WarSclerotic

IDF quietly carves out 1-3km security strip while pulling troops out of Gaza. A humanitarian truce declared.

Debka

After withdrawing the bulk of its ground troops from the Gaza Strip in a “new phase” of its counter-terror operation, Israel declared a unilateral humanitarian ceasefire for seven hours starting 10 a.m. Monday, Aug. 4 to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid and for displaced Palestinians to return to their homes. Eastern Rafah was not included. The IDF would respond to any attacks during that time.

But on the quiet, the IDF was on the process of conducting a major strategic operation, carving out a buffer strip or cordon sanitaire just inside the Gaza border, designed to be controlled from outside by special forces and armored units on round-the-clock alert, to bar hostile infiltrations. They are equipped with a battery of firing posts, sensors and drones.

This sterile strip runs 65km from Beit Hanoun in the north to Khan Younis in the south, roughly following one of Gaza’s only motorways, Highway 6 (see map).

All the territory east of this line up to the Israeli border has been cleared of buildings and vegetation to a depth of 1 km in the north and center of Gaza and 2-3 km deep in such areas as Khan Younis.
These dimensions were calculated to reduce Palestinian rocket fire against Israel’s southern communities, and deter Hamas from planning new tunnels.
The Israel troops pulled out of Gaza are redeploying in a new formation as a “breakthrough force” – able to cross back into Gaza for rapid response operations if necessary. It is made up of large armored units, special operations contingents and air force, and is highly mechanized rather than fielding soldiers on foot. This force is capable of raids that penetrate deeper into the territory than ventured by the IDF in the first 27 days of Operation Defensive Edge.

For the new phase of its operation, the Netanyahu government has determined to have no truck with the Hamas terrorists and, irrespective of its demands and terms for a ceasefire, to act on its own initiative in accordance with Israel’s own security needs.  This policy has impacted on the Gaza truce negotiations which go into their second day in Cairo Monday. Their participants cannot avoid appreciating that Israel has followed its own operationall plans for redeployment outside the Gaza Strip.

At the same time, military experts warn that the new military formation opens up the prospect of a prolonged war of attrition. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are keeping up their rocket and mortar fire on Israel – up to 140 Sunday alone. After a quiet night, the first rockets were intercepted by Iron Dome over Ashdod and Ashkelon at 6:30 a.m. Monday.

The threat of “synchronized” terror attacks through still undiscovered tunnels has been sharply reduced by the massive IDF effort to disable the network – but there is no guarantee that all of the tunnels have been discovered, or that new ones are not being burrowed under the border.
Saturday night, three dusty motorcycles were pulled out of the 3-km long Rafah tunnel through which suicide bombers surprised and killed three Givati officers Thursday 90 minutes into an international ceasefire. They were intended for use by six terrorists for a raid or raids far from the immediate environs of the Gaza border.

So Hamas still holds the advantage of nasty surprise.

Israel spied on Kerry’s calls during 2013 peace talks, magazine reports
Published August 03, 2014·
FoxNews.com

How about 2014?-LS

Israel’s intelligence service intercepted Secretary of State John Kerry’s phone calls during 2013 Middle East peace negotiations, according to the German publication Spiegel.

Intelligence agents from another country also could have overheard Kerry’s conversations as he tried to help reach a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, several sources reportedly told the publication.

The reported allegations are being made during a difficult time between the United States and Israel, with Kerry being accused of favoring Hamas in recent negotiations to end a 27-day conflict between Israel and the Palestinian-backed Islamic terror group.

In addition, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly was upset with the White House recently for trying to force a temporary cease-fire between the sides.

And on Sunday, the State Department issued a statement critical of an Israel missile attack in the Hamas-occupied Gaza strip that apparently struck a humanitarian facility sheltering 3,000 people displaced from the conflict.

Agency spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the United States was “appalled” by the attack Sunday, which purportedly killing 10 Palestinian civilians.

“We once again stress that Israel must do more to meet its own standards and avoid civilian casualties,” she said.

The agency did not respond to a request to verify the alleged eavesdropping on Kerry.

Kerry reportedly used encrypted and non-secured phone lines during the talks. And the signals were intercepted when being transmitted unencrypted via satellite, the publication reports.

UNRWA School Déjà Vu – Again, the Media Uncritically Reports Lies, Algemeiner, August 3, 2014

Photo: Elder of Ziyon.

(“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” Mark Twain. — DM)

Most of the most recent reports are already walking back from the charge that the school was hit, since it wasn’t. It remains to be seen if the reporters at the scene will actually try to ferret out the truth. Given the false initial reports, the chances for that are pretty small.

On January 6, 2009, during Operation Cast Lead, the BBC (and every other news outlet) reported:

At least 40 people were killed and 55 injured when Israeli artillery shells landed outside a United Nations-run school in Gaza, UN officials have said.

A number of children were among those who died when the al-Fakhura school in the Jabaliya refugee camp was hit, doctors at nearby hospitals said.

Some media said at the time that as many as 46 were killed. The UN was in the forefront of telling those number to the media.

By the time the Goldstone Report came around to the issue, the claims were downsized a bit to 24 people killed, and he admitted that the school wasn’t hit, but that Israeli fire hit outside the school. And Goldstone even admitted that he didn’t verify the figure of 24, but just accepted it from testimonies – testimonies that included known Hamas members.

Of course, at this point, people only remembered the initial lurid headlines.

The Goldstone report wasn’t accurate either. From combing through the casualties listed by PCHR, the dates and locations, double checking the names of the victims with known terrorists, and reports from witnesses who Goldstone didn’t bother to find, it is certain that there was serious mortar fire originating from the street outside the school and that at least three and possibly as many as 10 terrorists were killed in the Israeli retaliation.

That is much different from the initial, lurid, and utterly false headlines. But the truth didn’t get reported by any major media outlet.

Now, fast forward to today:

Ten Palestinians were killed on Sunday after Israeli shells hit a UN school in Rafahwhere thousands of people were sheltering from the ongoing Israeli offensive.

At least 30 were injured in the strike, according to Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra.

The Washington Post agrees:

A United Nations school was attacked in southern Gaza on Sunday, killing at least 10 and injuring more than 30, as Israeli shells continued to bombard southern Gaza, hours after President Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Hamas would pay “an intolerable price” for its assaults.

Was a school hit?

As Israel Matzav reports, some media are mentioning a slightly different story. From ITV:

A deadly air strike near a United Nations-run school in Gaza was targeting a vehicle outside the front gate of the school, a witness has told ITV News.

Well, that’s a little different, isn’t it?

Most of the most recent reports are already walking back from the charge that the school was hit, since it wasn’t. It remains to be seen if the reporters at the scene will actually try to ferret out the truth. Given the false initial reports, the chances for that are pretty small.

It will take some time to find out the facts, but as usual, reporters are rushing into quote known liars like UNRWA spokespeople and the Gaza Ministry of Health without any mention of their unreliable record – just as they did in 2009.

If the IDF targeted a car, and knowing that the IDF usually uses fairly small missiles to hit cars, it seems quite possible that the car was carrying explosives or rockets that went off and ended up hurting and killing people outside the school.

This doesn’t stop UNRWA officials from saying that Israel is targeting UN facilities deliberately.

The media laps it up, knowing that the IDF takes hours to investigate and make a statement because of the complexity of researching real facts rather than the ease of parroting ridiculous charges from known liars.