas defeat isn't going to sit well with Ahmadinejad and the thugs in Tehran. This goes to why Meshaal is busy demanding Hamas attack and ignore ceasefire calls. His neck is on the line, not because of an Israeli attack, but because he's perhaps been told in no uncertain terms that Iran is about to revoke his Damascus privileges. There's a disconnect between Damascus Hamas and the Gazan Hamas who are swiftly being turned to humus.

Israel has indeed fought Hamas to a bloody pulp, and Israel isn't done yet.

Fatah has finally found its courage to take on Hamas in the West Bank, cracking down on Hamas there. That wouldn't be possible without Israel's operation in Gaza. Hamas wants to think that Israel has lost it by going after Hamas terror masters? Good. Let them.

Meanwhile, Hamas is making the same demands for Shalit's release that they've been making from the day he was captured after a Hamas unit invaded Israel to capture Israeli soldiers (two other IDF soldiers were killed in the operation). They've been demanding the release of hundreds of terrorists in exchange for Shalit.

Israel must disabuse Hamas of that notion, but Hamas has hope that Israel will eventually cave and release prisoners given the way Israel forked over hundreds of terrorists for the remains of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. That is, unless Israel learned that lesson as well (that you never carry out trades with terrorists because it only encourages further incidents).

The US and Israel have signed an anti-smuggling deal, which should put a crimp on Hamas resupply efforts.

Qatar and Mauritania have both suspended relations with Israel. Gee, that's really going to hurt, but I don't recall either country suspending relations with Sudan for their role in facilitating the ethnic cleansing and genocide in Darfur? Double standard? Absolutely.

The media just throws out baseless claims of Israel brutality, propagandists repeat the claims and soon they're treated as fact when the reality is something else entirely.