WarSclerotic

Monday night, June 30, the Israeli Air Force bombed 34 Hamas and Jihad Islami facilities in the Gaza Strip while, in the West Bank town of Hebron, soldiers demolished sections of buildings inhabited by the kidnappers who murdered the three Israeli teenagers Eyal Yifrach, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Frenkel.

Their bodies were found during the day abandoned in the field of a Palestinian village after a nerve-wracking 18-day hunt. The Israeli cabinet went into emergency session Monday night after the discovery and will continue sitting Tuesday to decide on fitting punishment for this shocking crime. Meanwhile, air force planes and drones struck 34 empty Hamas and Jihad Islami facilities in the Gaza Strip, from which the terrorists had fled to safety in good time.

debkafile: The ministers and army chiefs knew that the enemy, which kidnapped and murdered the three teens in cold blood, would again escape harm and, worst still, lose none of their capacity to continue harassing southern Israel with a rocket blitz.

And indeed, the Israeli air bombardment was followed immediately by three rockets launched from the Gaza Strip against the Eshkol District. They damaged buildings. There were no Israeli casualties.
The two Palestinian terrorist groups were making it clear that should Israel intensify its punishment for the boys’ murders, they too were fully capable of answering back with heavier and more precise guided rocket strikes against the Israeli population.

debkafile’s military sources: Both the IDF and Hamas-Gaza have evidently opted for a controlled confrontation until one of the two adversaries determines how to proceed next. Israel’s deliberations continue Tuesday amid pressing demands by Israelis, stunned by the tragedy, for action to hurt the terrorists where it counts and deter them from ever again abducting an Israeli.
The statement Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu issued from the cabinet meeting Monday night was a clear vow: “Hamas is responsible, and Hamas will pay.”

On the West Bank, Israeli soldiers early Tuesday razed sections of the Hebron homes of the two Hamas activists, Marwan Qawasmeh, 37, and Omar Abu Aysha, 33, who are held guilty of the kidnap and murder of the three Israeli boys. The attorney general who was first consulted ruled that the demolition of the large dwellings must be confined to the sections inhabited by the two men.

The half a million population of the Hebron district, where the kidnaps and murders took place, has been placed under lockdown for the hunt for the perpetrators, who have not been seen since the kidnapping occurred on June 10.

According to Israeli intelligence, they are still holed up somewhere in this district. At some points, Palestinian youths stormed the soldiers who opened fire to repel them.

Near Jerusalem, an Israeli woman of 21 was rescued from a house in Beit Jallah, which adjoins the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo, claiming she had been snatched by Palestinians. Heavy army and policy forces, moved into this Palestinian location to retrieve her. Her claim is being investigated.

In a separate incident, Israeli soldiers on a counter-terror operation in the Jenin refugee camp further north came under attack. A Palestinian mob hurling firebombs, rocks, explosives and iron bars was broken up when the Israeli soldiers began shooting. One of the assailants was shot dead.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was on the phone to world leaders Monday night and early Tuesday to plead with them to hold Israel, driven to retaliate for the teenagers’ murders, in check.

No decisions were reached in Ramallah about the future of the unity government Abbas sealed with Hamas last month.

In his message of condolences to the Israeli nation, US President Barack Obama urged “all parties to “refrain from steps that could further destabilize the situation” and encouraged Israel and the Palestinians “to work together to find those responsible for the crime with US support.”