Leaders within the terrorist group Hamas have been celebrating the statements and actions of President Barack Obama that show his administration moving into a more hostile relationship with Israeli leadership.
The Obama administration has started restricting arms shipments to Israel, in an attempt to weaken Israel’s defenses against the Islamic terrorist group. According to the Times of Israel, sources inside the administration say they’re hoping to drive Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu out of power so they can find a more liberal leader for Israel that will give up land to the Palestinians.
The news of the Obama administration actions comes after British Prime Minister David Cameron allowed the British Ministry of Trade to announce they will not send more arms to Israel if Hamas attacks Israel again.
Hamas leadership is attributing the withdrawal of Britain and the backing away of the U.S. to their blocking the media in Gaza from showing any of their terrorist attacks on Israel or any wounded Israelis. They also credited the social media and broadcast campaign to control the words used by those expressing news to make it appear Israel was the aggressor instead of the truth that Hamas was making terrorist attacks.
Hamas leaders plan to increase their social media and media manipulation, believing it is their best chance to destabilize the Israeli government through the use of western leaders like Obama and Cameron.
An elite unit of the Israeli Defense Forces announced they had captured a Hamas operative who was planning a terrorist attack near Hebron.
The arrest led to Israeli police and the IDF carrying out a sweep in the West Bank and East Jerusalem that led to the arrest of nearly 60 people who were connected to the plot or to inciting riots.
The IDF did not release the name of the suspect or the details of the attack saying that the information was withheld for national security reasons.
The arrest is the latest in an IDF crackdown on those leading riots or attacks in Israel. The investigations into many of the arrested suspects had been placed on hold or in a lower priority because of the conflict with Hamas in Gaza.
Tbe IDF said that 12 suspects were arrested late Monday and Tuesday nights in the West Bank on top of the almost 60 arrested today.
Officials say that rioting has increased in the Jerusalem area as Arab groups took advantage of decreased IDF presence.
Hamas has announced they will not extend the current cease-fire unless they see “real progress” during negotiations in Cairo.
Hamas did not make clear what they would consider “real progress.”
Egypt had presented a revised draft for a long-term cease-fire that would be implemented in two steps by early 2015. Hamas rejected the deal outright. It would have called for Israel to open border crossings and withdraw troops from the buffer zone in the Gaza strip. Deals for prisoners, an airport and seaport would be delayed for a month in negotiations.
The current cease-fire ends at midnight.
Meanwhile, a reporter for the Associated Press was killed along with a translator working for AP when a rocket shot into Israel from the IDF exploded as technicians were disarming it. Simone Camilli, 35, had been working with AP since 2005. An AP photographer, Hatem Moussa, was one of four people seriously injured in the blast.
Camilli is the first foreign journalist to die during the current Gaza conflict.
Israel has released strong statements about the appointment of a Canadian lawyer with anti-Semitic views to head the inquiry into the conflict along the Gaza strip.
“This commission’s anti-Israeli conclusions have already been written, all it needs is a signature,” Israel foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said to AFP news agency. “For this commission the important thing is not human rights but the rights of terrorist organizations like Hamas.”
William Schabas says the accusations are “absurd.”
“The suggestion that I’m anti-Israel is absurd,” Schabas said according to The Canadian Press. “Like everybody inside and outside Israel, I disagree with people. Is everyone in Israel who has an opinion about (Benjamin) Netanyahu anti-Israel?”
However, critics of Schabas include even members of his own government.
“UN Human Rights Council continues to be a sham for advancing human rights; today’s (announcement) for members of its Gaza inquiry reveals its agenda,” Canadian Prime Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird wrote on Twitter. “It’s an utter shame and will do nothing to promote peace and dignity in Gaza for the Palestinian people.”
The head of a U.N. watchdog group says that Schabas must stand down because of his previous criticisms of the Israeli government.
“Under international law, William Schabas is obliged to recuse himself because his repeated calls to indict Israeli leaders obviously gives rise to actual bias or the appearance thereof,” Hillel Neuer of UN Watch said in a statement.
The International Red Cross is coming under fire for making veiled accusations that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza.
The European Center for Law and Justice has responded forcefully to the Red Cross assertions, stating that the terrorist attacks of Hamas and their continued use of children and women as human shields for their fighters and weapons is the real war crime.
“It is deeply disturbing that the International Red Cross, which should be an objective relief organization, is engaging in an unbalanced and biased campaign to smear Israel,” wrote Jay Sekulow, who serves as Chief Counsel of the ECLJ. “While insinuating that Israel is committing war crimes as it protects its civilian population under attack by Hamas terrorists, the Red Cross is turning a blind eye to the deadly terrorist tactics used by Hamas – using its own population as human shields – in clearly violation of international law. We are urging the Red Cross to rely on the facts and the truth in reporting what is taking place in the Gaza conflict.”
The President of the International Committee of the Red Cross made statements during a visit to Gaza last week that in Gaza he saw “serious discrepancies between obligations” under the “laws of war” and what was “reality on the ground.” The statement was widely seen as an attack on Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hamas wasn’t just committing war crimes but “double war crimes.”
“Hamas is committing a double war crime. It is both targeting civilians and hiding behind civilians, including U.N. facilities, which are not only rocket storage sites but rocket launching sites and mortar launching sites,” Netanyahu said. “So, Israel has every right to defend itself and we are obeying the rules of war and the international code and those who are responsible for all these tragic civilian deaths are Hamas.”
A new report shows anti-Semitism worldwide making a significant increase in the wake of the conflict in Gaza.
The footage of Hamas terrorists shooting rockets into Israel, the murder of Israeli civilians by Hamas terrorists, the tunnels into Israel that have been used for terror attacks have fallen on deaf ears in most countries because of media coverage only showing the impact on Palestinian civilians who are used as cover by terrorists.
The heavily Jewish section of Paris was looted and attacked as the mob showed “gas the Jews.” Synagogues and Jewish centers in Paris and other French cities were firebombed and Nazi symbols spray painted onto Jewish property.
Germany showed particularly nasty incidents including in Berlin where protesters would stand in front of the homes of Jewish residents and yell “Jew, cowardly pig, come out and fight.” In Frankfurt, protesters carried signs saying “Jews are beasts.”
In the United States, the mainstream media ignored multiple instances of Jews being attacked and harassed. No major network covered the story of a Jewish student in Boston who was attacked by a woman saying that Jerusalem would be cleansed of the Jews while a crowd chanted that Jews better learn how to swim.
Ron Prosor, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, is calling out the body’s head for his open bias toward the terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza conflict.
After Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made a verbal assault against Israel, saying they need to be investigated for their attacks that caused damage to some U.N. facilities in the Gaza Strip, Prosor responded by telling the Secretary-General he needs to realize who was behind the entire situation.
“Israel did not seek the confrontation,” Prosor said. “We left Gaza with the intention of never returning.”
Prosor was referencing the 2005 unilateral withdrawal.
It was also pointed out to the Secretary-General that Hamas was using schools, hospitals and other locations to launch attacks. On three separate occasions, Hamas weapons were found stored inside U.N. schools and the Secretary-General made no condemnation of Hamas for their actions in those cases.
Reports have begun from inside Israel that the government will agree to an extension of the 72-hour cease-fire to allow longer negotiations in Cairo, Egypt. However, a spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces says they have plans in place to target Hamas leadership should they break the agreement and fire a single rocket into Israel.
A spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces said that all ground troops had been pulled out of Gaza Tuesday morning as part of a 72-hour cease-fire agreement.
The two sides in the conflict have now sent representatives to Cairo where an Egyptian mediator will shuttle between the two sides to try and work out some kind of deal to bring a lasting peace in the conflict.
Israel had said they would not agree to a cease-fire or any deal until all the Hamas tunnels into the country were destroyed. IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said that the destruction of 32 tunnels was completed late last night.
Lerner also told reporters that at least 3,500 rockets from Hamas had been fired into Israel at the time the cease-fire went into effect. He said that Israeli troops were able to destroy at least 3,000 rockets being held in storage during the ground incursion into Gaza.
Hamas has said their demands now include international funding for the rebuilding of Gaza.
Terrorist group Hamas used a 7-hour humanitarian cease-fire offered by Israel to launch two terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens.
A terrorist snuck into Israel and hijacked a bulldozer that he used to ram a commuter bus. The terrorist was killed by Israeli Defense Forces but not before a by-stander was killed after being struck by parts of the bus.
Local police told reporters that Hamas routinely uses heavy equipment to attack Israeli citizens during times of rush hour traffic.
The second attack came when a gunman on a motorcycle drove past an Israeli soldier near a university in East Jerusalem and opened fire. The soldier was hit in the stomach and rushed to the hospital where he was reported in critical condition.
Israel resumed their air strike campaign against Hamas rocket launching sites as they began to pull some of their ground troops out of the Gaza Strip.
An Israeli intelligence analyst has told reporters that Hamas has over 3,000 soldiers who have said goodbye to their families and are waiting to make a homicide bomb vest attack on Israel.
Gershon Baskin says all the fighters have their suicide vests and are just waiting for the order to carry out their attacks.
The information was released to the media just hours after the Hamas homicide bomb attack that killed two Israeli soldiers and ended a 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire.
“I was told by someone who had spoke to al-Qassam, the military wing of officer who said that before the ground operation began they were all instructed to go to their families and say goodbye to their families with the intent that they would not be returning alive from this battle,” Baskin told CNN. “This is one of the very difficult things about fighting with an organization like Hamas, particularly these very dedicated soldiers, combatants who are not afraid to die.”
Israeli spokesman Mark Regev said that his country will do whatever it takes to defend themselves from Hamas.