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November 15, 2012

Soccer matches in southern Israel cancelled due to Gaza fighting

Leave a Comment / Israel /

The Israel Football Association have called off two Premier League matches set for Saturday due to current conflict between Israel and Gaza.

The matches between Hapoel Beersheba and Hapoel Ramat Gan, and Ashdod SC and Hapoel Acre were postponed after the police and the military barred large gatherings because of a fear of rocket strikes by Palestinian militants.

The latest phase of the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict sharpened on Wednesday when Israel killed Ahmed Jabari, the military mastermind of Islamist faction Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.

Following Jabari's assassination in a precision air strike on his car, more than 270 rockets hit Israel and it shelled the Gaza Strip from land, air and sea. Three Israelis were killed by a rocket on Thursday and 19 Palestinians have died.

The Israeli FA said the rest of the weekend league program, thought to be largely out of range of the rockets, would go ahead as planned. Lower league and junior fixtures in the south of the country were also cancelled.

Editing by Greg Stutchbury

Soccer matches in southern Israel cancelled due to Gaza fighting Read More »

Egypt PM to visit Gaza in support of Hamas against Israel

Leave a Comment / Worldwide /

Egyptian prime minister prepared to visit the Gaza Strip on Friday in an unprecedented display of solidarity with Hamas militants embroiled in a new escalation of conflict with Israel that risks spiraling into all-out war.

Two rockets from Gaza crashed near Tel Aviv in the first such attack on Israel's commercial capital for 20 years. One fell into the Mediterranean Sea and the other in an uninhabited part of one of the Tel Aviv suburbs south of the city.

Two days of Israeli air strikes have killed 19 Palestinians, including seven militants and 12 civilians, among them six children and a pregnant woman. A Hamas rocket killed three Israelis in the town of Kiryat Malachi on Thursday morning.

The latest upsurge in a long-running conflict came on Wednesday when Israel killed Hamas's military mastermind, Ahmed Al-Jaabari, in a precision air strike on his car. Israel then began shelling the coastal enclave from land, air and sea.

Israel says its offensive responded to increasing missile salvoes from Gaza. Its bombing has not yet reached the saturation level seen before it last invaded Gaza in 2008, but Israeli officials have said a ground assault remains possible.

The Gaza conflagration has stoked the flames of a Middle East ablaze with two years of Arab popular revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread further afield.

Israeli warplanes bombed targets in and around Gaza City, rattling tall buildings. In a hint of escalation, the spokesman for Israel's military said it had received the green light to call in up to 30,000 reserve troops.

Egypt's new Islamist President, Mohamed Morsi, viewed by Hamas as a protector, led a chorus of denunciation of the Israeli strikes by allies of the Palestinians.

Morsi's prime minister, Hisham Kandil, is to visit Gaza on Friday with other Egyptian officials in a show of support for the enclave, an Egyptian cabinet official said. Israel promised that the delegation would come to no harm.

An Egyptian government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said officials accompanying Kandil would explore the possibility of brokering a ceasefire.

Morsi faces domestic pressure to act tough. But Egypt gets $1.3 billion a year in U.S. military aid and looks to Washington for help with its ailing economy, constraining Morsi despite his need to show Egyptians that his policies differ from those of his U.S.-backed predecessor Hosni Mubarak.

TEL AVIV TARGETED

Air raid sirens sent residents running for shelter in Tel Aviv, a Mediterranean city that has not been hit by a rocket since the 1991 Gulf War when it was targeted by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

The Tel Aviv metropolitan area is home to more than 3 million people, more than 40 percent of Israel's population.

“This escalation will exact a price that the other side will have to pay,” Barak said in a television broadcast shortly after the strike.

But an Israeli cabinet statement on Wednesday spoke only of “improving” national security – acknowledgement that the Jewish state has no illusions about crushing the militants once and for all.

Speaking at the same time in Gaza, Hamas leader Haniyeh urged Egypt to do more to help the Palestinians.

“We call upon the brothers in Egypt to take the measures that will deter this enemy,” the Hamas prime minister said.

The resurgent conflict will be the biggest test yet of Morsi's commitment to Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which the West views as the bedrock of Middle East peace.

Cairo recalled its ambassador from Israel on Wednesday. Israel's ambassador left Cairo on what was called a routine home visit; Israel said its embassy would remain open.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which brought Morsi to power in an election after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak, has called for a “Day of Rage” in Arab capitals on Friday. The Brotherhood is seen as the spiritual mentors of Hamas.

The Israeli army said 300 targets were hit in Gaza, including more than 130 militant rocket launchers. It said more than 270 rockets had struck Israel since the start of the operation, with its Iron Dome interceptor system shooting down more than 130 rockets bound for residential areas.

Expecting days or more of fighting and almost inevitable civilian casualties, Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets in Gaza advising residents to stay away from Hamas and other militants.

DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS

The United States has asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the Islamist movement to stop its recent rocket attacks from Gaza, a White House adviser said.

“We've … urged those that have a degree of influence with Hamas, such as Turkey, and Egypt and some of our European partners, to use that influence to urge Hamas to de-escalate,” Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, said in a conference call with reporters.

French President Francois Hollande began talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other world leaders in an attempt to avert an escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Jean-Francois Ayrault said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke to Netanyahu too, saying Hamas bore the principal responsibility for the crisis.

Israel's sworn enemy Iran, which supports and arms Hamas, condemned the Israeli offensive as “organized terrorism”.

Lebanon's Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim militia Hezbollah, which has its own rockets aimed at the Jewish state, denounced strikes on Gaza as “criminal aggression”, but held its fire.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation condemned Israel's action.

Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Mark Heinrich

Egypt PM to visit Gaza in support of Hamas against Israel Read More »

There Was A Choice? Then This Is Wrong.

Leave a Comment / Blogs /

No, nobody is obliged to put up with rocket barrages aimed randomly at civilians.  Nobody could watch as their children are traumatized daily, or live with one’s own growing anger and anxiety when just commuting to work or going to the store becomes an act of steely resolve, and not demand concrete action to make it stop.


That bit of obviousness doesn’t license the current Israeli government to be irresponsibly callous about the loss of human life.  Haaretz has “> reminds us that, like Operation Cast Lead which also preceded elections, choosing war among other available options is an old electoral strategy in Israel. (Sorry couldn’t find a translation, and this is beyond what I could do quickly.)


The residents of Sdorot and Tel Aviv are indeed right to call for action.  But what action?  If, as reports now indicate, there was a credible chance for a cease-fire to stop the rockets, and to prevent civilian casualties in Gaza, then this is a war of choice.  A grossly irresponsible and immoral choice.  Is southern Israel secure today?  Will the Gazan child injured in this bombing feel obliged to forgive as an adult?  Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights, Israel “> documents the economic devastation in Gaza—and, yes the misrule of Hamas only makes it worse, but that doesn’t lessen Israeli responsibility.  Rabbi Ascherman argues, “Our message can not be to ignore the rockets on our fellow Israelis.  However, when we hear “There would be no attacks on Gaza if their would be no rockets on the Western Negev,” we must both join the demand that the rockets stop and remind our fellow Israelis that we can best help ourselves if we stop using our overwhelming power to make life miserable for most Gazans.  With our greater power comes greater responsibility.”


Reminders that life for most Gazans has not deteriorated into outright starvation ignore the effect of grinding hardship on bodies, hearts and minds.  The situation will not change for the better until there is a truce and, in the longer term, a peace agreement.  Right now, it seems as though Israel’s current government has chosen to escalate hostilities when it had other options.  This means that people on both sides will die who might have lived.

There Was A Choice? Then This Is Wrong. Read More »

Hamas’ Tragic Twist

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized /

My brother, a PhD student, lives in Be’er Sheva, Israel. He’s a contributing member of his community, a husband and a father, leading a productive young professional life, just like his peers in Boston or Lisbon.

But when you live in Boston or Lisbon your neighbors don’t fire rockets at you; My brother’s neighbors do, and by that they drag his entire life into a scene from another movie. Imagine sitting at a Starbucks in Colonial Calcutta, something like that.

The men on the firing end are not disenfranchised or occupied, in fact, with so much attention and resources thrown at Gaza they could have been in high-tech. No, these men suffer from an entirely different malaise: Religious insanity.

The shooters could have easily studied or worked with my brother across the border – I can think of 2 dozen organizations that would love to finance such an initiative. But instead, they drag my scientist brother into their own miserable, narrow-minded, 3rd-world life.

Those who just tuned in on Wednesday, when Israel attacked, don’t know about my brother’s situation. The daily attrition is beyond most people’s scope of attention, thus they’re thrown, again, head-on into the boiling Middle-Eastern pool without a basic understanding of why things tend to so often boil over there. It’s clear why many peaceful people fail to see the cause-and-effect element here, why they can’t identify the source, the engine of violence, and seek its removal – for a real change.

Change? The automatic reactions are sobering:
Israel’s action is about the coming elections, suggested Israeli PM Ahmed Tibi, in a typical circumstantial-evidence-gone-wild spin. Egypt condemned “Israeli aggression against innocents”. The fact that Egypt had been on mute while 12,000 rockets rained on the innocents in Israel, and now argues that the slain rocket-rain-maker is the aggressed innocent, says it all about the moral and conscious system of the Islamist culture represented here: selective violence, selective rights, selective justice, selective truth. There’s no hope for this culture.

Moscow condemned Israel’s “excessive use of force”. This is so clearly a half-assed pull from the Kremlin’s “phrases for any occasion” hat:
-“Excessive – isn’t that what we usually tell them?”
-”Yes sir”.
-”Well, give it to them again, than.”
That’s the Russian way of handling issues that deal with human lives. They’re perfecting it with Syria.

Hamas positions itself as the symbol of Palestinian “Resistance” and patriotism. It’s working pretty well for them, but in reality they’re the current sorry symbol of Palestinian self-inflicted misery, a misery they’re dragging my brother into right now.

What a tragic twist. The Hamas’ “Resistance” is resistance to peace, and anyone who believes that peace is the only way to justice and prosperity should be able to see the problem here. Being the reckless, quite mad anti-peace player in this high-octane game, the Hamas is as anti-Palestinian as it’s anti-Israeli and is equally destructive to all human beings – that’s if you’re a peace seeker, of course. (If you’re for war-until-triumph, they’re actually pretty cool).

But the common perception remains that of simply “Israelis against Palestinians”, an equation in which things should be balanced, so no one comes out too defeated. Ironically the ideology that believes in defeating as a solution to the conflict is the beneficiary of this misperception. In the grand scheme of things, at the end of the day international dynamics always allow this ideology to persist, which will inevitably bring about the next round of violence.
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Follow me on Twitter: @lostroadtopeace

Hamas’ Tragic Twist Read More »

Rabbi Uziel’s overture to Muslim leaders

Leave a Comment / News, Opinion /

During our Sephardic Film Festival this past week, we screened a film telling the intriguing and inspirational life story of Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, the first Sephardic Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel. Rabbi Uziel’s motto was “Loving Truth and Peace.” We also screened a film about Muslims saving Jews during the Holocaust, and another film reflecting co-existence and friendship between Jews and Muslims in Morocco. In the very spirit of these films, a delegation of 19 Muslim leaders from France visited Israel this week, for the specific purpose of improving relations between Jews and Muslims in France. During their visit to Yad Vashem, delegation leader Imam Hassen Chalgoumi said this trip reinforced the importance of combatting Islamic fundamentalism and Holocaust denial. “Life is more important than holy books,” Chalgoumi said in a speech outside Yad Vashem.

All of this, while the Hamas terrorist organization and other Islamic extremists launch deadly rockets on civilian populations in Israel, and the IDF enters a potentially protracted military operation in yet another attempt to destroy the terrorist cells in Gaza.

In the spirit of the films we screened this week, and with the visit of the French Imams to Israel – I offer you my translation of of a letter co-authored by Sephardic Chief Rabbi Uziel and Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Herzog. It was written in 1948, during the Hebrew month of Kislev – the same month we started today.

Here is the text of their letter:

21 Kislev, 5708

“A Call to the Leaders of Islam for Peace and Brotherhood.”

To the Heads of The Islamic Religion in the Land of Israel and throughout the Arab lands near and far, Shalom U’Vracha:

Brothers, at this hour, as the Jewish people have returned to its land and state, per the word of God and the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, and in accordance with the decision of the United Nations, we approach you in peace and brotherhood, in the name of God’s Torah and the Holy Scriptures, and we say to you:

Please remember the peaceful and friendly relations that existed between us when we lived together in Arab lands and under Islamic Rulers during the Golden Age, when together we developed brilliant intellectual insights of wisdom and science for all of humanity’s benefit. Please remember the sacred words of the prophet Malachi, who said: “Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we break faith with one another, profaning the covenant of our ancestors?” (Malachi 2:10).

We were brothers, and we shall once again be brothers, working together in cordial and neighborly relations in this Holy Land, so that we will build it and make it flourish, for the benefit of all of its inhabitants, without discrimination against anyone. We shall do so in faithful and calm collaboration, so that we may all merit God’s blessing on His land, from which there shall radiate the light of peace to the entire world.

Signed,

Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel
Yitschak Isaac Ha-Levi Herzog

64 years later, as we begin this year’s Month of Kislev with Israelis under siege from the rockets of Muslim extremists, it is very sad that the Muslim leaders in 1948 never responded to the beautiful overture to peace from the Chief Rabbis. Just imagine what Israel, the Middle East, the Arab World, and the entire world would have looked like this past 64 years had they answered in kind to the above letter.

In the meanwhile, all we can do is defend ourselves, all the while praying and continuing to hope that some day – for the sake of Israeli children, Arab children, and all children – that Muslim leaders might wake up and respond to this letter, or to the many other peaceful overtures of Israeli governments and leaders.

If that would happen, then relations between Jews and Muslims would no longer be characterized as “cool topics” for feature and documentary films, and Imams would not need to visit Yad Vashem to shock themselves into cordial relations with Jews. Rabbi Uziel and Rabbi Herzog’s grand vision would not feel so prophetic, but would be – as they said – the way we lived once upon a time.

Until then, we pray for peace and God’s protection.

Rabbi Uziel’s overture to Muslim leaders Read More »

Online campaign urging Israel supporters to wear red

Leave a Comment / Israel, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News /

An online campaign is asking people around the world to send in photos of themselves wearing red clothing in support of residents of southern Israel.

The Stop The Rockets campaign was launched Tuesday by the Australasian Union of Jewish Students to remind people of the Code Red alarm sounded when a rocket is about to fall in the area. Photos from such places as Australia, the United States, Canada and Israel have been uploaded to Facebook.

The campaign was the joint initiative of AUJS students and Leora Golomb, The Jewish Agency for Israel's emissary to AUJS.

“As a former student at Ben-Gurion University who lived for three years in Beersheva, I explained to the students how difficult it was for the residents of the South,” Golomb said. “I felt that we needed to do something, no matter how small, to show our support and solidarity. The students agreed and immediately began working on the campaign.”

Some 150 rockets fired from Gaza struck Israel from Nov. 10 to Nov. 13. Since Wednesday evening, more than 140 rockets have struck Israel, killing three.

Online campaign urging Israel supporters to wear red Read More »

November 15, 2012

Leave a Comment / Israel, Must Reads /

In-depth

Israel’s Message to Hamas Should Resonate in Washington

The attacks on Israel from Gaza shows the U.S. must take a hard look at its Mideast policies, writes Jonathan Tobin in Commentary.

…the conviction that Hamas had abandoned its primary purpose was always unfounded. The Islamist group’s ongoing war with Israel never ended. Though analysts will debate the motivation for the decision to launch a missile offensive on southern Israel, the result was unambiguous. The violence should derail any thought of the United Nations voting to upgrade the status of the increasingly irrelevant Palestinian Authority. 

 

Operation Cast Lead 2.0

 

The Gaza rocket attacks on Israel are part of an internal Hamas power struggle and the fallout could spiral beyond both sides' control, warns Hussein Ibish in Foreign Policy. 

The internal dynamic of Hamas has traditionally been that leaders in its Politburo, which is based almost entirely in neighboring Arab countries, were more militant than their compatriots inside Gaza. It was the leaders in exile who maintained close relations with the radical regimes in Iran and Syria, while the Hamas government in Gaza was more restrained because it had more to lose from violence with Israel. That calculation has been inverted in recent months as Hamas's foreign alliances have undergone a dramatic transformation and its domestic wing has made a bold attempt to assert its primacy.

 

Daily Digest

 

Follow Shmuel Rosner on Twitter and Facebook for facts and figures, analysis and opinion on Israel and the U.S., the Jewish World and the Middle East

November 15, 2012 Read More »

So what if political considerations had an impact on the Gaza operation?

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Israel, Israel, Middle East, Mobile Sections, Mobile-Homepage, News, Rosners Domain-mobile /

Nine months ago, I posted a short article entitled “Four short questions about Gaza”. It begins thus:

Is there a better option for Israel than the one it is using now – namely, to defend Israel’s citizens with the Iron Dome system (quite successfully), shoot suspected terrorists, and work through third parties (Egypt, Europe) to end yet another cycle of violence with yet another fragile cease-fire?

Not much has changed since I wrote this, but more time has elapsed in which Hamas has shown little tendency for restraint. The vicious cycle of violence is never static – now it is on the ascent, and we hope that after reaching a certain crescendo it will go down. The only question of course is how many people – Israelis and Palestinians – must get hurt before the violence subsides. With that in mind, I’ll comment on some of the common reactions to the Israeli operation.

1. Israel has no strategy, it is all tactical

I heard this one from Fareed Zakaria, whom – as you might know – I’ve criticized more than once in the past. Zakaria, appearing on Anderson Cooper’s CNN show Wed. evening, gave Israel a pass on justification, admitting that Hamas had provoked the Israeli counterattack (PBS coverage from an hour earlier was suspiciously vague in that regard, reporting “that it all began” with the Israeli assassination – choosing a point in time from which one might suspect that Israel launched this assassination without much reason).

But then Zakaria explained that the Israeli move is “tactical” and doesn’t provide for “strategic” solution for the Gaza problem. That is obviously true. Does he or anyone else have such a strategic solution to share with the viewers? We don’t know since Zakaria was never asked – but I suspect, until I get some proof to the contrary, that he doesn’t. Nor does anyone else. Gaza is a problem that cannot be solved at this time; it can only be “tactically” contained.

2. Israel killed the wrong man

Aluf Benn of Haaretz was one of a number of people saying that, “Ahmed Jabari was a subcontractor, in charge of maintaining Israel's security in Gaza”. Peace activist Gershon Baskin wrote yesterday that Israel’s “decision to kill Ahmed Jaabri was total insanity”. I don’t know if Jabari was the right target, or the best target, but I do know that in most cases when critics claim to know that the wrong target was chosen and killed, those critics tend not to offer an alternative.

In other words, those critics don’t have a problem with the killing of Jabari, they have a problem with Israel’s decision to kill any Hamas leader period. Of course, a case could be made against any such killings – maybe even a strong case based on moral, legal, tactical or other reasons. But it is best to be honest when about one's true feelings: It is about Jabari, it is about assassinations as a tool in Israel’s war against Hamas.

3. Netanyahu is doing it for electoral reasons

One must admit that the timing is suspicious. Previous rounds of fire from Gaza (such as the one that prompted the article to which I linked in the opening paragraph above) didn’t prompt such a severe response from Israel. So let’s consider the possibility that electoral considerations were also on the minds of decision makers as they opted to escalate Israel’s response – is that really bad? Consider the following:

A. The fire from Gaza was becoming intolerable.

B. The Israeli public was frustrated with Israel’s tame response.

C. When elections are looming, political leaders become more sensitive to public demands.

D. Making leaders sensitive to what the public wants is the reason why democracies have elections.

E. So in fact, when the Israeli government comes to understand that the public is tired of excuses – that more excuses with no action might have a political price, that elections will provide an opportunity for the public to express its unhappiness with timid policies, that elections are barely two months away – it is doing exactly what a government is supposed to do.

4. Stunning success

I had to read this article a couple of times to make sure it really says – as the headline says – that the IDF had “an initial stunning success” and then (in the article itself) that operation “Pillar of Defense, from a military perspective, has begun with a resounding success”. Lowering the bar on cases deserving excessive praise is one problem that Israel – and the IDF – should refrain from doing. Killing a Hamas leader is not such huge success, and not such great achievement. Not one deserving a description that befitting the Entebbe operation (the assassination “required both terrific intelligence work and incredibly fast cooperation”… “Such a strike requires enormous amounts of accurate intelligence, painstakingly assembled and verified”). While critics might be wrong to dismiss the operation for lack of “strategic” ability to end the Gaza problem once and for all, that is not reason enough to overhype it achievements.

So what if political considerations had an impact on the Gaza operation? Read More »

Three Israelis killed by rocket from Gaza as U.N. Security Council meets over Gaza attacks

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, Israel, Lead Story, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News /

Three Israelis were killed when a rocket fired from Gaza hit their Kiryat Malachi home.

The rocket that struck the private home on Thursday morning was one of nearly 200 rockets fired from Gaza since the assassination late Wednesday afternoon of Hamas military chief in Gaza, Ahmed Jabari. The strike came after four days of rocket fire from Gaza terrorist groups on southern Israel. More than 150 rockets are reported to have been fired from Gaza during that time, causing damage to homes and factories.

A baby girl and a 4-year-old boy were also injured in the attack. A second building in Kiryat Malachi also was hit.

Rockets rained down on communities in southern Israel overnight. A school on Ofakim was hit, as was a home in Ashdod, and a factory near Ashkelon.

Some rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile defense system.

The Israel Defense Forces overnight Wednesday bombed about 100 medium- and long-range rocket launch and infrastructure sites throughout Gaza, according to the IDF spokesman.

“This has significantly damaged the rocket launch capabilities and munitions warehouses operated by Hamas and other terror organizations,” the IDF said in a statement.

“The aim of targeting these sites is to impair the rocket launching capability of terror organizations in the Gaza strip and damage their further build up,” the IDF also said.

Israel's Air Force also bombed several rocket launching squads as they prepared to fire rockets toward southern Israel, according to the IDF.

Eleven Palestinians have been killed and dozens injured in the Israeli strikes, according to the Palestinian Maan news agency.

Israel also has mobilized several infantry units and called up reserve troops. Israel last entered Gaza with ground troops during the monthlong Gaza war that began in December 2008.

The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting early Thursday morning on Israel's new operation in Gaza. The meeting was held at the request of Egypt, Morocco and the Palestinian Authority and the envoys of both Israel and the Palestinians were invited to attend the meeting. The council failed to endorse a plan of action, agreeing only to issue a statement saying that the emergency meeting took place.

“We have demonstrated maximum restraint for years, but the Israeli government has a right and a duty to respond to these attacks,” Israeli envoy Ron Prosor told the council. “Israel will not play Russian roulette with the lives of our citizens.”

Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour referred to “Israel’s malicious onslaught, using the most lethal military means and illegal measures against the defenseless Palestinian civilian population.”

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice defended Israel's right to defend itself. On Wednesday night, President Obama called Netanyahu and voiced support for Israel's right to self defense, while urging Netanyahu to avoid civilian casualties.

Meanwhile, Egypt withdrew its ambassador to Israel over the Gaza strikes. Israel's ambassador to Cairo, YAakov Amitai, was also called back to Jerusalem out of fear for his safety in the face of expected protests.The entire embassy staff was evacuated Wednesday.

Israel's Security Cabinet on Wednesday night authorized the call-up of reserve units, per the discretion of Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

The Cabinet authorized the IDF to “continue vigorous action against the terrorist infrastructures operating from the Gaza Strip against the civilian population in Israel in order to bring about an improvement in the security reality and allow a normal life for the residents of the State of Israel.”

“Alongside the military effort, Israel will, to the best of its ability, work to avoid harming civilians while honoring the humanitarian needs of the population, in keeping with the rules of international law,” the directive said.

The current operation in Gaza has been dubbed Operation Pillar of Defense, a reference to the cloud that followed the Israelites in the desert according to the Bible. The pillar of clouds shielded and protected the Israelites.

Three Israelis killed by rocket from Gaza as U.N. Security Council meets over Gaza attacks Read More »

Rockets hit near Tel Aviv as war looms over Gaza

Leave a Comment / Is Featured?, Israel, Lead Story, Mobile, Mobile-Homepage, News /

[UPDATE 11:13 am] Two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip targeted Tel Aviv on Thursday in the first attack on Israel's commercial capital in 20 years, raising the stakes in a showdown between Israel and the Palestinians that is moving towards all-out war.

Earlier Hamas rocket killed three Israelis north of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, drawing the first blood from Israel as the Palestinian death toll rose to 16 in a military showdown lurching closer to all-out war and a threatened invasion of the enclave. 

Israeli warplanes bombed targets in and around Gaza city for a second day, shaking tall buildings. In a sign of possible escalation, the armed forces spokesman said the military had received the green light to call in up to 30,000 reserve troops.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Palestinian militants would pay a price for firing the missiles.

Plumes of smoke and dust furled into a sky laced with the vapor trails of outgoing rockets over the crowded city, where four young children killed on Wednesday were buried.

After enduring months of incoming rocket fire from Gaza,   Israel retaliated with the killing of Hamas's military chief, and targeting longer-range rocket caches in Gaza.

[Related: Rocket strikes southern outskirts of Tel Aviv]

Egypt's new Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, viewed by Hamas as a protector, led a chorus of denunciation of the Israeli strikes by Palestinian allies.

Mosi's prime minister, Hisham Kandil, will visit Gaza on Friday with other Egyptian officials in a show of support for the enclave, an Egyptian cabinet official said. Israel promised that the delegation would come to no harm.

Israel says its attack is in response to escalating missile strikes from Gaza. Israel's bombing has not yet reached the saturation level seen before it last invaded Gaza in 2008, but Israeli officials have said a ground assault is still an option.

Israeli police said three Israelis died when a rocket hit a four-story building in the town of Kiryat Malachi, some 25 km (15 miles) north of Gaza, the first Israeli fatalities of the latest conflict to hit the coastal region.

Air raid sirens sent residents running for shelter in Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial centre which has not been hit by a rocket since the 1991 Gulf War. A security source said it landed in the sea. Tel Aviv residents said an explosion could be heard.

The Tel Aviv metropolitan area holds more than 3 million people, more than 40 percent of Israel's population.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas was committing a double war crime, by firing at Israeli civilians and hiding behind Palestinians civilians.

“I hope that Hamas and the other terrorist organizations in Gaza got the message,” he said. “If not, Israel is prepared to take whatever action is necessary to defend our people.”

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Israel would pay a heavy price “for this open war which they initiated”.

After watching powerlessly from the sidelines of the Arab Spring, Israel has been thrust to the centre of a volatile new world in which Islamist Hamas hopes that Mursi and his newly dominant Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt will be its protectors.

“The Israelis must realize that this aggression is unacceptable and would only lead to instability in the region and would negatively and greatly impact the security of the region,” Mursi said.

The new conflict will be the biggest test yet of Mursi's commitment to Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which the West views as the bedrock of Middle East peace.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which brought Mursi to power in an election after the downfall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak, has called for a “Day of Rage” in Arab capitals on Friday. The Brotherhood is seen as the spiritual mentors of Hamas.

ASSASSINATION

The offensive began on Wednesday when a precision Israeli airstrike killed Hamas military mastermind Ahmed Al-Jaabari. Israel then began shelling the enclave from land, air and sea.

At Jaabari's funeral on Thursday, supporters fired guns in the air celebrating news of the Israeli deaths, to chants for Jaabari of “You have won.”

His corpse was borne through the streets wrapped in a bloodied white sheet. But senior Hamas figures were not in evidence, wary of Israel's warning they are in its crosshairs.

The Israeli army said 250 targets were hit in Gaza, including more than 130 rocket launchers. It said more than 270 rockets had struck Israel since the start of the operation, with its Iron Dome interceptor system shooting down more than 105 rockets headed for residential areas.

Expecting days or more of fighting and almost inevitable civilian casualties, Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets in Gaza telling residents to stay away from Hamas and other militants.

The United States condemned Hamas, shunned by the West as an obstacle to peace for its refusal to renounce violence and recognize Israel.

“There is no justification for the violence that Hamas and other terrorist organizations are employing against the people of Israel,” said Mark Toner, deputy State Department spokesman.

The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting late on Wednesday, but took no action.

In France, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabious said: “It would be a catastrophe if there is an escalation in the region.Israel has the right to security but it won't achieve it through violence. The Palestinians also have the right to a state.”

“GATES OF HELL”

Israel's sworn enemy Iran, which supports and arms Hamas, condemned the Israeli offensive as “organized terrorism”. Lebanon's Iranian-backed Shi'ite militia Hezbollah, which has its own rockets aimed at the Jewish state, denounced strikes on Gaza as “criminal aggression”, but held its fire.

Oil prices rose more than $1 as the crisis grew. Israeli shares and bonds fell, while Israel's currency rose off Wednesday's lows, when the shekel slid more than 1 percent to a two-month low against the dollar.

A second Gaza war has loomed on the horizon for months as waves of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli strikes grew increasingly intense and frequent. Netanyahu, favored in polls to win a January 22 general election, said on Wednesday the Gaza operation could be stepped up.

His cabinet has granted authorization for the mobilization of military reserves if required to press the offensive, dubbed “Pillar of Defence” in English and “Pillar of Cloud” in Hebrew after the Israelites' divine sign of deliverance in Exodus.

Hamas has said the killing of its top commander in a precise, death-from-above airstrike, would “open the gates of hell” for Israel. It appealed to Egypt to halt the assault.

Israel has been anxious since Mubarak was toppled last year in the Arab Spring revolts that replaced secularist strongmen with elected Islamists in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, and brought civil war to Israel's other big neighbor Syria.

Cairo recalled its ambassador from Israel on Wednesday. Israel's ambassador left Cairo on what was called a routine home visit and Israel said its embassy would stay open.

Gaza has an estimated 35,000 Palestinian fighters, no match for Israel's F-16 fighter-bombers, Apache helicopter gunships, Merkava tanks and other modern weapons systems in the hands of a conscript force of 175,000, with 450,000 in reserve.

This story was edited by JewishJournal.com.  

Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem, Erika Solomon in Beirut, John Irish in Paris. Marwa Awad in Cairo.; Writing by Douglas Hamilton; Editing by Peter Graff

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