Tag Archives: Gaza

Iranian Leader: Only Solution Is Israel’s Destruction

Iran’s supreme leader has been reported by Iran’s official news agency as saying the only way to achieve peace in Gaza is to destroy Israel.

The declaration came the same day that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said they have a new missile system that can completely destroy Israel’s Iron Dome system and leave them vulnerable to rocket attacks by Hamas and other terrorist organizations.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a group of college students Israel’s existence is the reason for the conflict in Gaza.

“These crimes which are beyond imagination and show the true nature of the wolfish and child killer regime, which the only solution is its destruction,” the ayatollah declared to his audience. “However, until that time, the expansion of the armed resistance of the Palestinians of the West Bank is the only way to confront this wild regime.”

He then attacked the U.S. and England for supporting Israel.

“We believe that the West Bank needs to be armed just like Gaza and those interested in the future of Palestine must become active in this field [guerrilla warfare] so that the suffering of the Palestinian people through their strength and their weakness due to the Zionist regime is reduced,” he said. “Some Western countries including America and filthy England defend with clarity the crimes that no ordinary person would. The President of America in the face of these child killings, destruction, torture and suffering of the people in Gaza, with a comical logic states that Israel has the right to defend itself! Don’t the Palestinians have the right to defend their lives and security?”

Hamas Found Storing Rockets In Second School Building

Terrorist group Hamas has been found storing rockets used to attack Israeli civilians inside a school that has been used by the United Nations to teach Palestinian children.

“Today, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA discovered rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip,” the organization said in a statement issued Tuesday. “As soon as the rockets were discovered, UNRWA staff were withdrawn from the premises, and so we are unable to confirm the precise number of rockets. The school is situated between two other UNRWA schools that currently each accommodate 1,500 internally displaced persons.”

While the second time that the U.N. has found terrorist weapons in their facilities twice, no action is being taken against Hamas.  The U.N. found 20 rockets in a school last Wednesday during a routine inspection of a school.

The U.N. gave the 20 rockets last week back to the local government which is controlled by Hamas.

Israel called out the U.N. for their refusal to stop terrorists from attacking their country.

“Time and again, over the years, UNRWA has been abused by gunmen from different terrorist factions who are using UN facilities to stockpile weapons, to fire rockets from, to steal UNRWA humanitarian equipment and to cause damage and fire in UNRWA’s hangars,” a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official told The Times of Israel.

“Against all evidence, UNRWA refuses to acknowledge reality and pathetically attempts to ingratiate itself with Hamas, pretending that nothing serious has happened,” the senior official said. “This is a classic case of beaten-wife syndrome, which we have been witnessing for years from UNRWA. The people of Gaza, and indeed taxpayers from countries who contribute to UNRWA’s budget — including Israel — deserve better.”

Egypt Calls To Restart Peace Talks

Egypt is calling for Hamas and Israel to sit down at the table and restart the peace talks that have been stalled for years as a way to end the current conflict.

Egyptian Foreign Minster Sameh Shukri met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry today, working to find a framework to get the two sides sitting down to negotiate and end to the hostilities.

Shukri told reporters his goal is “to not only resolve this issue but also to set in motion once again the peace process that Secretary Kerry has been so actively involved in so as to end this ongoing conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis.”

Kerry flew to Cairo Monday to see how he could assist with the negotiations.  President Obama said that the administration is building in concern for civilians.

“We have serious concerns about the rising number of Palestinian civilian deaths and the loss of Israeli lives,” Obama said in Washington. “And that is why it now has to be our focus and the focus of the international community to bring about a cease-fire that ends the fighting and can stop the deaths of innocent civilians, both in Gaza and in Israel.”

Kerry said that $47 million will be given by the United States for humanitarian aid to Gaza at the end of the hostilities.

Two Americans Killed Fighting For Israel

Two Americans who went to Israel to defend the country have died in service.

Max Steinberg, 24, from Southern California and Nissim Sean Carmeli, 21, from South Padre Island, Texas, died during ground operations in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.  They were two of 13 Israeli Defense Force soldiers who perished in battles with Islamic terrorist group Hamas.

Stuart Steinberg, father of Max, said that his son was a sharpshooter for the Golani Brigade.

Steinberg had moved to Beersheba, Israel after he took a trip to his ancestral homeland in high school.  In December 2012, he moved to the country so he could join the Israeli Defense Forces and defend the land he felt was his home.

Steinberg’s brother told the Associated Press that Max had always had a passion for Israel and that he would not listen to anyone who told him not to go and join the IDF.  He said that his brother always had a passion for what he was doing in the IDF and was a great example to his family and friends.

New York Times Accused Of Anti-Israel Bias

It’s almost like Hamas is choosing the coverage angles for the New York Times, say some critics.

The biggest newspaper in the country is being accused of anti-Israel bias in its coverage of the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and the Israel defense.

Hamas demanded journalists only post photos of civilians in Gaza and never show pictures of the terrorists launching their attacks or using civilians as human shields.  So far, the Times appears to be lining up with Hamas’ instructions by not showing any of the attacks on Israel or of the terrorists, their tunnels, weapons or using civilian locations to hide weapons and launch rockets.

A recent survey by the Weekly Standard showed that almost every photograph of Israelis involved tanks, soldiers or attack helicopters.  There was an intense focus on the Israeli Defense Forces responding to the terrorist offensive.

The pictures from Gaza?  The photo essay in today’s Times shows three Gaza civilians in various forms of distress, a smoke plume over Gaza and three of the IDF using tanks and helicopters.

There are no images of the rocket attacks on Israel nor the two terrorist incursions into Israeli territory through tunnels by Hamas terrorists.  It’s almost as if the New York Times does not want to provide truthful coverage of the situation that Israel’s actions are in defense of being attacked by a terrorist organization.

Some critics are saying that the New York Times is showing terrorist sympathies by not reporting the truth about Hamas which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.

Israel Begins Ground Offensive In Gaza

After the Hamas terrorist organization fired missiles into Israel during and immediately after a “humanitarian cease fire”, the Israeli Defense Forces have launched a ground offensive into the Gaza strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel will continue the offensive until Gaza has been “demilitarized”.  He said that only when Gaza has been demilitarized can peace truly begin to come into the region because the terrorist threat from Hamas will have been eliminated in south Israel.

The initial wave of the ground offensive is aimed to destroy the tunnels that Hamas would use to attempt to sneak into Israel and to move weapons unseen throughout the Gaza region.

Hamas reportedly fired more than 100 rockets within the hour after the cease-fire, leading military experts to believe Hamas used the five hour window of peace to plan a massive offensive against Israel.

The IDF warned civilians to leave Gaza hours before the start of the ground offensive.

Israel Strikes Back After Hamas Rejects Peace Proposal

Air strikes against Hamas rocket launching positions resumed after Hamas flatly rejected a peace proposal from Egypt that would end the fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Israel had approved the peace deal and had de-escalated their forces as per the outline set up by Egypt; however Hamas completely rejected the deal and immediately fired up to 50 rockets into Israel.  Israeli officials then announced they would resume their offensive against Hamas because of the terrorist’s ongoing rocket campaign.

Israeli officials say that no one was hurt during the six-hour window that the IDF had scaled back and Hamas fired rockets into Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would likely intensify their campaign against Hamas because of their rejection of the cease-fire.

“If Hamas rejects the Egyptian proposal and the rocket fire from Gaza does not cease, and that appears to be the case, we are prepared to continue and intensify our operation,” he said in a statement.

While President Obama told a group of Muslim leaders that Israel had the right to defend itself from Hamas’ attacks, Secretary of State John Kerry announced he would skip visiting the region on his way home from talks with Iran in Geneva.

Hamas Terrorist Drone Shot Down Over Israel

The terrorist campaign against Israel took a surprising turn on Sunday when the Israeli Defense Forces shot down a drone as it approached the city of Ashdod.

The IDF would not say what was on the drone, only that they had shot it down with a Patriot missile and it clearly originated from the Gaza Strip.

It marks the first time that a drone has been confirmed in the terror attacks against Israel.

The IDF reported that almost 1,000 rockets have been fired into Israel by the terrorists in the first six days of “Operation Protective Edge”, the Israeli response to the provocations of the terrorist group.

Israeli analysts say that the bombardment is likely to continue well into the future because of Iranian shipments of arms that have been brought into Gaza for years.  The analysts estimate over 10,000 rockets, including some longer range weapons that could strike anywhere in Israel, are under the control of the terrorists.

Israeli ground forces continue to muster on the border with Gaza.

Netanyahu Says Gaza Conflict Shows Importance Of West Bank

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters on Friday that the current conflict in the Gaza Strip shows the importance of keeping control of the West Bank.

In a strongly worded statement, Netanyahu took several world leaders to task including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for their insistence that Israel give up control of the West Bank for a Palestinian State.

Netanyahu said that the fact Hamas has turned the Gaza Strip into a “terrorist bunker” shows that any land given up by Israel will just be used by Islamic terrorist groups to launch attacks upon Israel.

“I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan,” he said.  “I told John Kerry and General Allen, the Americans’ expert: We live here, I live here, I know what we need to ensure the security of Israel’s people.”

Netanyahu noted that the West Bank is 20 times the size of Gaza and said the last thing Israel needs is “to create another 20 Gazas.”

Netanyahu also noted the tunnels between Gaza and Egypt that the Egyptians have sealed up to keep the terrorists from moving through their country.

“If we were to pull out of Judea and Samaria, like they tell us to, there’d be a possibility of thousands of tunnels,” Netanyahu said.

Israeli Ambassador: We Must Respond

The Israeli ambassador to the United States says that his country cannot sit by and be passive while Hamas rains down rockets upon its citizens.

Ambassador Ido Aharoni told Fox News that his country will remain on high alert and that air strikes will continue because of the increased hostility toward Israel from the terrorist group Hamas.

“Hamas’ decision to escalate the situation puts us in a very difficult and unpleasant position,” said Aharoni. “We have to respond in a swift and comprehensive fashion because we are looking at a century-old Arab onslaught on Jewish national sovereignty in the land of Israel – that didn’t start yesterday.”

Aharoni said that Israel’s cabinet is currently debating a plan to send troops into the Gaza Strip to root out Hamas’ leadership and networks.

“One thing for sure we understand: We are in it for the long run, the goal of Operation Protective Edge, named for the offensive [against Hamas], is to bring about stability, calm and quiet to Israel’s southern and central region,” he said.

He said that Hamas has about 12,000 rockets in the Gaza Strip.