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.
There is so much to write to you about that I can’t possibly get it all into one letter, but the main thing I want to tell you is that we have heard from the leading prophetic voices in the Church today, and they ALL believe that, by Fall, we will see a great acceleration of Biblical end-time events. What a time to be alive – what a time to witness! Continue reading →
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.”
Israeli scientists have developed a system that allows the Israeli Defense Forces to detect the infiltration tunnels used by the terrorist group Hamas.
A source inside the IDF told the Jerusalem Post the system has proven flawless in laboratory testing and it will now be taken into the field to see if it is as effective in real world situations. If it proves reliable, it would be able to be deployed full-time in about a year.
The IDF also announced on Israel Radio they are working on an upgrade to the Iron Dome system.
The new system is aimed at stopping multiple rockets at the same time or multiple other pieces of debris that are fired into the country. Also, the system will be able to target rockets and other objects much higher in the air than the current system.
The IDF believes that Hamas is being given upgraded weapons by countries like Iran that will help them overwhelm the current Iron Dome system.
The IDF also prised the Trophy tank defense system, saying it successfully stopped dozens of anti-tank missiles in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge.
Egyptian negotiators have been frantically moving back and forth between Israeli representatives and those representing the terrorist group Hamas after another 72-hour cease-fire agreement was struck between the two sides.
Israel had previously said they would not agree to negotiations or a cease-fire unless Hamas stopped their terrorist rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.
The cessation of hostilities went into effect around 5 p.m. eastern U.S. time Sunday after Hamas fired hundreds of rockets in the hour before it was to go into effect.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said they would be working with international aid groups to bring humanitarian supplies into the Gaza strip during the cease-fire. Reports say that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have pledge financial support for the rebuilding of Gaza and for humanitarian aid to Palestinians trapped in the Gaza strip.
The talks broke down last Friday when Hamas, enraged that Israel had not removed a naval blockade, broke a previous cease-fire with rocket attacks.
There has been one reported incident since the cease-fire. An Islamic militant was shot by the IDF after he opened fire on two Israeli soldiers in the West Bank village of Qabalan.
Islamic terrorist group Hamas lived up to their threat and broke the 72-hour cease-fire Friday by launching rockets toward residential areas of Israel.
According to sources within the Israeli Defense Forces, Hamas terrorists fired over 45 rockets Friday morning. The “Iron Dome” defense system only stopped two of the rockets from striking within Israel.
IDF spokesman said that Israel has resumed air strikes at rocket launching sites in response to the Hamas attacks.
“We will continue to strike Hamas, its infrastructure, its operatives, and restore security for the State of Israel,” Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner said in a statement.
Egyptian negotiators have called for a resumption of the cease-fire because negotiations are close to reaching a solution. However, Hamas has refused to agree to stop their assaults because they demand all of their demands be met.
International media organizations, such as the New York Times, ABC, NBC and CBS, have been running stories from Gaza showing casualties and claiming that the Israel response to being attacked by Hamas has not been targeted like stated by Israeli leadership.
A report from the United Nations says all the anti-Israel stories are wrong.
Figures released by the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights were analyzed by the BBC’s head of statistics and found that the number of civilian men killed in the attacks were almost four times higher than women. The figures went even higher when Hamas terrorists killed were included in the total.
“If the Israeli attacks have been ‘indiscriminate,’ as the UN Human Rights Council says, it is hard to work out why they have killed so many more civilian men than women,” Anthony Reuben said.
Reuben said the conclusions being drawn in much of the media coverage is “premature.”
Several anti-Israeli politicians, including some within the United Nations, have been calling for Israel to be investigated for war crimes because of alleged targeting of civilians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the statistics show Hamas has been using civilians as human shields.
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.