WarSclerotic

Jerusalem Post – Breaking News.

Gazans fire 90 rockets; cabinet approves reser… JPost – Defense.

US backs Israel; UN calls for de-escalation – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Obama speaks to Netanyahu, Morsi and reiterates US support for Israel’s right to self-defense; Ban Ki-moon discusses need to prevent further deterioration with two leaders

Yitzhak Benhorin

Leaders around the world are closely monitoring the conflict between the IDF and Gaza’s terrorist groups. While the US is standing by Israel‘s side, the majority of the world’s leaders called both sides to exercise restraint.

Leaders in the Arab world strongly condemned Israel for killing top Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari.

On Wednesday, US President Barack Obama spoke to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and reiterated US support for Israel’s right to self-defense in light of rocket attacks from Gaza, the White House said.

“The President urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to make every effort to avoid civilian casualties. The two agreed that Hamas needs to stop its attacks on Israel to allow the situation to de-escalate,” the statement said.

“The two leaders agreed to stay in close touch in the coming days. Earlier today, Vice President Biden received a briefing from Prime Minister Netanyahu on the events in Gaza,” the statement noted.

Netanyahu and Ban Ki-moon (Archive photo: Avi Ohayon, GPO)

“The President also spoke with President Morsi given Egypt’s central role in preserving regional security. In their conversation, President Obama condemned the rocket fire from Gaza into Israel and reiterated Israel’s right to self-defense,” it said.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an “immediate de-escalation of tensions.” In a statement, Ban said that “Both sides should do everything to avoid further escalation and they must respect their obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure the protection of civilians at all times.”

Ban’s press office said in two separate statements that he also spoke on the telephone with Netanyahu and Morsi.

“(Ban) expressed his concern (to Netanyahu) about the deteriorating situation in southern Israel and the Gaza Strip, which includes an alarming escalation of indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza into Israel and the targeted killing by Israel of a Hamas military operative in Gaza,” the UN said.

Ban also voiced his expectation that “Israeli reactions are measured so as not to provoke a new cycle of bloodshed.”

He also discussed with Morsi “the need to prevent any further deterioration,” the UN said in a second statement.

The UN Security Council will hold a closed emergency meeting on Wednesday night to discuss Israeli strikes against the Gaza Strip.

Anti-Israel protests in Egypt (Photo: AP)

The US on its part backed Israel’s decision to launch Operation Cloud Pillar. “We support Israel’s right to defend itself, and we encourage Israel to continue to take every effort to avoid civilian casualties,” Deputy State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.

Toner added that Washington “strongly condemns the barrage of rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel, and regrets the death and injury of innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians caused by the ensuing violence.

“There is no justification for the violence that Hamas and other terrorist organizations are employing against the people of Israel. We call on those responsible to stop these cowardly acts immediately.”

Also Wednesday, a group of five US senators issued a statement expressing their support for Israel after being briefed by Israel Ambassador in Washington Michael Oren about the situation in Israel’s south.

The senators, Republicans and Democrats alike, said in the statement “We strongly support Israel’s right to defend its people and call on those responsible for the violence to cease their attacks against Israel immediately.” They denounced “the reprehensible and indiscriminate” rocket attacks launched against innocent Israeli citizens.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Britain issued a more neutral statement. “We continue to call on all sides to exercise restraint to prevent a dangerous escalation that would be in no-one’s interests,” a British Foreign Office statement said.

Qatar: Filthy crime

Meanwhile, leaders in the Arab world blamed Israel for the escalation.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr condemned Israel’s airstrikes in Gaza remarking that “the Israeli escalation comes at a critical point in the Middle East which threatens to harshly exacerbate matters.”

The Muslim Brotherhood called on the Arab world to boycott Israel while the Freedom and Justice Party said that Cairo will not ignore the harming of Palestinians.

The party said that “this crime warrants a swift Arab and international move in order to stop the acts of carnage against the Palestinian people in Gaza which Israel’s government uses as bargaining chip as part of the political conflict in Israel.”

Qatar’s Foreign Minister Hamad Bin Jassim al-Thani strongly condemned the Israeli strikes in Gaza calling them “a filthy crime” that must not be ignored. “The Security Council must meet its obligation to maintain peace and security in the world,” he said.

Syrian officials also commented on the recent developments. “The Syrian government condemns the barbaric acts committed by the Israeli army against the Palestinian people in Gaza.” Damascus called on the international community to exert pressure on Israel to end “its aggression” in Gaza.

A stunning initial success for the IDF. Now what? | The Times of Israel.

The killing of Ahmed Jabari and the strategic blow to Hamas’s Fajr rocket capacity represent remarkable achievements for the IDF and the Shin Bet. The next phases are less clear

Smoke from Israeli air strikes rising over Gaza on Wednesday (Photo credit: Edi Israel/ Flash 90)

Operation Pillar of Defense, from a military perspective, has begun with a resounding success. Ahmed Jabari, perhaps the strongest man in Hamas, is dead. And in a strike that is surely the result of years of methodical intelligence work, the IAF eliminated the majority of Hamas’s medium-range Fajr-5 rockets, which have the capacity to reach Tel Aviv.

These two strikes were cleverly unheralded by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who kept their gaze ostentatiously on the Golan Heights earlier Wednesday – after the strike had already been ordered – perhaps lulling Jabari and others into an imprudently incautious state of mind.

Unlike the launch of the Second Lebanon War in 2006 – which began on Hezbollah’s terms but also featured the stunning elimination of nearly all of Hezbollah’s long-range rockets on Day One – the early stages of this operation appear to have been coordinated from the bottom up.

Barak defined the goals of the mission in clear terms, a step that was not taken during Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9. Dressed in his security chief garb of black leather jacket and black shirt, he said that Israel seeks to strengthen its deterrence; deplete and disrupt the Hamas rocket infrastructure; inflict wounds on Hamas and the other terror organizations; and minimize the damage to the Israeli homefront.

The first three goals have, to an extent, already been attained; Hamas will do absolutely everything in its power to ensure that the fourth is not until it has an achievement to present to the people of Gaza.

The IDF will keep up the relentless air pressure with the unspoken threat of launching a ground operation if Hamas and the other terror groups strike at Tel Aviv or other strategic areas.

Beyond that little is clear, for Hamas knows that Israel does not want to topple the regime entirely and usher in an era of chaos in the Gaza Strip, and Israel knows that it is very difficult to score points against a terror organization reared on the ethos of suicide and dispersed among one of the most densely populated civilian areas in the world.

“This is the beginning of an event and not the end,” Barak said, adding that the IDF was prepared “to broaden” the operation.

The initial airstrike, at 4 pm Wednesday afternoon, required both terrific intelligence work and incredibly fast cooperation between the Shin Bet and the Air Force.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Eitan Ben-Eliyahu, the commander of the Air Force from 1996-2000, said on Channel 2 news that in this case, much like the assassination of Hamas spiritual leader and founder Ahmed Yassin in 2004, the Air Force probably didn’t have more than 20 seconds to execute the strike.

Jabari was traveling along with his son on Omar al-Mukhtar St. in central Gaza. The mere fact that he had managed to head the Murabiton, Hamas’ army, for the better part of 10 years means that he was not a foolhardy individual. He did not talk much, if at all, on the phone. He kept careful company. He did not repeat his movements day after day. Otherwise he would have met his end long before.

For the Shin Bet to be able to deliver the commander of the military wing at the start of a serious military confrontation is a startling achievement. One need only compare it to the fate of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Taliban on the eve of the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan, who is reportedly still alive and well.

But the second part of the strike may even be more significant (depending on whether Jabari proves to have been an irreplaceable commander in the image of Hezbollah’s military chief Imad Mughniyeh). Within minutes the IDF wiped out “the majority” of Hamas’s Fajr rockets, Barak said.

Such a strike requires enormous amounts of accurate intelligence, painstakingly assembled and verified, since organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah hide their strategic weapons amid the civilian population.

The IDF carried out a similar strike during the night of July 12-13, 2006, when the Second Lebanon War began. In the space of 34 minutes the IAF managed to wipe out the majority of Hezbollah’s medium and long range rockets.

The IDF Spokesperson at the time, Brig. Gen. (res.) Miri Regev (now a Likud MK), said that had she known about the success of what was codenamed Operation Mishgal Seguli, on the first night of the war, she could have created sufficient media leverage to end the war then and there.

This time the IDF Spokesperson’s Office published the achievement immediately.

But the situation, of course, is different.

Israel has eliminated Hamas’s chief of staff. “The first thing they’ll do is seek revenge,” said a former deputy commander of the Shin Bet, MK Yisrael Hasson, on Army Radio, indicating that the organization will make a desperate and steadfast attempt to launch rockets into Israel or draw Israeli blood in some other fashion.

The second stage for Hamas, Hasson said, would be to cling “to their strategic holdings, the deterrence they have achieved with Israel.”

This means that it is extremely unlikely we will see Hamas calling for a ceasefire in the near future. It cannot afford to seem weak — even at the cost of an operation that is sure to end with a severely lopsided body count.