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.
Israel responded to the Hamas breaking of a ceasefire by launching an assault on a building that was housing a group of Hamas leadership.
Hamas confirmed the deaths of the officials.
Mohammed Abu Shammala, Raed al-Attar and Mohammed Barhoum were inside a four-story building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike. The IDF said the home was targeted specifically as part of the response to the Hamas assault.
Palestinian Authority health officials in Rafah say that dozens of other people are still missing.
Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed the situation during a public statement that Operation Protective Edge is not over despite the recent ceasefire. He said that the response is going to be a “continuous campaign.”
Hamas vowed revenge.
“The assassinations of the three Qassam leaders is a grave crime. But it will not break our people and Israel will pay the price for it,” a Hamas statement read.
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.
The terrorist group Hamas has once again broken a ceasefire, the eleventh that the group has either rejected or violated.
Rockets from the terrorists rained down on Beersheba during the mid-afternoon local time. Explosions were also seen near Ashdod and Ashkelon within an hour after the initial attack on Beersheba.
“Today’s rocket attack on Be’er Sheva is a grave and direct violation of the ceasefire to which Hamas committed itself,” Mark Regev, spokesman for Prime Minister Netanyahu, posted on Twitter. “They shoot rockets into Israel yet demand a more normal relationship? They must first commit to non-violence.”
The Israeli Defense Forces were organizing a response that was scheduled to begin toward the evening hours on Tuesday. Initial reports showed movement toward the northern part of Gaza and at vessels in the waters near northern Gaza.
The negotiating team in Cairo has been recalled to Israel because of the attack according to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office.
Israeli’s Shin Bet security service has released the details of a shocking Hamas plot that would have combined terror attacks on Israeli citizens with the overthrow of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The goal was to have a “third intifada uprising.” The plot would have opened a second front against Israel during Operation Protective Edge.
Shin Bet said that 90 Hamas operatives have been arrested in connection to the plot. Hundreds of weapons were seized along with $170,000 that was designated to fund the attack either through payments to security officials or payments to homicide bombers.
The attack within Israel was to have a centerpiece of the Temple Mount. The plan was so detailed that it had a flowchart of Hamas operatives who were in charge of the operation and those directly under them as if it was some kind of corporate organization.
The plot also focused on recruiting students, especially those who had been studying chemistry or engineering, for plotting bomb attacks on structures aimed to cause building collapse.
The mastermind of the plot is Hamas terrorist Salah al-Arouri who is in hiding in Turkey. According to the Times of Israel, authorities within the IDF have evidence that al-Arouri plotted the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers before the current Hamas-Israel conflict.
Sources close to the Cairo negotiations between Israel and terrorist group Hamas indicate that the current cease-fire is being extended for a few days rather than a long-term peace deal.
The move is being pushed by the Palestinian Authority in an attempt to keep Hamas from launching a new round of terror attacks on Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not comment on the details of the negotiations or the possibility of an extension of the current cease-fire. However, he did say that if Hamas were to start a new round of hostilities that Israel would respond with their strongest actions to date.
“We are preparing for any outcome — the Israeli team was instructed to insist firmly on Israel’s security needs, and the IDF is gearing up for a very forceful response if the fire resumes,” he says.
The Israeli Defense Forces moved additional troops into the southern territory in an apparent move to be ready for a quick strike should Hamas resume terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process is appealing to Gaza residents to back the Palestinian Authority.
“Right now, Gaza urgently needs houses, hospitals and schools – not rockets, tunnels and conflict,” Robert Serry told reporters.
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.