od_man99
New member
Tony Cartalucci
Infowars.com
Nov 16, 2012
The Western allied, funded, armed, and directed sectarian extremist organizations, namely Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and their subsidiaries of Hamas and the so-called “Free Syrian Army,” were created and to this day are backed specifically to counter real opposition to Western designs of hegemony across the Muslim World.
The West has also created and continues to perpetuate Israel as it exists in its current state, a purposefully provocative militant nation that serves as a beachhead for Western objectives throughout the region, as well as a perpetual impetus for filling the ranks of extremist groups who are then turned loose against the West’s enemies.
While Israel conducts combat operations against Hamas in Gaza, they are supporting their affiliates in Syria just across the border upon the Golan Heights, and across greater Syria in coordination with the US, France, England, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
While US representatives frequently meet in Doha, Qatar to support and continue propping up the political front serving as cover for Western, Saudi, and Qatari backed terrorists in Syria, Qatar’s unelected leader-for-life,Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, has slinked in and out of Gaza to pour 250 million dollars into Hamas just before the latest Israeli-Hamas violence broke out.
It is documented that since 2007 the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia have been colluding to arm and unleash sectarian extremists, both Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, against their collective enemies across the region. With the West using Qatar as a base of operations, not only to continuously prop up the so-called “Syrian National Council,” but to base the corporate-funded Brookings Institution think-tank’s Doha Center, are we to believe that Qatar is not-so-secretly trying to destroy Israel right under America’s nose? Without condemnation or protest from the US or any of its co-conspirators?
As difficult as it is to believe, the current government in Israel is purposefully placing the lives of its citizens and soldiers in harm’s way to execute an orchestrated geopolitical stunt – aimed at capturing the sort of popular support Hezbollah had gained in defending Lebanon in 2006. Unlike in 2006, where Hezbollah was backed by, according to Western sources, Syria and Iran, today, Hamas is, as it always has been, supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with Israel and the US playing a more covert role of funding, infiltrating, directing and manipulating the organization.
Israel Created Hamas – West Uses Extremists as Plot Devices.
The Wall Street Journal reported in their article, “How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas,” that:
“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel’s destruction.
Instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with “Yassins,” primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.
This is in fact exactly what Hamas is still being used today for – to counter real opposition movements by dividing against each other different factions of Muslims and secular organizations alike, in confusion and armed combat, preventing a greater, unified front against Western expansion and exploitation throughout the region. Extremist groups closely aligned to Hamas, including Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, would flood into Iraq during the US occupation to “serendipitously” disrupt united Sunni-Shia’a resistance, and create bloody infighting that broke the back of meaningful opposition against foreign occupation.
These same networks used to flood Iraq with terrorists from across the region, have since 2007, been used by the West, including Israel, to begin a wider confrontation with Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as with Syria, and Iran. Exposed in Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s “The Redirection,” published that same year in the New Yorker, it was revealed that many of these sectarian extremists were in fact affiliated directly with Al Qaeda.
The article stated specifically (emphasis added):
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)
Hersh’s report would continue by stating:
“the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations.” -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)
Image: West Point’s second report on Al Qaeda’s networks used to funnel foreign fighters into Iraq titled, “Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa’ida’s Road In and Out of Iraq,” goes deeper in depth into who was really behind the influx of terrorists, how it was accomplished, and a range of options that might be applied to prevent it from happening. The report gives great insight into just how NATO and the Persian Gulf states are using Al Qaeda to now destabilize Syria, and how these interests are most likely funding, arming, and manipulating Hamas.
….
The link between extremist groups and Saudi funding was also mentioned in the report, and reflects evidence presented by the West Point Combating Terrorism Center indicating that the majority of fighters and funding behind the sectarian violence in Iraq, came from Saudi Arabia. Hersh’s report specifically states:
“…[Saudi Arabia's] Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that “they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s whothey throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.” -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)
And even as early as 2007, direct Western support for the Muslim Brotherhood was already reportedly underway:
“There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefited the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.” He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front’s members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents.” -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)
If Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hamas are truly a threat to the West and its allies, clearly the West has only itself to blame. The West has been, and to this day still is propping these extremist groups up – so much so that their credibility across the Muslim World has begun to falter.
Could that be the reasoning behind this latest exchange between Israel and Hamas? An attempt to rebuild a tremendous loss of credibility after nearly two years of supporting US, Israeli, Saudi, and Qatari designs against Syria? Is it a much larger version of the US-engineered assaults on its own embassies recently, aimed at reasserting the “War on Terror” narrative after Russia openly accused the US of arming and funding directly Al Qaeda in Syria? Or could Israel simply be “weeding” Hamas of the inevitable “true believers” in their cause leaving only co-opted double agents in the wake of the violence? Perhaps both.
Image: (ABDALRAHEM KHATEB/ASSOCIATED PRESS) An airstrike in Gaza, 2009. Israel and Hamas’ last conflict had kept people divided and squabbling for years. Just as people began to follow the leash of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the newly contrived “Free Syrian Army” back to Western hands, Israel and Hamas are once again locked in deadly combat – timing almost as impeccable as US-backed Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani’s visit and generous donation to Hamas just before hostilities began.
….
One thing that is certain – the threat Hamas poses to Israel is directly proportional to the support it itself gives the organization in the form of both covert financial and military aid, as well as perpetually fueling its rhetorical cause through blatant and continuous provocations aimed at the people of Palestine. It is clear that the only true existential threat Israel and its people face is the duplicity, deceit, and designs of their own ruling government.
As the conflict continues to unfold, it is absolutely imperative to understand and keep in mind the illegitimacy of Hamas and its affiliates across both Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood – how each organization is currently propped up by the West everywhere from Egypt to Syria and Libya to Yemen. While inevitably people will die on both sides, tempting us to reinvigorate our old pro-Palestine, pro-Israeli prejudices, we must understand that this division is precisely what the West seeks as a medium through which it plans on continuing the pursuit of its regional objectives.
Tony Cartalucci is the writer and editor at Land Destroyer
http://theinfowarriors.com/israel-vs-hamas-deadly-theater/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rockets land in field outside Jerusalem as war looms over Gaza
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/1...ount-possible-israeli-invasion/#ixzz2COuaExxu
JERUSALEM – Two rockets landed in open fields outside of Jerusalem after air raid sirens sounded in the city sending Israelis running for cover.
It is the first time the holy city has ever been targeted by rockets fired by Gaza militants. There does not appear to be any damage, or any reports of causalities.
Israeli media say the rocket fell north of Jerusalem, but authorities have not confirmed the reports. In Gaza, Hamas militants said they had attacked Jerusalem.
Egypt's prime minister rushed to the aid of the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers Friday in the midst of an Israeli offensive there, calling for an end to the operation, as Palestinian rocket squads aimed at Tel Aviv for a second straight day.
Sirens wailed across Israel's main metropolis sending people running for cover moments before an explosion was heard, but police said the rocket appeared to have fallen into the sea.
Both the Israeli military and militants in the Gaza strip continued relentless air strikes Friday as Israeli troops, tanks and armored personnel carriers massed near the Palestinian territory.
The attacks, which Israel considers to be a major escalation, could draw an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza closer as a spokeswoman confirms the Israeli military called up called up 16,000 reservists ahead of possible Gaza invasion.
Hopes of even a brief cease-fire were dashed after both sides accused the other of violating a proposed cease-fire during a visit by the prime minister of Egypt to Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told Egypt that Israel was prepared to suspend its military offensive in the Gaza Strip during Prime Minister Hisham Kandil's three-hour visit there Friday.
However, Israel later said Hamas did not honor the deal, saying rockets fired from Gaza had hit several sites in southern Israel as Kandil was in the enclave.
Israel strongly denied it had carried out any attacks from the time Kandil entered Gaza, though Gaza militants claimed Israel had continued strikes during the visit.
More indications emerged late Thursday that the conflict may erupt into an all-out war, as at least 12 trucks were seen transporting Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers toward Gaza and buses carrying soldiers headed toward the border area.
Israeli TV stations said a Gaza operation was expected on Friday, though military officials said no decision had been made.
Early Friday, 85 missiles exploded within 45 minutes in Gaza City, sending black pillars of smoke towering above the coastal strip's largest city. The military said it was targeting underground rocket-launching sites.
Fighting between the two sides escalated sharply Thursday with a first-ever militant attack on the Tel Aviv area, menacing Israel's heartland. No casualties were reported, but three people died in the country's rocket-scarred south when a projectile slammed into an apartment building.
The death toll in the densely populated Palestinian territory climbed to 19, including five children according to Palestinian health officials, as waves of Israeli fighter planes and drones sent missiles hurtling down on suspected weapons stores and rocket-launching sites.
One missile hit the Interior Ministry, a symbol of Hamas power.
The fighting has already widened the instability gripping a region in the throes of war and regime upheavals. Most immediately, it is straining already frayed relations with Egypt.
Israel and Hamas had largely observed an informal truce since Israel's devastating incursion into Gaza four years ago, but rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes on militant operations didn't halt entirely. The latest flare-up exploded into major violence Wednesday when Israel assassinated Hamas' military chief, following up with a punishing air assault meant to cripple the militants' ability to terrorize Israel with rockets.
The Israeli military reported early Friday that its aircraft had struck more than 350 targets since the beginning of its operation against Hamas' rocket operations.
On Thursday, Israeli warplanes struck dozens of Hamas-linked targets, sending loud booms echoing across the narrow Mediterranean coastal strip at regular intervals, followed by gray columns of smoke. After nightfall, several explosions shook Gaza City several minutes apart, a sign the strikes were not letting up. The military said the targets were about 70 underground rocket-launching sites.
The onslaught has not deterred the militants from striking back with more than 400 rockets aimed at southern Israel. For the first time, they also unleashed the most powerful weapons in their arsenal -- Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets capable of reaching Tel Aviv.
The two rockets that struck closest to Tel Aviv appear to have landed in the Mediterranean Sea, defense officials said, and another hit an open area on Tel Aviv's southern outskirts.
No injuries were reported, but the rocket fire -- the first in the area from Gaza -- sowed panic in Tel Aviv and made the prospect of a ground incursion more likely. The government later approved the mobilization of up to 30,000 reservists for a possible invasion.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the army was hitting Hamas hard with what he called surgical strikes, and warned of a "significant widening" of the Gaza operation. Israel will "continue to take whatever action is necessary to defend our people," said Netanyahu, who is up for re-election in January.
"We will continue the attacks and we will increase the attacks, and I believe we will obtain our objectives," said Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, Israel's military chief.
An Israeli ground offensive could be costly to both sides. In the last Gaza war, Israel devastated large areas of the territory, setting back Hamas' fighting capabilities but also paying the price of increasing diplomatic isolation because of a civilian death toll numbering in the hundreds.
The current round of fighting is reminiscent of the first days of that three-week offensive against Hamas. Israel also caught Hamas off-guard then with a barrage of missile strikes and threatened to follow up with a ground offensive.
However, much has also changed since then.
Israel has improved its missile defense systems, but is facing a more heavily armed Hamas. Israel estimates militants possess 12,000 rockets, including more sophisticated weapons from Iran and from Libyan stockpiles plundered after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi's regime there last year.
Netanyahu, who has clashed even with his allies over the deadlock in Mideast peace efforts, appears to have less diplomatic leeway than his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, making a lengthy military offensive harder to sustain.
What's more, regional alignments have changed dramatically since the last Gaza war. Hamas has emerged from its political isolation as its parent movement, the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood, rose to power in several countries in the wake of last year's Arab uprisings, particularly in Egypt.
Egypt recalled its ambassador to protest the Israeli offensive and has ordered his prime minister to lead a senior delegation to Gaza on Friday in a show of support for Hamas.
At the same time, while relations with Israel have cooled since the toppling of longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, Morsi has not brought a radical change in Egypt's policy toward Israel. He has promised to abide by Egypt's 1979 peace deal with Israel and his government has continued contacts with Israel through its non-Brotherhood members.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/1...ount-possible-israeli-invasion/#ixzz2COucnBs6
Infowars.com
Nov 16, 2012
The Western allied, funded, armed, and directed sectarian extremist organizations, namely Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and their subsidiaries of Hamas and the so-called “Free Syrian Army,” were created and to this day are backed specifically to counter real opposition to Western designs of hegemony across the Muslim World.
The West has also created and continues to perpetuate Israel as it exists in its current state, a purposefully provocative militant nation that serves as a beachhead for Western objectives throughout the region, as well as a perpetual impetus for filling the ranks of extremist groups who are then turned loose against the West’s enemies.
While Israel conducts combat operations against Hamas in Gaza, they are supporting their affiliates in Syria just across the border upon the Golan Heights, and across greater Syria in coordination with the US, France, England, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
While US representatives frequently meet in Doha, Qatar to support and continue propping up the political front serving as cover for Western, Saudi, and Qatari backed terrorists in Syria, Qatar’s unelected leader-for-life,Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, has slinked in and out of Gaza to pour 250 million dollars into Hamas just before the latest Israeli-Hamas violence broke out.
It is documented that since 2007 the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia have been colluding to arm and unleash sectarian extremists, both Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, against their collective enemies across the region. With the West using Qatar as a base of operations, not only to continuously prop up the so-called “Syrian National Council,” but to base the corporate-funded Brookings Institution think-tank’s Doha Center, are we to believe that Qatar is not-so-secretly trying to destroy Israel right under America’s nose? Without condemnation or protest from the US or any of its co-conspirators?
As difficult as it is to believe, the current government in Israel is purposefully placing the lives of its citizens and soldiers in harm’s way to execute an orchestrated geopolitical stunt – aimed at capturing the sort of popular support Hezbollah had gained in defending Lebanon in 2006. Unlike in 2006, where Hezbollah was backed by, according to Western sources, Syria and Iran, today, Hamas is, as it always has been, supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with Israel and the US playing a more covert role of funding, infiltrating, directing and manipulating the organization.
Israel Created Hamas – West Uses Extremists as Plot Devices.
The Wall Street Journal reported in their article, “How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas,” that:
“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel’s destruction.
Instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with “Yassins,” primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric.
This is in fact exactly what Hamas is still being used today for – to counter real opposition movements by dividing against each other different factions of Muslims and secular organizations alike, in confusion and armed combat, preventing a greater, unified front against Western expansion and exploitation throughout the region. Extremist groups closely aligned to Hamas, including Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, would flood into Iraq during the US occupation to “serendipitously” disrupt united Sunni-Shia’a resistance, and create bloody infighting that broke the back of meaningful opposition against foreign occupation.
These same networks used to flood Iraq with terrorists from across the region, have since 2007, been used by the West, including Israel, to begin a wider confrontation with Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as with Syria, and Iran. Exposed in Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s “The Redirection,” published that same year in the New Yorker, it was revealed that many of these sectarian extremists were in fact affiliated directly with Al Qaeda.
The article stated specifically (emphasis added):
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)
Hersh’s report would continue by stating:
“the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations.” -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)
Image: West Point’s second report on Al Qaeda’s networks used to funnel foreign fighters into Iraq titled, “Bombers, Bank Accounts and Bleedout: al-Qa’ida’s Road In and Out of Iraq,” goes deeper in depth into who was really behind the influx of terrorists, how it was accomplished, and a range of options that might be applied to prevent it from happening. The report gives great insight into just how NATO and the Persian Gulf states are using Al Qaeda to now destabilize Syria, and how these interests are most likely funding, arming, and manipulating Hamas.
….
The link between extremist groups and Saudi funding was also mentioned in the report, and reflects evidence presented by the West Point Combating Terrorism Center indicating that the majority of fighters and funding behind the sectarian violence in Iraq, came from Saudi Arabia. Hersh’s report specifically states:
“…[Saudi Arabia's] Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that “they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s whothey throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.” -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)
And even as early as 2007, direct Western support for the Muslim Brotherhood was already reportedly underway:
“There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefited the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.” He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front’s members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents.” -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007)
If Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hamas are truly a threat to the West and its allies, clearly the West has only itself to blame. The West has been, and to this day still is propping these extremist groups up – so much so that their credibility across the Muslim World has begun to falter.
Could that be the reasoning behind this latest exchange between Israel and Hamas? An attempt to rebuild a tremendous loss of credibility after nearly two years of supporting US, Israeli, Saudi, and Qatari designs against Syria? Is it a much larger version of the US-engineered assaults on its own embassies recently, aimed at reasserting the “War on Terror” narrative after Russia openly accused the US of arming and funding directly Al Qaeda in Syria? Or could Israel simply be “weeding” Hamas of the inevitable “true believers” in their cause leaving only co-opted double agents in the wake of the violence? Perhaps both.
Image: (ABDALRAHEM KHATEB/ASSOCIATED PRESS) An airstrike in Gaza, 2009. Israel and Hamas’ last conflict had kept people divided and squabbling for years. Just as people began to follow the leash of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the newly contrived “Free Syrian Army” back to Western hands, Israel and Hamas are once again locked in deadly combat – timing almost as impeccable as US-backed Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani’s visit and generous donation to Hamas just before hostilities began.
….
One thing that is certain – the threat Hamas poses to Israel is directly proportional to the support it itself gives the organization in the form of both covert financial and military aid, as well as perpetually fueling its rhetorical cause through blatant and continuous provocations aimed at the people of Palestine. It is clear that the only true existential threat Israel and its people face is the duplicity, deceit, and designs of their own ruling government.
As the conflict continues to unfold, it is absolutely imperative to understand and keep in mind the illegitimacy of Hamas and its affiliates across both Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood – how each organization is currently propped up by the West everywhere from Egypt to Syria and Libya to Yemen. While inevitably people will die on both sides, tempting us to reinvigorate our old pro-Palestine, pro-Israeli prejudices, we must understand that this division is precisely what the West seeks as a medium through which it plans on continuing the pursuit of its regional objectives.
Tony Cartalucci is the writer and editor at Land Destroyer
http://theinfowarriors.com/israel-vs-hamas-deadly-theater/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rockets land in field outside Jerusalem as war looms over Gaza
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/1...ount-possible-israeli-invasion/#ixzz2COuaExxu
JERUSALEM – Two rockets landed in open fields outside of Jerusalem after air raid sirens sounded in the city sending Israelis running for cover.
It is the first time the holy city has ever been targeted by rockets fired by Gaza militants. There does not appear to be any damage, or any reports of causalities.
Israeli media say the rocket fell north of Jerusalem, but authorities have not confirmed the reports. In Gaza, Hamas militants said they had attacked Jerusalem.
Egypt's prime minister rushed to the aid of the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers Friday in the midst of an Israeli offensive there, calling for an end to the operation, as Palestinian rocket squads aimed at Tel Aviv for a second straight day.
Sirens wailed across Israel's main metropolis sending people running for cover moments before an explosion was heard, but police said the rocket appeared to have fallen into the sea.
Both the Israeli military and militants in the Gaza strip continued relentless air strikes Friday as Israeli troops, tanks and armored personnel carriers massed near the Palestinian territory.
The attacks, which Israel considers to be a major escalation, could draw an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza closer as a spokeswoman confirms the Israeli military called up called up 16,000 reservists ahead of possible Gaza invasion.
Hopes of even a brief cease-fire were dashed after both sides accused the other of violating a proposed cease-fire during a visit by the prime minister of Egypt to Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told Egypt that Israel was prepared to suspend its military offensive in the Gaza Strip during Prime Minister Hisham Kandil's three-hour visit there Friday.
However, Israel later said Hamas did not honor the deal, saying rockets fired from Gaza had hit several sites in southern Israel as Kandil was in the enclave.
Israel strongly denied it had carried out any attacks from the time Kandil entered Gaza, though Gaza militants claimed Israel had continued strikes during the visit.
More indications emerged late Thursday that the conflict may erupt into an all-out war, as at least 12 trucks were seen transporting Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers toward Gaza and buses carrying soldiers headed toward the border area.
Israeli TV stations said a Gaza operation was expected on Friday, though military officials said no decision had been made.
Early Friday, 85 missiles exploded within 45 minutes in Gaza City, sending black pillars of smoke towering above the coastal strip's largest city. The military said it was targeting underground rocket-launching sites.
Fighting between the two sides escalated sharply Thursday with a first-ever militant attack on the Tel Aviv area, menacing Israel's heartland. No casualties were reported, but three people died in the country's rocket-scarred south when a projectile slammed into an apartment building.
The death toll in the densely populated Palestinian territory climbed to 19, including five children according to Palestinian health officials, as waves of Israeli fighter planes and drones sent missiles hurtling down on suspected weapons stores and rocket-launching sites.
One missile hit the Interior Ministry, a symbol of Hamas power.
The fighting has already widened the instability gripping a region in the throes of war and regime upheavals. Most immediately, it is straining already frayed relations with Egypt.
Israel and Hamas had largely observed an informal truce since Israel's devastating incursion into Gaza four years ago, but rocket fire and Israeli airstrikes on militant operations didn't halt entirely. The latest flare-up exploded into major violence Wednesday when Israel assassinated Hamas' military chief, following up with a punishing air assault meant to cripple the militants' ability to terrorize Israel with rockets.
The Israeli military reported early Friday that its aircraft had struck more than 350 targets since the beginning of its operation against Hamas' rocket operations.
On Thursday, Israeli warplanes struck dozens of Hamas-linked targets, sending loud booms echoing across the narrow Mediterranean coastal strip at regular intervals, followed by gray columns of smoke. After nightfall, several explosions shook Gaza City several minutes apart, a sign the strikes were not letting up. The military said the targets were about 70 underground rocket-launching sites.
The onslaught has not deterred the militants from striking back with more than 400 rockets aimed at southern Israel. For the first time, they also unleashed the most powerful weapons in their arsenal -- Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets capable of reaching Tel Aviv.
The two rockets that struck closest to Tel Aviv appear to have landed in the Mediterranean Sea, defense officials said, and another hit an open area on Tel Aviv's southern outskirts.
No injuries were reported, but the rocket fire -- the first in the area from Gaza -- sowed panic in Tel Aviv and made the prospect of a ground incursion more likely. The government later approved the mobilization of up to 30,000 reservists for a possible invasion.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the army was hitting Hamas hard with what he called surgical strikes, and warned of a "significant widening" of the Gaza operation. Israel will "continue to take whatever action is necessary to defend our people," said Netanyahu, who is up for re-election in January.
"We will continue the attacks and we will increase the attacks, and I believe we will obtain our objectives," said Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, Israel's military chief.
An Israeli ground offensive could be costly to both sides. In the last Gaza war, Israel devastated large areas of the territory, setting back Hamas' fighting capabilities but also paying the price of increasing diplomatic isolation because of a civilian death toll numbering in the hundreds.
The current round of fighting is reminiscent of the first days of that three-week offensive against Hamas. Israel also caught Hamas off-guard then with a barrage of missile strikes and threatened to follow up with a ground offensive.
However, much has also changed since then.
Israel has improved its missile defense systems, but is facing a more heavily armed Hamas. Israel estimates militants possess 12,000 rockets, including more sophisticated weapons from Iran and from Libyan stockpiles plundered after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi's regime there last year.
Netanyahu, who has clashed even with his allies over the deadlock in Mideast peace efforts, appears to have less diplomatic leeway than his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, making a lengthy military offensive harder to sustain.
What's more, regional alignments have changed dramatically since the last Gaza war. Hamas has emerged from its political isolation as its parent movement, the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood, rose to power in several countries in the wake of last year's Arab uprisings, particularly in Egypt.
Egypt recalled its ambassador to protest the Israeli offensive and has ordered his prime minister to lead a senior delegation to Gaza on Friday in a show of support for Hamas.
At the same time, while relations with Israel have cooled since the toppling of longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, Morsi has not brought a radical change in Egypt's policy toward Israel. He has promised to abide by Egypt's 1979 peace deal with Israel and his government has continued contacts with Israel through its non-Brotherhood members.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/1...ount-possible-israeli-invasion/#ixzz2COucnBs6
