A 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire in the Gaza conflict ended in less than two hours when Hamas launched an unprovoked attack on Israeli soldiers.
A Hamas terrorist approached a group of Israeli soldiers and set off a homicide vest killing two soldiers. An Israeli officer was then kidnapped by another team of terrorists waiting for the homicide bomber to set off his vest.
A Hamas official confirmed the action but tried to claim that it happened before the cease-fire despite ample evidence to the opposite.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Secretary of State John Kerry that because Hamas broke the cease-fire, they would “bear the consequences of their actions.”
Senior Republicans in Washington are reportedly putting together a measure for the House that would give $225 million in emergency funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he would not agree to any cease-fire that does not allow the Israeli Defense Force to destroy every infiltration tunnel that has been built in Gaza by the terrorist group Hamas.
“We have destroyed dozens of tunnels and we will finish the rest with or without a cease-fire,” Netanyahu told reporters prior to a security cabinet meeting Thursday.
Netanyahu then spoke about the Israeli offensive into Gaza to drive out the terrorist and reported that Hamas has taken hard hits to their infrastructure and storage locations. He thanked the Israeli people for standing so strongly together during this hard time.
“At this time I call on the people and the MKs to stand behind the mission. In the days that our soldiers are fighting the enemy and endangering themselves, we owe it to them… if we are together we are stronger,” he said.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon echoed Netanyahu after the meeting, saying that Israel would not sacrifice any of the security of its citizens to end the fighting.
Belgian officials who have been trying to downplay a heavy rise in anti-Semitism since the start of the current Gaza conflict are reeling after reports a doctor told a Jewish woman to go to Gaza for treatment of a fractured rib.
A doctor working a medical hotline in Flanders, Belgium told the son of a Jewish woman that he would not come out to treat her for a fractured rib when he called at 11 p.m. Wednesday. The doctor hung up on the son the first time, then when the son called again the doctor said to “send her to Gaza for a few hours, then she’ll get rid of the pain.”
Health ministry officials say they are looking into the incident. The doctor told officials he knew the patient had to be Jewish because of her son’s accent.
An alderman of the Antwerp district council who knows the Jewish family called the doctor and recorded the conversation where he admitted refusing to treat the Jewish woman and telling her to go to Gaza.
Also in the last week, a Jewish woman was refused service at a clothing store because she was a Jew. A restaurant in Liege posted a sign that said dogs were welcome in their restaurant but Zionists and Jews were not allowed inside their building.
Israeli Defense Forces say that tank fire which struck near a school killing 19 people who were sheltering inside came in response to Hamas terrorists using the school grounds as a base to fire mortar attacks.
“Earlier this morning, militants fired mortar shells at (Israeli) soldiers from the vicinity of the UNRWA school in Jabaliya (refugee camp). In response, soldiers fired towards the origins of fire, and we’re still reviewing the incident,” a military spokeswoman told the Jerusalem Post.
The incident occurred just hours after the United Nations reported finding Hamas missiles and weapons being stored inside one of their schools for the third time in two weeks. A U.N. spokesman said unlike the previous two times, the weapons are not being turned over to local authorities who in turn return them to Hamas.
However, a U.N. weapons disposal team that was scheduled to make the school safe for children has been unable to reach the site.
“We condemn the group or groups who endangered civilians by placing these munitions in our school. This is yet another flagrant violation of the neutrality of our premises. We call on all the warring parties to respect the inviolability of UN property,” a U.N. statement read without naming Hamas directly.
The Israeli ground movement into Gaza to destroy tunnels and strongholds of the terrorist group Hamas moved into another day with an exchange of tank fire that put Gaza City in the dark.
Tank fire struck the fuel depot of the only power plant in the Gaza Strip Tuesday, destroying the fuel supplies and cutting off electricity to 1.8 million residents of Gaza City. The plant provides the Gaza Strip with about 2/3 of its electrical power.
“The power plant is finished,” its director, Mohammed al-Sharif, told the Jerusalem Post.
The plant had previously been hit by mortar fire from Gaza last week leaving the plant at 20 percent capacity. The result was electricity for only a few hours a day to the residents of the city.
Meanwhile, 5 more Israeli soldiers were killed when Hamas terrorists ambushed them from a tunnel.
A 72-hour humanitarian cease fire was also reportedly rejected when Hamas said they would never honor a cease fire with Israeli troops still on the ground in Gaza.
The United Nations Security Council has voted for an “immediate and unconditional” cease-fire in the Gaza Strip after more than 1,000 people were confirmed dead because of the fighting.
The demand for the cease-fire comes on the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Fitr that is part of the end of the Ramadan month of fasting.
The demand from the United Nations makes no reference to the fact Israel has respected five cease-fire agreements so far in the conflict and Hamas had rejected or breached each one.
President Barack Obama reportedly spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and told him that the U.S. continues to support their right to defend themselves from Hamas attacks.
“The President underscored the United States’ strong condemnation of Hamas’ rocket and tunnel attacks against Israel and reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself. The President also reiterated the United States’ serious and growing concern about the rising number of Palestinian civilian deaths and the loss of Israeli lives, as well as the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza,” the readout of the call provided to the press said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a U.N. Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease-fire because it gives benefits to a “murderous terrorist organization” and completely ignoring Israeli security.
The Jerusalem Post reported that Netanyahu called U.N. head Ban Ki-moon to tell him that the deal is not acceptable to Israelis.
“The statement did not deal with the harm done to Israeli civilians, nor to the fact that Hamas turned Gaza civilians into human shields,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu reminded Ban that Hamas violated three different humanitarian cease-fires and that the U.N. has never condemned the terrorists for using U.N. facilities to store their weapons and supplies.
The U.N. representative from Jordan, who represented the Arab League on the Security Council, said that the cease-fire was necessary because of the loss of civilian life in Gaza. He called for “full respect” for international humanitarian law.
Netanyahu pointed out that unless the U.N. demilitarizes the area, takes away Hamas’ weapons and destroys their tunnels, no peace can be achieved.
“They are continuing to fire even now at Israel citizens,” he said. “Israel will continue to deal with the terror tunnels, which is only the first step in demilitarization.”
A plot by Hamas terrorists and associated terror groups to make a massive attack on Israeli citizens on Rosh Hashanah has been exposed by Israeli security forces.
The announcement of the foiled plot were released late yesterday by Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu in a meeting with his cabinet. He said the plot was so massive that the death toll would have quickly and easily passed the 2,200 deaths suffered during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
A former U.S. Marine Corps general who had visited the site of the offensive in Gaza said that he saw tunnels designed for attacks on Israel and in locations designed to avoid response from Israeli troops.
“Unlike tunnels that I had seen during the Iraq war that were designed for smuggling, this Hamas tunnel was designed for launching murder and kidnapping raids. The 3-mile-long tunnel was reinforced with concrete, lined with telephone wires, and included cabins unnecessary for infiltration operations but useful for holding hostages,” Gen. James T. Conway, USMC (ret.) wrote in the Wall Street Journal. He noted the tunnels were located near schools.
The massive amount of tunnels lead one Israeli intelligence official to tell reporters it’s almost as if there is a “second underground Gaza.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry proposed a “cease fire” that did nothing to address the fact Hamas uses tunnels to conduct terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.
The Israeli ministers voted unanimously to reject the proposal because Kerry did nothing to address Hamas’ as a terrorist organization killing civilians.
The proposal was reportedly a “watered down” version of the deal that was proposed by Egypt with significant benefits and concessions given to the terrorist group. One observer close to the vote said Kerry’s proposal was “pro-Hamas and essentially a win for the terrorists.”
The Israeli Defense Forces said the death toll among Israeli troops as of noon Friday had reached 35 soldiers.
The head of IDF says that Hamas in the Gaza Strip are “weakening and losing morale.”
“The spirit of Hamas terrorists is weakening,” Southern Region Commander Maj. Gen. Sami Turgeman says. “I see terrorists in distress, abandoned by their commanders who deserted them at the front and stayed behind…and facing them, our reserve and standing army units led by commanders leading the force. Every day of combat there is a day of accomplishments for us, both on the issue of tunnels and on the issue of enemy units.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is in Israel trying to pressure Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop the offensive in Gaza aimed at eliminating the terrorist threat to Israeli citizens.
Kerry reportedly made little progress with Netanyahu, who was enraged at the United States placing a ban on airlines flying into Ben Guiron International Airport for two days. The FAA lifted the ban just before midnight Thursday.
Two senior State Department officials told the Washington Post that Kerry is trying to find a way to get a cease-fire done so he can work on a long term peace agreement.
Another sign that Israel is paying little attention to Kerry’s attempts to get them to stop defending themselves from Hamas was a statement from Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon to troops about expanding the ground campaign.
“We are preparing the next stages of the fighting after dealing with the tunnels, and you need to be ready for any mission,” Yaalon told the soldiers. “You need to be ready for more important steps in Gaza, and the units that are now on standby need to prepare to go in.”
Hamas reiterated they will continue to fire rockets at Israeli citizens until they obtain their demands.