After 10 days of relative calm following the cease-fires that halted the Gaza war, violence flared on Tuesday after the Israeli soldier died and Israeli troops mounted incursions into Gaza that killed one Palestinian and wounded another. The violence represented the first serious confrontations between Hamas and Israel since they declared separate cease-fires on Jan. 18.Note that the Times claims that there was relative calm during the past 10 days until yesterday's attacks by Hamas on Israeli troops. That's patently false. Hamas continued to breach the hudna, firing rockets and mortars on Israel throughout.
The violence underlined the urgency of Mr. Mitchell’s mission. He planned meetings on Wednesday with President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and also scheduled discussions with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Hamas continues firing on Israel.
Hamas continues to demand that Israel open border crossings into Gaza, but why should any nation allow the terrorists access to the very materials needed to build weapons.
Hamas is speaking volumes when it says that it will never agree to a long term ceasefire agreement with Israel and that it ultimately seeks Israel's destruction.
Mitchell says it's critical that the ceasefire be extended. Critical for who? Israel loses because Hamas uses any pause to regroup and rearm, and Hamas has repeatedly stated that as its goal during any lull in fighting. Hamas considers every lull a hudna, not a ceasefire. All such lulls do is extend the fighting still longer and provides Hamas with the opportunity to procure still deadlier weapons for their war with Israel.
So, why does anyone still think that Israel must make peace with this terrorist group? Hamas doesn't care about the average Palestinian; they're cannon fodder for propaganda purposes. The dead are props to Hamas. Children are body armor for Hamas.
Diplomats are doing what they have always done; trying to make themselves seem important, and President Obama is falling into the same trap that so many other Presidents have done - lending prestige to a process in its current iteration that has no solution unless one side capitulates or is destroyed.
The smuggling of weapons and equipment into Gaza continues, and the Egyptians are not doing all they can to thwart such attempts. There are even reports that there are shipping containers full of weapons for Hamas awaiting movement into Gaza from Sinai.
Israel hit at the smuggling tunnels along the Philadelphi corridor yet again. Given that they're so easy for the journalists to spot, Israel shouldn't have a problem going after them either. The problem is that the thugs operating those tunnels can simply rebuild them, which means that to deter further smuggling operations one either has to retake the corridor, do something to the corridor that makes it impossible to tunnel from Gaza into Egypt (build a moat, sink steel piles, or kill those smugglers involved.
The IAF says that only three tunnels were hit in today's airstrikes.
The Muqata has more details on that and other Hamas terror activities today.
The Muqata also reveals details of the Hannibal Protocol, which Israeli forces use to thwart kidnapping of soldiers should they be separated from other Israeli forces. The policy has been tightened since the Gilad Shalit kidnapping, but there's always room for improvement.
Human rights groups are looking to find fault with how Israel handled detainees during Operation Cast Lead. They aren't complaining about Hamas murdering those they believe are collaborators, but instead that Israel held suspected terrorists bound for days on end.
The usual suspects continue to urge the United Nations to investigate Israel's actions in Operation Cast Lead, all while ignoring who started the latest round of the conflict and Hamas' repeated war crimes. Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas says that they'll have proof of Israel's war crimes.
It's so typical and so infuriatingly frustrating that there are so many people who think that the UN has a solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict. The UN is a big part of the reason that the conflict has dragged on; UN condones terrorism against Israel, undermines Israel's ability to go after the terrorists who strike at Israelis, allows terrorists to operate freely in the UNRWA refugee camps, looks the other way as terrorists infiltrate UNRWA operations, and reflexively blame Israel for attacks on UNRWA and UN facilities even as Hamas fired from in and around same.
UPDATE:
UNRWA knowingly pays terrorists and engages in one-sided rhetoric designed to undermine Israel's security.
UPDATE:
Israel is going to have to revoke Hamas' Gaza privileges sooner or later; Hamas fired yet another rocket at Israel today. Watch the press call it "tenuous ceasefire holds" or other such blathering, rather than yet another tangible piece of evidence that Hamas cares nothing for ceasefires and hopes to carry on with its war with Israel by any means necessary.
They're looking to see what level of violence Israel is willing to accept - how many kassams can fall on Sderot or Ashkelon before Israel strikes back. The diplomats already have provided their answer - as many as Hamas wants before Israel strikes back. It's Israel's response that demands cessation, not Hamas attacks.
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