The long-term ceasefire between Israel and terrorist group Hamas appeared to be holding on a second day as Israel took steps to ease the border blockade.
Israel said the economic blockade would allow Gaza residents to return to jobs or interact with businesses that they haven’t been able to do since Hamas began their attacks on Israel.
The ending of the economic blockade and easing of the border blockade was part of the demands of Hamas for entering into a long-term peace. Israel had previously said they were not giving in to any of Hamas’ demands as part of the peace deal.
The chairman of the Council of Evangelical Churches in the Holy Land told the Christian Post the deal had to include the lifting of the economic blockade.
“They want a meaningful ceasefire to end the seven years of blockade and travel restrictions that make Gaza one large prison. They want a deal to make life livable,” Dr. Munir S. Kakish said. “The West did not address the problems in the Gaza strip. The blockade, travel restrictions, economic disaster, lack of any healthcare have all created a condition where life is not acceptable.”
The last long-term truce ended a week of fighting in 2012 when Hamas promised to stop firing rockets into Israel.
An open-ended truce in the conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas goes into effect tonight but it is not being billed as a cease-fire by the terrorists.
Hamas sent out a graphic of three Palestinian gunfighters pointing weapons at an Israeli soldier who was raising his hands in the air while holding a white flag. The caption on the graphic says “and so Gaza has triumphed.”
Hamas also had their members take to the streets after the beginning of the cease-fire to celebrate their “victory.”
Mosques throughout the Gaza strip were broadcasting messages of celebration and celebratory chants of “Allahu Akbar” while Palestinians who had been in shelters because of the conflict made their way outside.
Hamas launched a final barrage of rockets toward Tel Aviv just before the start of the cease-fire.
Israeli officials, however, say the deal does not include any of Hamas’ demands including an airport and a seaport. No prisoners were going to be released as part of the Egyptian-brokered agreement.
A Hamas barrage before the beginning of an open-ended cease-fire struck a home in Ashkelon and a playground in Ashdod.
Initial reports from emergency personnel say that 28 people have been injured in the barrage. The family in the home had just reached their safe room when the rockets struck the roof and were not injured. However, those in the area were wounded by debris.
At least one rocket made it through the Iron Dome defense system and struck the middle of a kindergarten playground. No children were harmed in that attack.
Hamas claims the attack was in retaliation for the IDF destroying an apartment complex in Gaza Tuesday.
The IDF launched an attack before the cease-fire that targeted a boy’s school in Gaza City where Hamas launched a rocket assault that killed 4-year-old Daniel Tragerman. The IDF warned officials in Gaza of the attack so they could make sure no children were inside the building at the time of the attack.
Three times during the conflict Hamas was found to be hiding weapons inside UN schools in Gaza.
Hamas killed 18 people this morning because someone had reported those men had provided information to Israel.
The men were executed without trial or hearing.
Eleven men were brought by Hamas troops to a police headquarters in Gaza City and executed via firing squad. Seven others were ambushed by Hamas fighters as they left a mosque after morning prayers.
Two of those killed in the ambush were women.
Hamas media outlets in the Gaza Strip said they were “choking the necks of the collaborators” and said that any Palestinian believed to be working with Israel would meet the same fate.
The executions come a day after three Hamas leaders were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
The family of the leader of terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza strip were confirmed killed when an Israeli air strike destroyed the building they were living in.
However, there are conflicting reports about whether the strike also cut off the head of Hamas’ leadership in Gaza. Hamas denies that Mohammed Deif was hit while several Israeli sources say he perished in the attack.
The attack was in response to Hamas breaking the cease fire and launching a series of terrorist rocket attacks into Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had warned Hamas that the IDF was prepared to “strike back hard” if the ceasefire were to be broken and the operation against Deif’s headquarters is believed to have been one of the items referenced by the Prime Minister.
Middle East analysts say that if Deif was killed in the attack it will likely cause Hamas to launch more assaults and refuse to enter back into negotiations to end the hostilities.
The Israeli Defense Forces recalled 2,000 soldiers after the breaking of the ceasefire to provide support for the IDF response.
Egypt has issued a call for both sides to return to the negotiating table in Cairo. Israel had recalled their delegation after Hamas broke the latest ceasefire.
A Hamas official made a major blunder Thursday in admitting they were taking steps to control the media and the images that were released from Gaza during their attacks on Israel.
The head of foreign relations for Hamas’ Information Ministry, Isra Al-Mudallal, was responding to an Arabic reporter and said that some foreign press were trying to “collaborate with the occupation” by showing Hamas terrorists.
“These journalists were deported from the Gaza Strip,” al-Mudallal said. “The security agencies would go and have a chat with these people. They would give them some time to change their message, one way or another.”
“We suffered from this problem very much,” she added. “Some of the journalists who entered the Gaza Strip were under security surveillance. Even under these difficult circumstances, we managed to reach them, and tell them that what they were doing was anything but professional journalism and that it was immoral.”
The Foreign Press Association says they have evidence that Hamas would screen any reporter attempting to enter Gaza and would use troops to block those who they felt were too pro-Israeli in their reporting.
“Some reporters received death threats. Sometimes, cameras were smashed. Reporters were prevented from filming anti-Hamas demonstrations where more than 20 Palestinians were shot dead by Hamas gunmen,” the FPA reported.
The Anti-Defamation League is reporting a “dramatic surge” in anti-Semitism around the world in the wake of the conflict in the Gaza strip with Islamic terrorists attacking Israel.
The ADL report showed dozens of international incidents including physical assaults, threats, intimidation, public hate speech and damage to synagogues including the use of Nazi symbols in graffiti.
Abraham Foxman, the National Director of the ADL, said that the report shows “focuses on actions and speech with extend far beyond the bounds of criticism into violence and bigotry.”
“There was a dramatic surge in violence against Jews and Jewish institutions around the world during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge. From France to the Argentina, from Canada to Chile, synagogues were attacked, Jewish cultural centers were vandalized, Jewish shops were threatened and identifiably Jewish individuals beaten on the street. Anti-Semitism was in the air, and in the streets,” Foxman said.
The ADL noted many of the incident were advertised or started as “pro-peace, pro-Palestine” rallies but quickly degraded into anti-Semitic rallies with messages of support for Islamic terrorists who want to exterminate all Jews.
The Obama administration has taken steps to weaken Israel’s ability to defend itself against the Islamic terrorist group Hamas and other Islamist threats in the region by blocking a scheduled arms shipment.
An official told the Wall Street Journal that the move by the White House and the State Department stopped the transfer and said it was because they wanted to increase pressure on Israel to make concessions to Hamas. The White House also said they will have greater oversight of anything that might be shipped to Israel.
One unnamed Israeli official told the WSJ that the move could be in part because the Israeli government didn’t support the re-election campaign of President Obama. The move is being seen as revenge for saying Mitt Romney would be a strongrer supporter of Israel.
The report says that the President and his inner circle are “persuaded that Mr. Netanyahu and his national security team are both reckless and untrustworthy.”
“Today, many administration officials say the Gaza conflict — the third between Israel and Hamas in under six years — has persuaded them that Mr. Netanyahu and his national security team are both reckless and untrustworthy,” the Journal report said. “Israeli officials, in turn, describe the Obama administration as weak and naive, and are doing as much as they can to bypass the White House in favor of allies in Congress and elsewhere in the administration.”
Sources inside the Israeli government say that Prime Minister Netanyahu is counting more on the support of members of Congress and not counting on support from the President.
The attack was scheduled to happen on Rosh Hashana.
Hamas had built tunnels that opened into residential neighborhoods, a kindergarden and various hospitals.
The plan? Massive terror attacks from all the tunnels at the same time. Kill women. Kill children.
A report released by the Israeli Defense Forces outlines the details of a Hamas plan to launch the massive terrorist attack. The plot was discovered after the IDF moved into Gaza following the kidnapping and killing of 3 Israeli youths by the Islamic terrorist group.
According to the study, Hamas spent nearly $130 million building the concrete tunnels from the Gaza strip miles into Israel. The money was taken from humanitarian relief sent into the region for the purpose of rebuilding after the last conflict with Israel.
The report also shows that Hamas used children to build the tunnels and that at least 150 children died during tunnel construction from cave-ins and accidents. The children were taken from their families without their parent’s consent to be used in the tunnel construction.
According to the Times of Israel, most of the tunnels were lined with uniforms made to resemble uniforms of the IDF. The report says the goal was to confuse forces responding to the attack and make them unable to quickly stop the assault.