Human Rights Groups Warn of Horrifying Slaughter of Civilians In Syria

While the videos could not be independently verified because Bashar al-Assad's iron-fisted grip on media and propaganda, human rights groups inside the country are claiming that Assad's loyalists murdered dozens of people, including women and children in the city of Homs.

The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella group of activists, both said the death toll in Homs was at least 35, but the reports could not be confirmed. The groups cited a network of activists on the ground in Syria.
The Observatory said 29 people were killed in the religiously mixed Karm el-Zaytoun neighborhood of Homs on Thursday, including eight children, most of them when a building came under heavy mortar and machine gunfire.

Residents spoke of another massacre that took place when shabiha — armed regime loyalists — stormed the district, slaughtering residents in an apartment, including children.

"It's racial cleansing," said one resident of Karm el-Zaytoun, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. "They are killing people because of their sect," he said.

The casualties apparently occurred when a building came under heavy mortar and machine gun fire.

That comes just days after the head of the Muslim Red Crescent was killed (that's the Muslim humanitarian group equivalent to the Red Cross).

Meanwhile, there are indications that Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal has left Syria and is staying elsewhere as the terror group assesses the situation and is considering leaving the country for safer locales (Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar being the alternatives):

Analysts say Meshaal was also embarrassed by Assad's violent crackdown, with more than 5,000 people reported killed. Many victims of the security forces have been Sunni Muslims allied to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose support Meshaal relies on.

Assad is backed mainly by his minority Alawite sect and other minorities.

The sources said Meshaal would not publicly shut down the political headquarters of Hamas in Syria, where it has long been hosted by Assad and by his father before him.

"In the past month he may have only stayed five days in Syria and the rest he spent in Qatar, Turkey and Egypt," said the diplomat. "But he did not close the headquarters in Syria in full and there are some Hamas officials still there."

"Our belief is that Hamas will not announce a departure from Syria even if it happened," the diplomat added.

Elsewhere in Syria, the Free Syrian Army (the opposition militia) is claiming that they've captured a group of Iranian soldiers that have been operating at the behest of Assad. That conflicts with the Iranian account, which claims that these individuals are engineers who were kidnapped by unknown assailants. Separately, several other groups of Iranians have been taken by unknown groups inside Syria - some purportedly making their way through the country on pilgrimages.

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.

Operation Cast Lead: Day 13

MSNBC reports that Hamas and Israel are having technical discussions via Egypt based on the Egyptian-French proposals. It can't even wait a few paragraphs before engaging in rampant bias:

Even as the Israeli government tentatively welcomed the cease-fire proposal from Egypt and France, the Israeli military was instructed to continue its assault on Hamas.

Israel said it needs guarantees that any cease-fire will halt rocket fire and prevent Hamas from rearming, while Hamas demands that Gaza's blockaded border crossings be opened.

Despite the reservations, the proposal could mark the first sign of a possible exit from 12 days of bloodshed in Gaza, accompanied by continued Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel.

Hamas broke the 3-hour truce yesterday afternoon with a rocket barrage against Israeli cities, but that gets nary a mention. Instead, we're told that Israel is going to continue to attack Hamas even as it pursues diplomatic options. Funny how that works.

MSNBC, along with much of the rest of the media will focus on the Palestinian death toll, all while ignoring all the rockets fired against Israel for the past eight years with deadly intent (or the past six months during the so-called ceasefire in violation of international law). Hamas gets a pass on its actions, but Israel's response in the face of incessant violence is scrutinized with the goal of preventing Israel from responding altogether.

Where are all the appeals demanding that Hamas stop attacking Israel and releasing Gilad Shalit as humanitarian gestures? So far in this war, Israel has provided all the concessions and all the humanitarian gestures. Israel sends in food shipments, although warehouses are quite stocked with foodstuffs to the point that there are no food shortages. Israel sends in fuel, even as Hamas has repeatedly attacked the fuel depots that supply Gaza. Hamas has attacked with the intention of shutting down power in Gaza, but the media only bothers to pay attention when Israel cuts the power to the very terrorists who use that power to build their weapons for use against Israel.

Hamas has attacked the Israeli power station and power lines leading to Gaza so that Hamas can get the Palestinians to curse the Israelis in the dark.

Morally bankrupt diplomats, including representatives of the Vatican are quick to compare the situation in Gaza to the concentration camps, despite the fact that Hamas is a terrorist group and a national representative of the Palestinians who sought out war with Israel, hides behind the very civilians and couldn't care less how many Palestinians die since the greater the number, the sooner international pressure will be brought to bear to stop Israel's destruction of the Hamas terror group in Gaza.

Israel wanted nothing to do with Gaza after it withdrew unilaterally in 2005, and yet instead of building a viable society, Hamas launched directly into a war with Israel that has brought nothing but grief and ruin to Gaza and caused misery to all Israelis living within rocket and mortar range. Israel wanted quiet, but got a rocket war instead.

The IDF continues striking at targets in and around the Gazan border with Egypt, attacking tunnels Hamas uses to resupply itself with weapons and cash.

No other nation on the planet would tolerate months of rocket attacks from an enemy that seeks its destruction, and yet we've got diplomats from around the world racing to denounce Israel's actions to defend itself from terrorism and the jihad seeking its destruction.

So, what is Hamas' end game? It's the same as it has always been. It wants Israel destroyed. Anything it does short of an unconditional surrender with the destruction of all of its weapons will be in furtherance of its political and religious obligations.

The Hamas Charter makes that abundantly clear. It's a melange of political and religious doctrines and religious obligations. The call to destroy Israel is a religious obligation.

The Hamas Charter also shows how Israel's war is a war that the rest of the West is fighting against Islamic terror since the goals are the same. Laura Mansfield provides more details on the similarities between Hamas and al Qaeda. Keep in mind too that Zawahiri was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which has spawned more terror groups than you can shake a stick at. Hamas is an offshoot of the Brotherhood.

The goals are the same - to destroy Israel and establish an Islamic caliphate under Islamic law. The methods are similar - suicide attacks, mass murder, mass casualty incidents, and jihad against Israel and the West. Pundits and diplomats are quick to cite Israel's violations of international law, but ignore one salient and inconvenient fact. Hamas not only precipitated Israel's response, but its actions have violated international laws at every turn.

Hamas has broken just about every international law or convention with its use of weapons specifically targeting civilian populations, operating without uniforms, using civilians as human shields, hiding weapons and equipment in civilian facilities including schools, hospitals, residences, and mosques, and has engaged in massive and rampant war crimes up to and including the incitement to genocide of the people of Israel. Invariably, human rights groups like Amnesty International and media (including Israel's own Ynet) complain bitterly about Israel's military actions, but ignore why Israel's military is slogging through Gaza going after terrorists in the first place.

Beyond the real and deadly physical violence in Gaza, the propaganda war extends online. I know I'm part of that war, because I'm busy providing facts and details that debunk the Palestinian agitprop that is coming out of Gaza courtesy of a sympathetic media. Still others are engaging in hacking opposition websites, and that's an activity I simply can't condone. I'd much rather see the Palestinian propagandists exposed as the anti-Semitic bigots that they are. I want to see that they get exposed to the antiseptic light of day.

UPDATE:
Terrorists have once again sent Northern Israelis scrambling for shelter as they have fired a barrage of rockets into Israel from Lebanon. That's right folks, UNIFIL has failed to once again do its job in disarming all militias operating in Lebanon, and Israel is being attacked by the terrorists on two fronts. The problem is that Israel isn't treating it like the act of war and war crime that it is:

The discussions in Cairo got underway hours after at least three missiles from Lebanon landed near the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, slightly injuring two Israelis, and the Israeli army responded with fire. The rockets from Lebanon raised concern that they could presage a second front in the conflict that would complicate peace efforts and revive memories of the bloody war between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in 2006.

But the Israeli Army later dismissed the rockets on Thursday as “a minor event” and, in Lebanon, the government said Hezbollah had distanced itself from the attack. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora of Lebanon immediately condemned the rocket-fire. In a statement, Lebanese Information Minister Tarek Mitri said: “Hezbollah assured the Lebanese government that it remains engaged in preserving the stability in Lebanon and respects Security Council resolution 1701.”

UN SCR 1701 requires UNIFIL to disarm all militias operating in Lebanon. Hizbullah is saying that they had nothing to do with it. Israeli forces believe that it was yet another Palestinian terrorist group. That terrorists are still firing rockets shows that UNIFIL has not done its job. Again.

Lebanon is responsible for the attacks, and those attacks are an act of war and while the Lebanese and Hizbullah claim that Hizbullah had nothing to do with the attacks, absolutely nothing happens in Southern Lebanon without Hizbullah approval.

Iran is pulling the strings here as Iranian diplomats were busy meeting with Hamas thugs in Damascus. That's no coincidence. It's a mapping out of long term strategies and you can bet that Hamas and Hizbullah were coordinating strategies and tactics to take pressure off Hamas as Hamas is on the ropes. Opening a second front would achieve those goals, and a similar tactic evolved during the 2006 Hizbullah war, when Hamas attacked Israeli communities with their rocket attacks to try and divert attention and Israeli forces from Hizbullah targets in Southern Lebanon.

For Israel, a failure to respond is a sign of weakness and shows that Israel will continue to tolerate random and sporadic attacks, which gives terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizbullah hope that they can gradually increase the rocket fire without incurring Israel's wrath.

Meanwhile, the rockets continue slamming into Southern Israel, an Israeli soldier was killed on the ground, and Hamas vows not to surrender in Gaza. It's that latter point that matters most.

The violence has a chance of stopping permanently - true peace - if Hamas surrenders unconditionally. The alternative is that Israel will again be threatened by Hamas attacks as soon as it has regained its strength and rebuilt its weapons caches.

UPDATE:
I'm not alone in noting UNIFIL's absolute failure to carry out the terms of UN SCR 1701 and all the related Security Council resolutions. UNIFIL's existence is based on its requirement to demilitarize Southern Lebanon and disarm all the militias operating there. Hizbullah is the biggest, and they're in a stronger position now than they were in 2006. Other terrorist groups operating there do so with Hizbullah's blessings. Richard Fernandez takes UNIFIL and the media to task. He notes that no one is holding the terrorists and regimes responsible for supporting them accountable for their actions to the point that terrorists have free reign to operate in places like Lebanon or Pakistan.

Meryl Yourish looks at Iran opening a second front against Israel via Lebanon to take pressure off their proxies Hamas in Gaza.

UPDATE:
Not all civilians are created equal. Terror master Nizar Rayyan who died in airstrikes last week along with his four wives and 11 of 12 children had so thoroughly indoctrinated his children that they begged to be martyrs alongside him.

According to his surviving children, the death of the Rayyan family children was not an accident: Rayyan had trained his wives and children to die with him as "martyrs."

Surviving family members spoke to local Arab media and said that in the days before his death, Rayyan had repeatedly asked his children, "Who wants to die with me as a martyr?" The children would respond, "Yes, daddy, we all want to be with you alive or dead."

Rayyan's adult daughter, Wala, said even the younger children wished to die with their father. "If In the days before his death, Rayyan has repeatedly asked his children, "Who wants to die with me as a martyr?" you had asked my four-year-old sister Aisha, who died in the attack, she would have told you that she preferred to die as a martyr," Wala told Ma'an news.

One of Rayyan's daughter-in-laws said she was offered the chance to die with the family. She stopped by the family's large home in Jabaliya and was asked by Rayyan if she wished to die with him, his wives and their children. She agreed to die, but later left the building, shortly before the IAF strike.

They wanted to add their bodies to the propaganda body count.

UPDATE:
More Hamas propaganda, courtesy of CNN:


No mention that Hamas uses civilian areas as weapons caches and ammo dumps, only that Israel destroyed homes. The narrator omits those kinds of details - it would get in the way of the narrative. No mention too that Hamas violated the 3-hour truce yesterday or that Hamas tried to sneak in equipment courtesy of one of those humanitarian aid convoys that the UN operated.

Operation Cast Lead: Day 9

Israeli ground forces have effectively bisected Gaza and split the area into two sections. MSNBC wants people to focus on the death and destruction without reminding people that the reason that Israel is back fighting inside Gaza is because Hamas refused to stop firing rockets and mortars against Israel during the hudna and increased the level of attacks throughout the six-months that just ended.

The MSNBC lede says it all, 500 Palestininans killed, 4 Israelis killed. As though that is a tangible sign that Israel has used disproportionate force. I'm sorry, but there's no such thing as disproportionate force in war. There is either sufficient force to win or there is insufficient force. The number of dead Palestinians don't tell the whole story either. Nearly all are terrorists. All the Israelis killed thus far are civilians. Hamas had more than ample opportunity to fire and target Israeli security and Israeli military forces arrayed against Gaza over the past week; they've targeted Sderot, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Beersheeba instead. They are purposefully attempting to hit cities and civilians.

Had Israel fired indiscriminately against Hamas terrorists in Gaza, the death toll would be in the tens of thousands. Israel warns Gazans residing in close proximity of airstrikes to get out of the way - giving away valuable time and opportunity to strike with the element of surprise. Hamas just fires indiscriminately.

Of course, no one would expect otherwise.

So far, more than 50 Hamas terrorists have been killed in the fighting according to IDF officials. That's a good start. There's plenty more Hamas to dispatch. Hamas leaders have warned their terror minions to switch out of uniforms and wear civilian clothes. They've also told their terror thugs to hide their weapons and watch how they move through Gaza to avoid Israeli detection. The terrorists know that an open fight between uniformed forces and the Israelis would mean certain destruction. So, they continue to hide in and among civilians.

Jerusalem Post reports dozens of terrorists have been killed, including still more commanders. 30 Israeli soldiers were wounded in mortar attacks, two seriously.

Dozens of Hamas gunmen have been killed by IDF troops. Gaza health officials said around 20 civilians had also died in airstrikes and shelling, including a 12-year-old girl, five members of the same family, and another eight civilians killed by a tank shell in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. The new deaths brought the death toll in the Gaza Strip since Saturday to more than 500.

Residents of the small northern Gaza community of al-Attatra said soldiers moved from house to house by blowing holes through walls. Most of the houses were unoccupied, their residents already having fled.

On Saturday night, 30 IDF soldiers were wounded in clashes with Palestinian gunmen, encountering fierce resistance from Hamas forces entrenched in fortifications just over the border.

Two of the soldiers were seriously hurt, three were moderately wounded and several others were listed as lightly hurt after they were hit by a mortar shell. Most of the wounded were taken to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba for treatment.

The IAF bombed some 45 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip overnight, including seven tunnels, several mortar firing cells and Kassam rocket launching cells.

Anti-war protesters continue to slam Israel's role in the conflict. Then again, this isn't really anti-war protesters agitating for world peace, but rather anti-Israel and anti-Semitic protesters who wouldn't mind seeing Israel gone. Their silence over Hamas' role in the conflict showcases their true intent. They ignored months of terror attacks on Israel, but only found their voice when Israel fought back. Their moral debasement is all too evident.

Israel is attempting to do a better job of managing the media and cutting off Palestinian propaganda. To that end, the Israelis cancelled Hamas TV.

I consider this a serious problem with Israel's plans: the Jerusalem Post reports that Israel is not considering entering Gaza City or the refugee camps. That means that Hamas will continue to operate freely in those areas and can continue to use civilians as human shields as they fire on Israel's citizens. I understand that the IDF wants to avoid civilian casualties if at all possible, but the terrorists have purposefully used human shields and Gazans are seen as cannon fodder for Hamas purposes. The dead are props to Hamas, nothing more. Allowing Hamas any breathing room is a mistake since it will mean continued misery for Israelis within rocket and mortar range.

The Muqata, Aussie Dave and Carl in Jerusalem continue their liveblogging and analysis of the situation.

For now, the US has blocked the UN from issuing a statement against Israel. The anti-Semites in the UN have long opposed Israel defending itself, and will demand Israel stop well short of any opportunity for true peace.

New York City officials are heading to Israel to show their solidarity with Israel, including Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, and Rep. Gary Ackerman. They were in Sderot, which has been the prime Hamas target for months.

UPDATE:
Muqata's Twitter feed is reporting sad news; the first Israeli military casualty has been reported. Stay tuned for more details and additional information.

China has been providing weapons to Hamas. Other weapons, including heavy machine guns, used by Hamas were originally purchased by the US and Israel for use by the Palestinian Authority for security forces. However, they ended up in Hamas' hands when Hamas took over Gaza in 2006.

UPDATE:
RS McCain derisively notes that Hamas will fight to the last Palestinian civilian as the terror masters are holed up in their bunkers surrounded by civilians.

UPDATE:
Remind me again how the Hamas rockets, designed to inflict death, destruction, and mayhem are amateurish? The latest barrage of 45 kassams injured another six Israelis. 18 Israeli soldiers were injured during the first day of ground operations, along with one casualty.

The Israeli ground operation has split Gaza into three areas of operation. Egyptians and Jordanians leaders have expressed their displeasure over the ground operations. It figures. They have their own Islamists to placate, and are double dealing. They know that Israel needs to take this action - not only to protect Israel, but to save themselves from the rising tide of Iranian dominion in the region.

The Palestinian phone system is near collapse. That's a good thing for the Israelis since it means that the terrorists capabilities to communicate becomes that much more difficult. Of course, the media will also proclaim that this is yet another reason that Israel is engaging in war crimes or other such nonsense.

Hamas says that they've used only 5% of their capabilities so far. That doesn't bode well for them because Israel has used only a fraction of the military force against them. Israel also doesn't use wanton destruction to kill Hamas. They'd rather not engage targets in Gaza than inflict civilian casualties. No matter what the anti-Israel crowd might say, if Israel really and truly intended to kill Gazans, they could inflict such a bloodbath that it would rival what Syria's Assad did in Hama or what Saddam did during his decades of murderous rule. Their restraint is a double-edged sword as well, as the restraint gives the terrorists hope that they can simply outlast Israel's operations and that the world will tire of Israel's efforts to defend itself.

Syria is pressing Russia to stop Israel's defensive operations. That's rich given that Syria has looked the other way for decades as terrorists have used Syria as a base of operations. Hamas thugs consider Damascus home while they plot attacks on Israel, including Khalid Meshaal, who continues to make statements calling for Israel's destruction from the comfort of a Damascus address.

There were actually pro-Israel demonstrations in Paris today.

Israel had no choice but to engage in ground operations because of the underground stockpiles and caches of weapons and equipment used by Hamas in terror operations.

UPDATE:
This is an excellent primer on the current conflict:

Broken Clock Time

Former US President Jimmy Carter hit upon an inescapable truth - the incessant rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and Sderot are a dispicable crime. Actually, he doesn't go nearly far enough - each and every rocket attack is an act of war by Palestinians who seek nothing less than Israel's destruction.

All the while, rockets keep raining down on Israeli cities, with kassams slamming into Ashkelon. Again.

If Carter left his opinion end with that, it would be enough. Yet, Carter sees no problem with talking with Khalid Meshaal of Hamas in Damascus, despite the air of legitimacy that such visits impart on those who meet with a former President. Carter is also expected to raise the issue of Gilad Shalit, who is being held by Hamas for more than one year as a pawn to be exchanged for a massive prisoner release of Palestinian terrorists.

Carter is lending power and prestige to the very terrorist group whose origins include the Muslim Brotherhood who was behind the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. He continues to coddle the very groups that seek to undermine US strategic interests, not to mention seek the annihilation of US allies including Israel.

UPDATE:
Despite the chronic failings of Carter, Israel's claims that they will not provide him the usual security arrangements afforded to former Presidents and heads of state is a mistake that they should correct. It's one thing to chastise Carter politically, but it's another to withhold security over his unconscionable plans to meet with Hamas terror masters in Damascus.

UPDATE:
This isn't the first time that Carter has openly supported Hamas.

Carter's Latest Middle East Mess

Former President Carter continues to push towards his trip to the Middle East, complete with a visit to Damascus, Syria to meet with none other than Khalid Meshaal, leader of Hamas. The State Department doesn't want him to meet with Meshaal, Secretary of State Condi Rice expressed her displeasure, and the Israelis have made it known they don't want Carter to meet with Hamas either. In fact, Prime Minister Olmert has said he would not meet with Carter though one has to wonder if that's just a facade since Israel has been engaging in backchannel negotiations of its own with the terrorist group to secure the release of Gilad Shalit. Perhaps they see Carter's trip as undermining their own efforts.

Well, of course Carter feels at ease with meeting with Islamic terrorists. He's had no problem over the years trying to do all he can to improve the terrorists' odds of success. Lending his image and prestige as a former US President does that. It provides legitimacy where none is deserved.

Now that Olmert says that he wont meet with Carter, expect Carter's camp to spin this as though Israel is intransigent and unwilling to compromise.

This despite the fact that the mortars and rockets continue to be fired by Hamas and other terrorist groups and slam into Israel.

The mortar attack was actually against a group of Israeli soldiers touring the Negev, including the Southern Commander of the IDF.

Palestinians in northern Gaza fired three mortar shells at IDF Southern Command Chief Brig.-Gen. Yoav Galant while he was touring the western Negev area with other officials Sunday noon.

One of the mortars landed about 65 feet away from Galant and his entourage, which included head of the Eshkol Regional Council Haim Yalin, but caused no injuries.

When the attack began, the tour's participants rushed to hide in portable shelters placed at the site by the army ahead of the tour, and left the area immediately following the strike.

According to Yalin, "This tour has been pre-planned and was aimed at demonstrating what local farmers had to deal with on a daily basis. This barrage demonstrated very well what their life's routine looks like."

This may also point to the fact that the terrorists may well have been tipped off to Galant's itinerary. This isn't the first time that Palestinian terrorists have sought to kill Israeli military leaders or ministers. This is part of Hamas' threat to target Israeli leaders if Israel goes after Hamas leadership.

For his part, US Presidential candidate Barack Obama doesn't see a problem with Carter's efforts, claiming that Carter is a private citizen. Carter isn't simply a private citizen. He's the former President of the United States, and with that title comes power and prestige. If Carter was a private citizen, his visit would be bad enough - as a former President making a trip to Damascus to visit Meshaal, it's odious.

Obama's campaign expects to announce that Carter will be all but endorsing Obama shortly for all intents and purposes to end the political battle between Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton under the banner of doing what's best for the party. Once again, it's another sign of where Obama stands on the issues of foreign policy. Never mind that Obama isn't good for the country and its strategic foreign policy, it's about the preservation of the Democratic party.

The Palestinian War Against Israel Continues

Once again, the Palestinians continue to show that they have no interest in peace with Israel. Terrorists infiltrated into Israel and killed two Israelis at the Nahal Oz fuel terminal. At least four terrorists infiltrated from the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. Two were killed in a firefight with Israeli security and one more terrorists were killed in Israeli airstrikes.

The two were employed at the terminal, which supplies the Gaza Strip with most of its fuel.

IDF troops and emergency medical teams, who arrived on the scene, came under heavy gun and mortar fire.

Two of the terrorists were killed by the IDF in the terminal, and at least two others fled back to the Gaza Strip. In a swift response, the military dispatched aircraft which hit a car carrying at least one of the terrorists. According to a Hamas spokesman, the man was seriously injured. The army said two of the attackers were killed in the strike.

The military was conducting searches on the Israeli side of the border to ascertain that no terrorists managed to flee into Israeli-controlled territory.

It was still unclear how the terrorists infiltrated the terminal, separated from the Gaza Strip by a high wall. Military sources said there were no signs of a tunnel near the site of the attack.

Islamic Jihad and several other groups claimed responsibility for the attack.

And the fuel terminal is one that serves Gaza. That's right folks, the Palestinian terrorists targeted the very fuel terminal in Israel that provides fuel to Gaza. In any other country, such a situation would not continue as that country would never provide fuel to its mortal enemies, but Israel is not just any country.

Israel is held to different standards by the international community, and Israel's national security suffers as a result. Israel has cut off oil supplies to Gaza, and expect the usual suspects in the media and pundits to complain that Israel is engaging in collective punishment for terrorism.

Israeli authorities report that the terror attack on the oil depot was in the hopes of kidnapping Israeli soldiers to be used as pawns in making Israel make more concessions.

This comes even as mortar attacks continue to hit Israeli territory.

Egyptian troops along the Gaza/Egypt border are on heightened alert as they worry that Hamas may attempt to break out of Gaza into Egypt once again.

UPDATE:
Israeli officials report that Hamas authorized the attack that killed two Israelis at the fuel depot.

"Hamas is responsible for the attack in Nahal Oz – it took part in authorizing it, planning it and perhaps even more," the official said.

IDF officials estimated that during the incident three-to-five gunmen infiltrated the fuel terminal, hit the two Israelis and fled back into the Strip. According to the army, the terror cell set out to abduct soldiers in the area.

"This a cynical attack," another Israeli official added. "On the one hand, Hamas complains of the blockade on Gaza, and on the other hand it is responsible for the attack on the fuel terminal, which provides gas and fuel to the residents of the Strip," he stated.

It's the same terrorist group that Khalid Meshaal leads and who is expected to meet with former President Jimmy Carter in Damascus. Of course it's a cynical attack, but when the world media largely ignores such attacks and provocations by the Palestinian terrorists, all attention gets focused on the Israeli response, and not the attacks and incidents that precipitate the Israeli response.

UPDATE:
As if the terrorist infiltration was insufficient to inform the world of Palestinian motivations, a mortar was fired in the direction of the fuel depot. Explosives and fuel don't go well together - and the terrorists were hoping for a lucky shot to blow up a significant portion of the depot. Need I remind you that the fuel depot is a major provider of fuel to Gaza?

Hamas in the News

Well, they're certainly going to get headlined today. First, there's Hamas in Iraq claiming that al Qaeda in Iraq is working closely with Iran. Considering how close Hamas is with Iran, they should know.

Then, there's a report that the despicable former President Jimmy Carter is planning on meeting with the Islamic terrorist group Hamas. On his itinerary is a trip to Damascus that apparently includes a get together with Khalid Meshaal, one of the terror masters of Hamas.

Former President Jimmy Carter is reportedly preparing an unprecedented meeting with the leader of Hamas, an organization that the U.S. government considers one of the leading terrorist threats in the world.

The Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat reported Tuesday that Carter was planning a trip to Syria for mid-April, during which he would meet with Khaled Meshal, the exiled head of the Palestinian terror group Hamas, on April 18.

Deanna Congileo, Carter’s press secretary, confirmed in an e-mail to FOXNews.com that Carter will be in the Mideast in April. Pressed for comment, Congileo did not deny that the former president is considering visiting Meshal.

“President Carter is planning a trip to the Mideast next week; however, we are still confirming details of the trip and will issue a press release by the end of this week,” wrote Congileo. “I cannot confirm any specific meetings at this point in time.”

Meshal, who lives in Syria to avoid being arrested by the Israeli government, leads Hamas from his seat in Damascus, where he is a guest of Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Meshaal lives in Syria because he knows that Israel would surely target him not for arrest, but by airstrikes for his leadership in an incessant and ongoing war against Israel. Meshaal leads the terrorist group and calls for Israel's destruction at every turn, except when he calls for a hudna in order for his terrorists to regroup after getting pasted by Israeli forces. Carter, of course, will fall for the hudna as though it is a true ceasefire and grounds for further talks.

Carter repeatedly provides legitimacy to terrorist groups, thuggish dictators, and puts rubber stamps on flawed and bogus elections around the world, and he's about to do the same once again by going to Syria.

One has to wonder how and why the US State Department and President Bush have signed off on allowing Carter to visit Damascus and terror groups on the State Department list? This surely can't be part of a back-channel approach to diplomacy since that is contingent on secrecy. Carter's visits will be anything but a secret. They will be touted as a sign of legitimacy and used against Israel - claiming that Israel is the intransigent party that must make more concessions for the sake of "peace."

Gaza, Syria, and the Propagandists In Action

The Syrians are at it again, trying to blame Israel for not ceasing to exist - or as the Syrians are phrasing it - Israel is thwarting the peace process for more than 30 years.

Assad is wondering for how much longer Arabs are going to offer land for peace deals. Israel should be asking that very question - why are they being forced to give land for terrorists to do nothing but fire on Israeli cities ad nauseum just as they've done since Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. Hamas has turned it into a terrorist breeding ground. To that end, Hamas says that it's developing new missile technologies, but denies that it's getting assistance from Iran. Well, they may be right - the direct military assistance is coming via Syria (from Iran). After all, Hamas leaders have a very cozy relationship with Damascus, with their leader Khalid Meshaal running things right alongside Assad in Damascus.

It's all too clear that Hamas is getting assistance from Iran, via training, sharing tactics from Hizbullah (another of Iran's proxies), and general support from the mad mullahs in Iran and the pencil necked geek Assad in Damascus. Hamas continues to say that it's ready to talk a ceasefire (a hudna really), which suggests that Israel's pinpoint strikes against Hamas terror infrastructure is getting the job done (far too slowly for my tastes, but Hamas is starting to cry uncle, which is why you've got Syria running interference and trotting out their diplo-babble).

Hamas is trying to get other countries on board with the Yemeni backed plan to reconcile the rift between Hamas and Fatah. To Hamas, the Palestinian civil war between Fatah and Hamas has taken away from the more important goal of destroying Israel. After all, Hamas continues to operate under its core tenet of seeking Israel's destruction and supplanting the Jewish State of Israel with an Islamic one.

So far, neither Hamas nor Fatah is going to concede on anything, which is typical for their ongoing fighting.

After months of hostilities, the factions agreed this week to restart direct talks to "return the Palestinian situation to what it was before the Gaza incidents." But an apparent dispute quickly broke out.

Hamas has said talks will start on April 5, while Abbas's office insisted the Islamist group must first relinquish control of the Gaza Strip – a condition Hamas has rejected.

According to the website, Mashaal also urged Arab leaders to support the group's fight against Israel and to protest against an Israeli-led blockade of Gaza, defending militant cross-border rocket attacks from Gaza as self-defense.

It's interesting that Hamas singles out Israel's blockade of Gaza, but chooses to ignore Egypt's blockade of Gaza at their border with Gaza. Egypt has no love lost for Hamas, given that Hamas invaded Egypt when it blew up the border fence and enabled thousands of Gazans, including many terrorists to stream into the Sinai.

There's much talk about how Israel is engaged in a siege of Gaza. None of that would have ever been necessary had the Palestinians chosen not to engage in a war against Israel ever since Israel withdrew in 2005. Since 2005's decision to withdraw, Israel has been under constant fire from the Palestinians there - more than 7,000 rockets fired in all, and more than 1,000 in just the first three months of 2008. No nation would ever tolerate such actions, and yet Israel allows not only humanitarian aid to pass into Gaza despite knowing that Hamas controls its dispersal, but it provides water and electricity to Gaza even as Hamas seeks to target the very power plants providing the power to Gaza.

Meanwhile, media outlets and humanitarian groups are touting how Israel has left the sewage infrastructure in a complete mess that is incapable of handling a growing population.

Design errors, a fast growing population, the halting in recent years of development projects, and restrictions on imports have rendered the Gaza Strip's sewage system incapable of handling the enclave's waste, experts said.

The result is the pumping of partially treated or untreated sewage directly into the sea, and the seepage of dirty water into the ground and groundwater.

"The environmental situation in Gaza is bad and getting worse," an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expert on water and sanitation said in an interview with IRIN.

While exact statistics are unavailable, 30,000-50,000 cubic metres of partially treated waste water and 20,000 cubic metres of raw sewage end up in rivers and the Mediterranean Sea. Some 10,000-30,000 cubic metres of partially treated sewage end up in the ground, in some cases reaching the aquifer, polluting Gaza's already poor drinking water supply.

Gaza's power woes have exacerbated the situation. When power is limited, pumping sewage away from homes takes priority, leaving little left over for treatment, Monther Shoblak, head of the Gaza Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, told IRIN.

Here's the thing - if the Palestinians had bothered to use the pipes meant for sewage lines and not turned them into kassam rockets, they would have a sewage system that works properly. See also here and here and here. There's also concerns that if Gaza goes forward with their sewage plans to pipe the effluent into the Mediterranean, that it would affect the water quality of the desalinization plant in Ashkelon.

Power is limited only because the terrorists seek to run propaganda stories about Israel withholding power, when it is in actuality Hamas holding the power hostage. The media then runs them without question. The terrorists invented a crisis, and then stage managed the scenery with complicity of a compliant media that doesn't bother to take a critical look at the photos and stories they run.

Yet, not everyone falls for the media games, but the media regularly turns a blind eye to the propaganda and casts Israel as the evil actor, when the Palestinian terrorists are the ones who should be cast out.

Terrorists Target Preschool Center; Calm Exuded By Media

Once again, Palestinian terrorists fired kassam rockets at Israel, and by the good fortune of a teacher's quick reactions, no children were killed when kassam rockets slammed into a preschool building.

Three Kassam rockets were fired at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip on Friday morning, one of them hitting the outer wall of a preschool in one of the kibbutzim in the Sha'ar Hanegev region moments after the children were taken inside by their teacher.

The teacher and a parent of one of the children suffered shock and the building was damaged.

Two other Kassam rockets that were fired at the western Negev landed in open areas and caused no wounded or damage.

This is all part of the media's coverage of the ongoing calm in the Palestinian war on Israel. The US media in particular ignores the ongoing kassam rocket fire and terrorist attacks against Israel, except and until Israel mounts a response that results in dead terrorists in larger numbers. This is just background noise for the media.

Meanwhile, Hamas' leader, Khalid Meshaal defends the use of kassams against Israeli children, but says that they'll consider the benefits of a hudna. That suggests that Hamas has either: 1) been getting pummeled and Hamas needs a breather; or 2) needs time to rearm as they're almost out of kassams to strike Israel with.

In either case, Israel should accelerate its attacks on Hamas and not give them the opportunity to conduct more attacks. Any truce, hudna, or pregnant pause in Israel's defensive actions will only benefit the terrorist group.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak warns that Hamas is in a position that they could very easily eliminate Fatah in the West Bank. No kidding. Fatah has repeatedly shown itself incapable of dealing with Hamas and yet the Israelis and the West (including the US and EU) continue to live in dreamworld by pumping hundreds of millions of dollars and euros into Fatah, despite the fact that Fatah cannot and will not fulfill its obligations under Oslo to curtail terrorism and incitement to violence against Israel. They may think that throwing enough money at the problem will coopt the Fatah thugs, but all it does is enrich the leadership while allowing the terrorists to operate with fresh infusions of funds for their operations.

Secretary of State Condi Rice is once again heading to the region to try and keep the process going. Resistance is futile, despite the fact that there is no process when the Palestinians continually refuse to accept Israel's very right to exist. You cannot have peace or a peace process unless and until you get past that key point.

British Wacademics Seek Boycott of Israel

These wacademics are wholly owned subsidiaries of moral equivalence parallel university.com:

Britain’s University and College Union (UCU), comprising of university academics, voted in favour of considering a boycott of Israeli academics and institutions at its conference in Bournemouth on Thursday evening.

The resolution, passed by 158 votes in favor and 99 against, “notes that Israel’s 40-year occupation has seriously damaged the fabric of Palestinian society through annexation, illegal settlement, collective punishment and restriction of movement... deplores the denial of educational rights for Palestinians by invasions, closures, checkpoints, curfews, and shootings and arrests of teachers, lecturers and students.”

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said after the vote: “I do not believe a boycott is supported by the majority of UCU members... Today’s motion on boycott means all branches now have a responsibility to consulate all of their members on the issue... Any future calls for a boycott must pass key tests before a boycott can be implemented.”

That they equate Israel's defense and sovereign rights to defend themselves against terrorist attacks with those who perpetuate the terrorism shows they lack the firing synapses to differentiate right from wrong.

And note that they never once raised their voice to complain about the incessant calls by Palestinian leaders to destroy Israel. Haniyeh, Meshaal and other Hamas leaders regularly call for Israel's destruction. They teach their kids to hate Israel. They publish texts that call for Israel's destruction. They produce maps that show Palestine existing where Israel once was. They call for genocide and support terrorism against Israel.

All that gets nothing but silence.

All their actions succeed in doing is give aid and comfort to terrorists. Nice.

UPDATE:
The NYT has an article that includes some information about academics who have decided to boycott the British for even considering the boycott:

Some, of course, find such talk contemptible. Prof. Steven Weinberg, an American Nobel laureate in physics from the University of Texas at Austin, canceled a visit to Imperial College, London, after the National Union of Journalists’ action.

“I know that some will say that these boycotts are directed only against Israel, rather than generally against Jews,” he said in a letter to the British college setting out his reasons for canceling the trip, which had been planned for July. “But given the history of the attacks on Israel and the oppressiveness and aggressiveness of other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere, boycotting Israel indicated a moral blindness for which it is hard to find any explanation other than anti-Semitism.”

Professor Weinberg’s letter was published in The Guardian.

It's unfortunate that his opinion is in the minority. Not enough academics are speaking out against this nonsense.

Terrorists Continue Rocket War Against Israel

Why should anyone call this anything other than a war? Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist groups continue firing rockets into Israel, and do so on a daily basis. They aren't going to stop unless Israel forces them to stop or the Palestinians run out of sewer pipes to convert into rockets.

Hamas says the attacks will continue, and blames the West for the tensions between Fatah and Hamas. The West would love nothing more but to see the Palestinians stop fighting, both with themselves and with Israel, and yet Fatah and Hamas have no problem going after each other because they want to be the sole voice of the Palestinian people and do not brook dissent.

He added that armed resistance was what would bring about an end to the occupation and was what had caused former prime minister Ariel Sharon to pull out of the Gaza Strip and his predecessor Ehud Barak to leave Lebanon.

"Under occupation, people don't ask whether their means are effective in hurting the enemy," he said. "The occupiers always have the means to hurt the people they control. The Palestinians have only modest means, so they defend themselves however they can."

It's most curious that Hamas' Meshaal says that. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and all the Palestinians have done since then is turn the place into a disaster zone. The PA has ignored basic infrastructure, causing cesspool collapses, destroyed infrastructure left by Israel such as greenhouses or used them as terror training facilities, and anarchy reigns in Gaza. Whoever has the most guns gets to decide what happens, and thus far it is Hamas that has dominated the situation there. For Hamas, the occupation includes all of Israel - regardless of where the diplomats draw the lines and borders. No map including a state of Israel is acceptable to Hamas.

And the US needs to stop supporting any efforts to train or supply the Palestinian Authority. All that does is provide equipment and training for terrorists:

A long-wanted terrorist chief captured this week by Israeli forces was trained by the US, served in a senior capacity on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' US-backed security detail, and was a ranking member of a team that received and distributed American arms shipments the past two years, the WND has learned.

Khaled Shawish, an officer in Abbas' Force 17 presidential guards, was arrested Sunday by undercover Israeli police forces following scores of shooting attacks Shawish is suspected of carrying out.

I can understand why some in the State Department might think that supporting Fatah makes sense when the alternative is Hamas, but this kind of phony realpolitik undermines US national security and strategic interests in the region. Fatah has no interest in peace with Israel, and has repeatedly refused to hold up its end of repeated deals on security with Israel.

UPDATE:
Predictably, CNN headlines that Israel strikes at Gaza, rather than focusing on the Hamas rocket fire that precipitated the latest Israeli response.

An Israeli airstrike killed two members of Hamas' military wing early Wednesday, Palestinian security sources said, as Israel kept up pressure on Palestinian militants in the West Bank and Gaza.

Meanwhile, in an effort to defuse the latest flare-up in tensions, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will meet next week, Olmert's office said in a statement released Tuesday. The precise date and location has yet to be determined.

The latest Israeli air raid occurred shortly after 1:30 a.m. Wednesday (6:30 p.m. Tuesday ET), east of the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza, the security sources said. Two people were killed and one person was wounded, hospital sources said.

The strike came a day after an attack on what an Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman said was a Hamas training facility in southern Gaza. No injuries were reported from that attack.

UPDATE:
Have no fear, the UN Security Council is here; they want the kassam rocket attacks to stop. What is the UN going to do, use harsh language?

I have no doubt that they're going to push for Israel to make concessions such as ending the defensive engagements with Hamas thugs in Gaza, the arrest of Hamas leaders, or the airstrikes against the rocket teams, in order to get Hamas to stop firing rockets on a daily basis. The UN will likely accept firing every other day and force Israel to do so. The logic behind my opinion is simple - there's no way that the UN will force the terrorist group Hamas to comply. It will not send in troops to stop Hamas. It will not open fire on the terrorists, despite the terrorists repeatedly firing on Israeli civilians.

Israel Arrests Hamas Thugs

Israel has rounded up 33 Hamas thugs, including two mayors and several parliament leaders. You can be assured that Hamas will throw a hissy fit. Hamas is about to get a dose of its own medicine and Israel would have to play its cards right in order to get the kind of movement on the Shalit situation and the end to rocket fire for this to work. Israel is treating the terrorists for what they are - terrorists. It doesn't matter that they've claimed that they're now politicians. They continue to support and condone terrorist attacks:

Israeli security forces arrested 33 senior members of Hamas during overnight raids in the West Bank and are questioning them, an IDF spokesman said Thursday.

"Among those arrested are the Education Minister (Nasser Al Shaer), the mayors of Nablus and Qalqiliya, members of the parliament and senior activists in the organization," the statement said.

Palestinian Information Minister Mustapha Barghouti condemned the arrests in a statement released Thursday, calling the arrest of elected Palestinian officials "a massacre to Palestinian democracy and civil society."

He said 41 Palestinian legislators are now being held in Israeli jails.

Hamas militants have launched hundreds of Qassam rockets into Israel from Gaza in recent weeks.

Hamas came to power in parliamentary elections in January 2006 after more than a decade of Fatah rule over the Palestinian Authority. But the United States and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist organization, and the European Union joined them in cutting off aid over the group's refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist.

Earlier this week, Israel's top defense official said all options were open as his country tries to halt Hamas' rocket attacks. Those options include possible strikes against Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, who heads Hamas, Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said.

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post is reporting that Hamas may be considering an end to the rocket attacks.

Israel's threat to target senior Hamas leaders in response to the Kassam rocket attacks from Gaza has prompted the group to agree to a unilateral cease-fire with Israel, Palestinian Authority officials said Wednesday.

"Hamas wants to stop the Kassam rockets. They are especially worried about reports that Israel may assassinate [PA Prime Minister] Ismail Haniyeh and [Hamas chief] Khaled Mashaal," the officials told The Jerusalem Post.

The officials were speaking shortly after PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Haniyeh met in Gaza City to discuss the possibility of declaring a unilateral truce with Israel. Journalists were not allowed to cover the meeting, which was held under tight security.

"At first, Haniyeh did not want to attend the meeting because of Israeli threats to kill him," said one PA official. "The venue and time of the meeting were only agreed upon at the last minute for security reasons. Hamas is taking the Israeli threats very seriously."

Apparently, the fact that Israel might consider targeting Meshaal and Haniyeh was enough to prompt the response. I don't entirely buy the response, but it suggests that the terrorist leaders are more interested in their own personal power than they are in dying for their cause. They'd much rather have other hapless Palestinians die for them and don't entirely buy their own rhetoric. The Palestinian terrorist leaders have been quite good at that.

Israel needs to capitalize on this situation further. However, this news may also signal that Hamas is running out of terrorists to man the rockets or the equipment and know-how to launch them, and needs time to regroup.

Still, rockets continue to hit Sderot, have damaged and destroyed Israeli crops, even as Abbas claims that the rocket attacks are pointless. Well, the attacks aren't entirely pointless. They've managed to kill and wound quite a few Israelis, but the Palestinian terrorists have been hurt badly. Abbas is trying to retain what little diplomatic sway he has with this.

UPDATE:
Israel is continuing its assault on Hamas positions, attacking another Hamas strongpoint in Gaza City. The EU states the obvious - that the PA is nonfunctioning. One could only consider the PA functioning if you believed that a functioning government's sole obligation is to condone terrorist attacks and provide political cover to terrorist groups and be used to launder international aid to terrorists.

And even while Abbas calls on Hamas to stop firing the rockets, they keep getting fired into Israel.

Rocket Men

Hamas continues firing rockets into Israel and Israel continues its latest policy of responding to such attacks with airstrikes against those firing the rockets. That policy may be extended to Hamas leadership, including Meshaal and Haniyeh.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why. Hamas leaders are terrorists who seek Israel's destruction. They don't want accomodation with Israel or a two-state solution. They want to eliminate Israel from the map.

UPDATE:
Israel targeted and eliminated four Islamic Jihad terrorists who were driving along in preparation for a rocket attack. The attacks are taking a toll on Hamas, whose leaders have warned their minions to avoid using cell phones. That's good news, since it means that the terrorists wont be able to communicate with each other, but it also means that the leadership will have a more difficult time keeping things under control.

UPDATE:
An Israeli woman was struck and killed by one of those kassams when it hit a car and exploded. A man was seriously injured in the same incident.

The woman killed in the attack suffered from injuries to her limbs and stomach. She was evacuated by a Magen David Adom crew to the Barzilay Medical Center in Ashkelon, where she died from her wounds.

Another man injured by shrapnel was also evacuated to hospital. Twelve people were treated for shock.

The rocket landed very close to the commercial center. Most business owners had closed their shops for a meeting on the situation.

The Salah al-Din Brigades, the Popular Resistance Committees' military wing, claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks. More than 10 rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip since Monday morning.

Sderot residents said that the rocket alert system was not activated before the rockets landed in the city.

One has to wonder why the system isn't activated 24/7 considering the daily barrages of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. Meanwhile, the Salah al-Din brigade is yet another alphabet terrorist group with ties to Fatah. If you're keeping score, that would be the so-called moderate terrorist group.

DisUnity Government

Hamas and Fatah and their flacks in the media continue to claim that they're getting close on a unity government. Never mind that they've been saying this for more than a year. Also, Abbas, Meshaal, and Haniyeh haven't okayed the deal. The media reports on a deal are yet more wishful thinking.

The key stumbling block is the same as it has always been - the recognition of Israel's right to exist.

Hamas refuses to recognize it, even as taqiya. Fatah at least plays the game, knowing that the financial aid will flow, even as it dreams of Israel's annihilation some time down the road.

Oh, and while construction continues near the Temple Mount to provide improved access to the Temple Mount where Jews are routinely warned to stay away because the Muslims might riot, a most lovely threat from Abbas' al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade minions:

The Aksa Martyrs' Brigades declared Wednesday that they would attack synagogues if any damage were done to the Muslim holy site.

No word on riots for all the damage done to Jewish or Christian holy sites around the world.

The Israelis are going to have webcams set up to show that no harm will come to the Temple Mount or the al Aqsa mosque. If only the Muslims were so careful about preserving the historical treasures and landmarks of other religious groups. The Israelis have had to increase their security presence to avert potential rioting by Palestinians.

Other Arab and Islamist leaders routinely pick up on this to further their own agendas at Israel's expense.

Carl in Jerusalem has more.

UPDATE:
So, has Hamas and Fatah agreed on a unity government? Does this pass the smell test?

The Palestinian ambassador to Riyadh, Jamal al-Shobaki, said that the agreement "regulates the distribution of portfolios and the unity government's political stances."

It was agreed, among other things, that President Mahmoud Abbas will lead the negotiations with Israel, and the Hamas government's special security force will be integrated into the authority's security forces, which are affiliated with Fatah.

Palestinian sources close to the talks said before the announcement of an agreement that Hamas was ready to "respect" the accords with Israel if they "did not contradict Palestinian interests".

But Abbas was seeking a clear statement that it would be "committed" to them, to ensure the sanctions end.

Earlier, the sides agreed on the names of two independents for the finance and foreign affairs portfolios, said sources from Hamas and Fatah. The interior ministry will also go to an independent but the two sides have yet to agree on a candidate, they said.

Considering that Hamas considers Israel to be an illegal entity and doesn't recognize its existence, what does this new formulation of diplobabble mean?

Well, what exactly are Palestinian interests that could be contradicted? It means anything that might mean that the Palestinians have to uphold their side of bargains. It means that they can continue their fight against Israel, while being able to denounce the security fence, checkpoints designed to stop suicide bombers, and Israel's ability to defend itself from terrorist attacks. It means that they can continue their jihad against Israel, but use the cover of diplomacy when it furthers their interests.

This is yet another sham deal, but expect the diplomats to look on approvingly and open the floodgates because they're more than willing to overlook the fact that Hamas still doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist.

New Page In Palestinian Cooperation: Kidnappings Continue

The Palestinian terrorists Meshaal and Abbas met in Mecca to try and iron out their differences, and claim to have agreed to something. Too bad that their thugs back in Gaza are still busy kidnapping each other.

Meanwhile, despite the informal truce and Saudi-hosted power-sharing talks, a Hamas supporter in the West Bank, Dr. Bilal Aboushi, was kidnapped by gunmen.

Aboushi is general manager of hospitals in the West Bank. In recent weeks, Fatah has kidnapped scores of Hamas sympathizers in the West Bank, in retaliation for Hamas attacks on Fatah supporters in Gaza.

So, now the media calls it an informal truce? Are you kidding me?

Abbas and Haniyeh vow to stay in Mecca until they hammer out a deal. That makes perfect sense. With all the assassination attempts and kidnappings in Gaza, it isn't safe for either thug to be in the territories, so staying in Mecca is safer than returning to Gaza City or the West Bank. They can also claim that they're working on the unity government, knowing full well that the thugs back in the territories will continue their deadly business regardless of what happens in Mecca. For Haniyeh and Abbas personally, it's a win win situation. For the Palestinians, it once again means that they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. There's no pressure on either Haniyeh or Abbas to come to a deal when they're not actually in Gaza to deal with an angry mob looking for answers.

Of course, what exactly is the framework of the talks and the nature of a unity government that Hamas and Fatah want to create? Here's a hint - it revolves around the timing of the final conflict with Israel designed to eliminate it from the map. Hamas isn't going to give up its intention to destroy Israel - let alone recognize it for purposes of getting the West to loosen the purse strings.

All the same, Hamas and Fatah aren't quite sure that the talks will amount to anything as the terrorists are busy fortifying their positions all around Gaza waiting for the next round of fighting to resume.

UPDATE:
Meanwhile, a delegation of New York City officials who were visiting Sderot were forced to take shelter because the Palestinian terrorists decided to lob a couple of rockets in Sderot's direction.

A delegation of New York City Council members experienced a rocket attack yesterday on a trip to an Israeli border town.

Just as local officials were explaining how often Sderot, near the border with Gaza, comes under Palestinian Arab fire, an alarm went off, warning of an imminent rocket attack. The 11-member City Council delegation, led by Speaker Christine Quinn, hurried to an underground room from the office of Mayor Eli Moyal.

No one was injured, but Ms. Quinn said the afternoon deeply affected her. "To have felt something like that firsthand — and to feel that sense of worry and being completely out of control of the situation — really sticks with you," she said.

Palestinian Steel Cage Match Continues

The ongoing running battles between Fatah and Hamas have taken on the persona of a WWE steel cage match. You get over the top preening, illicit and violent conduct, blind referees (the worldwide media) ignoring the eye gouges, the illegal weapons in the match, and repeatedly helping one side versus the other.

Hamas and Fatah are busy working their own mini-cycle of violence, but no one in the media will use that term to describe the situation in Gaza. They can't bring themselves to use the term civil war either. Instead, they repeatedly use the term ceasefire, thinking that if they repeat it enough, it will be true.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Hamas and Fatah are locked in a deadly fight to the finish and no one is safe in Gaza. Hamas takes Dahlan's nephew, and Fatah retaliates by taking hostages of its own. Both sides shoot up the other and take hostages, and Palestinians are caught in the crossfire. The gunfire, rockets, and grenades are fired indiscriminately and without care that civilians could be hit. If it were Israel doing the fighting, the same media would be calling for war crimes trials against the Israeli leadership, yet the same voices are silent on Abbas, Meshaal and Haniyeh's culpability for the current situation.

These are the so-called leaders of the Palestinian people and their method of governing is to cow the other side into submission - threatening, kidnapping, and killing their way into power.

Hamas, meanwhile, continues to build up its weapons stocks for the inevitable clash with Israel. The terrorists are busy building tunnels to smuggle in arms and personnel.

And the winner gets to then battle Israel over its very existence.

Meanwhile, it looks like Hizbullah is up to their usual tricks:

Lt. Col. Guy Hazoot, the operations officer of Israel's northern division, said an Israeli patrol discovered and detonated all of the explosives, which were hidden in containers that looked like boulders. He said the explosives were designed to target Israeli military patrols on the border and had the potential to kill.

Hazoot said the bombs were planted as recently as Sunday night, under the cover of stormy weather, but gave no evidence to back the allegation. The military conducts routine patrols in the area.

Israel and Hezbollah fought a 34-day war last summer. The border area has largely remained quiet since the Aug. 14 cease-fire took hold.

Under the cease-fire, thousands of international peacekeepers, along with Lebanese government troops, police the border to ensure quiet. The deal bars Hezbollah guerrillas from carrying arms in the border area.

Hazoot said UNIFIL peacekeepers have thwarted similar Hezbollah attempts to lay roadside bombs in the past, but had failed to do so this time.

"We view the Lebanese army as responsible for this event," he said. "We will take all the necessary steps to make sure that these such events do not recur."

Of course, the WaPo couldn't go an entire article without questioning the veracity of the story from the Israeli sources, but will accept Hizbullah op-eds without question in its pages. It's always interesting to see who and how the media decides which side it trusts for information, while blindly accepting information from sources that are embedded with terrorists.

Gaza Ceasefire Deal Reached

And will this ceasefire end any differently than all the other ceasefires? Palestinians still hold Gilad Shalit (who Meshaal says sends his love to his family), and they're still working on expanding their arms caches. Israel has agreed to stop their operations in Gaza, while the Palestinian terrorists have agreed that they'll stop firing their rockets for now - effective Sunday morning local time.

Abbas telephoned Olmert late Saturday to tell him he had arrived at an agreement with all Palestinian factions to stop firing rockets into Israel from the coastal strip, Olmert spokeswoman Miri Eisin said.

She said Abbas asked that Israel reciprocate by stopping all military operations in Gaza and withdrawing its forces, and Olmert agreed.

An Abbas spokesman said later in Gaza City that Palestinian armed factions had agreed to stop their military activity in Gaza on Sunday morning and reinstate a truce reached in Egypt in February 2005. Olmert has agreed, in turn, to halt Israeli military operations in the coastal strip, Nabil Abu Rdeneh said.

This, like the deal brokered by the UN to stop the fighting between Israel and Hizbullah is a mirage. The Islamic terror groups continue to regroup and rearm while Israel cannot act in furtherance of its own national security because Israel would look like the aggressor.

And will all this actually stop the rocket attacks? Abbas may have succeeded in creating cover for more terror operations against Israel by plausible deniability. Rocket attacks conducted now will not be associated with the big three terror groups, and therefore beyond their control. Israel will continue to be hit by rockets at the whim of the terror groups.

Yet, the diplomats will be able to declare peace in their time. Abbas, for his part, gets bonus points since he's managed to outflank Hizbullah. That buys him time and power in bargaining over a new government. The ceasefire is designed to put pressure on Israel to stop its operations to root out the terrorist groups, and to track down the whereabouts of Shalit.

Technorati: terrorism, nasrallah, fatah, Gilad, Shalit, Olmert, Eliyahu, Asheri, Ashri, Abbas, Regev, Goldwasser, PRC, Hamas, Gaza, palestinian, Israel, hizbullah, hezbullah, hezbollah, lebanon, syria.

Diplomacy and the Hounds of Hell, Part VIII

CNN is being used by Hizbullah to spread its message, and no one in CNN thought that odd? Actually, that's standard operating procedure for CNN, which had no problem trading access for journalistic integrity in Iraq and who knows where else. Newsbusters has the details. It isn't pretty. And one shouldn't think that this is limited to CNN. Other news outlets operating in Lebanon are similarly uncritically touting the Hizbullah line without saying as much.

You can bet that the media bias from these stories has an effect on world opinion and the opinions of those diplomats and politicians who are following the issue closely and are trying to determine foreign policy. If they're utilizing these media reports, they'd be coming to the precisely wrong conclusions. Rob at Say Anything has more. A transcript showing just how in bed CNN was with Hizbullah is here.

No one wants to commit troops to an international peacekeeping force, including the US. The US doesn't want to do it, and other European nations are reluctant to send troops because they are stretched too thin with committments elsewhere. That, and they know that Hizbullah has no problem targeting peacekeepers as easily as Israelis. There's also concern that the peacekeepers would be seen as allies to Israel, which is understandable. Israel is a country defending its very existence against Islamic terrorists. Many of the European countries are similarly fighting Islamic terrorists abroad and at home.

So, who would that leave as potential peacekeepers? Middle Eastern countries that have no relations with Israel or would conspire to assist the terrorists destroy Israel? China? Russia? That international peacekeeping force seems far less international when you start excluding countries that have interests antithetical to Israel's existence, or whose interests are something less than honorable here.

Has Hamas thrown in the towel? While some reports suggest that it looks like Hamas is on the verge of accepting a plan proposed by the Egyptians that would save Hamas from the war that they craved so badly, other reports suggest Hamas will not agree to any deal unless they get prisoner exchanges up front. From Ha'aretz:

All groups in Gaza, including Hamas, would now accept a cease-fire deal with Israel which would include releasing Gilad Shalit, according to the Palestinian Agriculture Minister, who also heads the coordinating committee of Palestinian organizations there.

Ibrahim Al-Naja said the factions were ready to stop the Qassam rocket fire if Israel's ceased all military moves against the Palestinian factions in Gaza. They are also ready to release Shalit in exchange for guaranteeing the future release of Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas leaders did not confirm this report yesterday, but if it is true, then this is the first time that Hamas has indicated its acceptance of the Egyptian proposal to solve the crisis.

Egypt's proposal did not include an Israeli commitment to the immediate release of Palestinian prisoners, only guarantees for their future release.

Al-Naja said the Palestinian faction's conditions were that the cease-fire would be mutual and Israel would stop all its actions against the Palestinians.

He also said Israel must provide clear guarantees to free veteran prisoners, minors and female prisoners incarcerated in Israel.

I'm not sure Israel would agree to these terms, but that Hamas is even proposing terms that are at least worthy of a second look shows that the Israelis have taught at least some Hamas a lesson. The problem is that Meshaal isn't going to like this one bit, and they'll claim victory for outlasting the Israelis, despite all the damage done by the Palestinians to their own cause. Dan Riehl also notes that Hamas is talking the talk for the first time because they're getting their butts kicked in a huge way. If he had his way, he'd want to see the Israelis eliminate Hizbullah and Hamas in toto, and not wait for a ceasefire. You do not make deals with terrorist groups that seek to annihilate you.

Secretary of State Rice is meeting with Prime Minister Olmert today, and you can be sure that they'll be discussing a timeline for how long the Israelis think they'll need to eliminate the Hizbullah threat from Northern Israel and what they're looking for in the long term.

Bloggers to check in with for daily updates are Blue Crab Boulevard, Carl in Jerusalem, Israellycool, Dave Bender, Meryl Yourish, Euphoric Reality, Pajamas Media, Hot Air, Jameel at the Muqata, Greetings from the French Hill, R'Lazer, and Live from an Israeli Bunker. Check back with them regularly for updates.

One Israeli was killed and 48 wounded in rocket attacks today. Some in the media are wondering whether the ongoing violence will somehow temper the Israeli reaction and break their will to survive against the existentialist threat, though they're not framing the question that way. They simply want to know if the politicians in Israel will cave to international calls for a ceasefire. And yet, it appears that the current crisis has united Israelis in a way that hasn't happened in more than 30 years.

Israel continues to grind away at Hizbullah, killing more than 40 Hizbullah in and around Bint Jbiel. They're also destroying the rocket launchers used by Hizbullah to hit targets inside Israel, including Haifa.

Several Israelis thus far have been hit by 'friendly fire,' and the IDF is examining whether the helicopter that crashed yesterday was hit by an artillery barrage. Another potential friendly fire incident was averted in Bint Jbiel when controllers realized a mistake in coordinates being used by a UAV to direct fire.

UPDATE:
Via Ha'aretz, the first US aid shipments to Lebanon are arriving today. Israel will let the UN airlift humanitarian aid into Lebanon as well. So why is Saudi Arabia pledging $500 million? To offset the Iranian influence. Sunni v. Shi'ite. This conflict is revealing not for its renewal of the Israeli-Arab conflict, but for how Sunni and Shi'a governments throughout the Middle East and beyond are influencing the events.

Don't bring a knife to a gunfight and expect the gunslinger to put down his gun to engage you with a knife. Yet, that's exactly what Eugene Robinson thinks Israel is doing. He thinks Israel is engaging in disproportionate force against Hizbullah. His proof? Lots of buildings and infrastructure damaged or destroyed, along with civilian casualties. Sorry, but that doesn't cut it. Hizbullah is part of the Lebanese government, controls Southern Lebanon with a tight grip, and purposefully hides in plain sight - putting its military resources squarely within residential areas so as to invite civilian casualties in an Israeli reprisal. Hizbullah came to a gunfight with a knife, and now hopes that the world will call on Israel to put down its gun to deal with it in a knifefight. Sorry, but Nasrallah doesn't know the Chicago rules. And he and his terrorist minions are going to pay dearly for that miscalculation. Even Richard Cohen (yes, that Richard Cohen) gets it.

Perhaps Robinson should get his news from sources other than media outlets enthralled with getting footage in Beirut chaparoned by Hizbullah who are pushing their agenda at the cost of the facts. Quite a few of those buildings, and many of those so called civilians were anything but civilian targets. They were Hizbullah buildings, Hizbullah minions, and their infrastructure was going up in smoke because the IDF pinpointed where they were operating.

Israel will continue fighting to eliminate Hizbullah as a threat. As it must. And the world continues to look at an international peacekeeping force, though how it will look and be composed are up in the air. Are Western Democratic countries too nice to win?

What if Israel's caution about casualties among its own soldiers and Lebanese civilians has demonstrated to Hezbollah and Hamas that as long as they can duck and cover when the missiles fly and the bombs fall, they can survive and possibly even thrive?

What if Israel has every capability of achieving its aim, but cannot unleash itself against a foe more dangerous, more unscrupulous, more unprincipled and more barbaric than even the monstrous leaders of the Intifada it managed to quell after years of suicide attacks?

And as for the United States, what if we have every tool at our disposal to win a war - every weapons system we could want manned by the most superbly trained military in history - except the ability to match or exceed our antagonists in ruthlessness?

Is this the horrifying paradox of 21st century warfare? If Israel and the United States cannot be defeated militarily in any conventional sense, have our foes discovered a new way to win? Are they seeking victory through demoralization alone - by daring us to match them in barbarity and knowing we will fail?

Are we becoming unwitting participants in their victory and our defeat? Can it be that the moral greatness of our civilization - its astonishing focus on the value of the individual above all - is endangering the future of our civilization as well?

So, if the dovish approach doesn't work, the hawkish approach doesn't work, what are the alternatives?
There are no good alternatives. Stoic acceptance of terror attacks wont cut it, not when the threat of unconventional terror attacks with WMD is increasingly likely especially as Iran and North Korea pursue and extend their WMD capabilities. It doesn't leave any good options, which means one must choose the least bad option. To me, that's taking the fight to the terrorists.

John Podhoretz asks the question that keeps lurking. Can Israel win in the face of inflicting high casualties?

UPDATE:
As I first noted yesterday, Israel has more than its fair share of refugees from the fighting. More than 1 million Israelis are living in bunkers and bomb shelters because of the Hizbullah attacks (Israeli Ambassador Ayalon on Whiffleball with Matthews) A video report from Martin Fletcher has the details on the Israeli refugee situation (can access from here - follow link to Israel handling refugees and the recitation of the 300,000 comes about a minute+ into the video).

Meanwhile, Israel is fully in control of Bint Jbeil, and claims that many residents of Northern Israel will no longer come under fire of low trajectory rocket attacks, and that the IDF will soon surpress high trajectory rocket attacks.

The IDF Northern Command reported relative quiet on Tuesday, with few exchanges of fire. They posit that the deployment of artillery, infantry and armored brigades, which created "a finger hold" in southern Lebanon, is having the desired effect. IDF sources say that forces are working in a ways that utilize their relative advantage – they operate primarily at night, for example. According to the sources, Hizbullah casualties are very high.

At least one senior Hizbullah member operating in the Maroun al-Ras/Bnit Jbeil area was killed Tuesday as a result of IDF activities in the area. An IDF source told ynet that the operative was staying in a house serving as an operations room. He further reported that, while searching the houses, forces found many weapons, including light arms, Katyushas, and various kinds of missiles.

This is good news. Also good news: Israel terminated a Hizbullah regional commander. More buildings were targeted in Beirut, and while you can be sure that Hizbullah and some in the media will claim that only civilians were targeted, the fact is that Hizbullah is operating in these residential areas and that their infrastructure is getting hammered. The IDF is also attacking Hizbullah's communications infrastructure.

For a change, I agree with Ahmadinejad - those that caused this conflict will pay.

Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, addressed the current crisis on the Israeli-Lebanese border, saying, "The middle eastern storm is approaching.

Ahmadinejad added that "those who created the winds of the storm will pay the consequences." (AFP)

Only I think that my definition of who caused the conflict and his differs. Iran will suffer for its terrorist funding and support, and its role in spreading jihadis throughout the Middle East, turning Lebanon into a warzone, and its ongoing calls for Israel's annihilation.

The Saudis, meanwhile, continue flapping their jaws. They're worried that the situation might turn into a wider war. Here's a suggestion - have the Saudis stop funding Islamic terrorists and we might just avoid that wider war. They're also concerned about Lebanese sovereignty. Perhaps the Lebanese should have paid more attention to that subject before they ceded South Lebanon to Hizbullah and made the terrorist group part of the government. While that might have kept the country from sliding into yet another civil war, letting the terrorists and their backers in Syria and Iran pull strings meant that Lebanon was not fully in control of its territory - a violation of UN SCR 1559.

Syria has raised the alert level of its military, quite possibly because Hizbullah has been getting pasted by Israel. The Syrians may be weighing how to intervene, but they've got to know that if they do so, they'll receive a harsher pounding than the Israelis are dishing out to Hizbullah. Maybe they're hoping that if Israel does attack Syrian forces, it will get Iran into the act - unleashing one of their surprises. Either way, Israel has to honor the threat and work along the Syrian/Lebanese border to make it next to impossible for Syria to intervene within Lebanon.

In a minor flying pig moment, Russia's Vladamir Putin says the conflict in Lebanon shows the ineffectiveness of the UN.

UPDATE:
Olmert says that Israel has the stamina for a long fight. That remains to be seen. I hope that's true, but one shouldn't lay your strategy and tactics on hope. You need something more substantial than hope. The US says that the Israeli window for their ongoing efforts in Lebanon is 10-14 days. I doubt that's sufficient to finish the job, but it might give Northern Israel a break for a while - although it will do nothing to ensure the release of the Israeli soldiers being held by Hizbullah.

The UN continues to show that it is a failure. They claim that Israel used disproportionate force in Gaza. I refer you to the aforementioned Chicago rule - never bring a knife to a gunfight, especially when you're the one starting the fight with a knife. Hamas, that means you lose. At least the UN isn't trying to claim that Israel has no right to defend itself; a tact that it has tried in the past.

Iran says that it will protect Syria. That's nice, but who's going to protect Iran? It's not like Israel's enemies have a successful track record of beating Israel in any conflict.

UPDATE:
In another NBC video from yesterday's news, there's a curious scene. At 1:07-1:08 into the video featuring Richard Engel, there's an appearance of uncut US currency at what Engel describes as a financial center in Sidon. Doesn't that seem strange to anyone else? It did to some other folks. Why would uncut US currency be present at a bombed out financial services site? It's not like those uncut bills would be there unless someone was, ummm, what's the word I'm looking for, counterfeiting US currency?

There's good reason to believe that Hizbullah is using counterfeit bills to fund their operations, and the US Secret Service has been keeping tabs on this development as well. One has to believe that the Israelis just did the US a big favor in breaking a counterfeiting ring in addition to eliminating a source of funding for Hizbullah.

The NYT had an expose on counterfeit supernotes and among those involved and suspected of producing them: North Korea and Iran. One theory has Iran producing notes via intaglio presses obtained by the Shah from the US, and now passes them on to Lebanon via Syria.

It's always good to follow the money...

UPDATE:
Hizbullah is threatening attacks beyond Haifa, even as they say they were surprised by the Israeli response to their brazen invasion of Israel, the killing of eight Israeli soldiers, and their taking of two others into Lebanon. They have the audacity to say that they wont accept humiliating terms of a ceasefire? Gee, getting none of your demands isn't humiliation, but reality. You started a war you couldn't hope to win, you and your terror backers miscalculated bigtime, and you can still get out with your lives if you simply hand over the two Israeli soldiers and disarm. Hizbullah can even call that a victory. They survived longer than Israel's enemies did in 1967.

Meanwhile, four UN soldiers were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a UN outpost. Israel is investigating the matter. Expect the usual suspects to use this incident as grounds to call Israel to heel and stop their operations against Hizbullah.

Some are also throwing accusations that Israelis are utilizing human shields in their operations. Never mind that we repeatedly see Hizbullah and Hamas operating in civilian areas, these human rights groups are complaining about Israel and aren't complaining about Hamas or Hizbullah.

Israeli troops entered Gaza City. The IDF also surrounded a building in Ramallah. Rockets are still being fired into Israel.

The counterfeiting story is being discussed at LGF.

Others blogging the conflict: Jeff Weintraub, Boker Tov, Boulder, Gates of Vienna, Wizbang (and here), Blackfive, Powerline, The Jawa Report (and here), and AJ Strata.

UPDATE:
Texas Rainmaker wonders whether he's been operating under the wrong defintion of peace all these years based on the kind of pablum coming from various circles these days. Dr. Sanity notes that Israel's actions have had a clarifying effect on separating the decent Left from the indecent Left.

Others blogging: Jihad Watch, Pajamas Media, Soccer Dad, and Crossing the Rubicon2.

Technorati: terrorism, fatah, Gilad, Shalit, Olmert, Eliyahu, Asheri, Ashri, Abbas, Rains, Summer, cavaliers, wrath, PRC, Hamas, Gaza, palestinian, Israel, hizbullah, hezbullah, lebanon, syria.