WarSclerotic

Source: After 130 rockets fired from Gaza, Israelis wake to tentative calm – Arab-Israeli Conflict – Jerusalem Post

Sirens sounded in southern Israeli towns and cities throughout the night. House in Netivot suffered direct hit.

Israeli policemen walk past a kindergarten yard damaged by mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip in a Kibbutz on the Israeli side of the Israeli-Gaza border, May 29, 2018.. (photo credit: REUTERS/AMIR COHEN)

Palestinian militants launched their heaviest barrages against Israel since the 2014 Gaza war on Tuesday and Israeli aircraft struck back, in a surge of fighting after weeks of border violence.

Following scores of militant rocket and mortar launches throughout the day countered by Israeli tank fire and air strikes, the pro-Iran Islamic Jihad militant group said late Tuesday night that an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreement had been implemented, but Israel said reports of a deal were untrue.

“Palestinian factions will abide by calm as long as (Israel) abides by it,” Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shehab said. An Israeli official who declined to be named said, “The report about a ceasefire is incorrect.”

According to Palestinian media reports Wednesday morning, a ceasefire was put in place around 5 a.m., although this has not been confirmed by the Israelis. Sirens which had been blaring regularly throughout the night, petered off as day broke in the region. As a result of the cautious calm, Israeli schools in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip are open and operating normally.

Israeli sirens warning of imminent rocket and mortar strikes sounded all throughout the night in communities surrounding the Gaza Strip. Most of the projectiles were either intercepted by Israel’s advanced Iron Dome missile defense system or landed in open fields. In one case, however a home in the city of Netivot was directly hit, but no one was injured. In response to the fire, Israeli aircraft hit 55 militant targets in the Palestinian coastal enclave, including a cross-border tunnel under construction, the military said.

Over 130 rockets and mortars were fired towards Israel throughout Tuesday and into early Wednesday morning. Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said the most extensive strikes from Gaza since the 2014 war had drawn “the largest IDF retaliatory attack” since that conflict.

Several militant projectiles were shot down by Israel’s Iron Dome rocket interceptor system, others landed in empty lots and farmland. One exploded in a kindergarten yard, damaging walls and scattering debris and shrapnel around the playground, about an hour before it was scheduled to open for the day.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened security chiefs on Tuesday, and Intelligence Minister Israel Katz said the country was “at the closest point to the threshold of war” since the seven-week conflict with Palestinian militants four years ago.

“If the firing (from Gaza) does not stop, we will have to escalate our responses and it could lead to a deterioration of the situation,” Katz said on Army Radio.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the Fatah faction that is dominant in the occupied West Bank and is a bitter rival of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, said Israel had used “vigorous aggression” against Gaza that proved it did not want peace.

Various international leaders have condemned the day’s events, with the US calling for an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting set to take place Wednesday afternoon.

Nickolay Mladenov, the United Nations’ special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said he was deeply concerned by “the indiscriminate firing of rockets by Palestinian militants from Gaza towards communities in southern Israel.”

Amid international condemnation of its use of lethal force at the mass demonstrations that began on March 30, Israel said many of the dead were militants and that the army was repelling attacks on the border fence.

Source: Hamas must choose between war or peace ‎ – Israel Hayom

Yoav Limor

This week’s mortar fire on southern Israel is the ‎gravest security escalation on the Israel-Gaza Strip ‎border since Operation Protective Edge in ‎the summer of 2014, but Israeli defense officials ‎believe Israel and Gaza can still avoid a ‎full-fledged ‎military conflict, saying the choice of ‎what happens next is in Hamas’ hands. ‎

This escalation did not happen overnight. It began ‎with the failure of the so-called “million-man march” ‎Hamas planned to unleash on the border two weeks ago ‎to mark Nakba Day, which commemorates the ‎‎”catastrophe” of Palestinian displacement during ‎Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. The “million men” ended up being only several thousand. Since then, ‎Hamas’ border riot campaign has also been dwindling.‎

To try to maintain friction with Israeli security ‎forces, Hamas has spared no effort to turn the ‎border area into a terrorist zone, and has ‎given its operatives – and Palestinian protesters – ‎a free hand to carry out terrorist attacks, including ‎hurling firebombs, sending incendiary kites and ‎balloons over the border, and placing explosives on ‎the security fence. ‎

Israeli shelling in response to one of these attacks killed ‎three Islamic Jihad operatives. The terrorist group ‎claimed responsibility for Tuesday morning’s salvo, ‎citing retaliation, but there is no doubt Hamas gave it the green light. ‎

Hamas, which rules Gaza, gambled that Israel would ‎mount the obligatory measured response and that this would end the current round. This is why Hamas ‎operatives were not involved in any rocket fire then.‎

But Israel mounted a large response instead, striking ‎dozens of terror hubs and destroying a Hamas ‎terror tunnel in southern Gaza. Hamas was pressured ‎to respond, both by its own members and the other ‎terrorist groups in Gaza, and, in a bid to maintain ‎control, it decided to join the ‎fire spree.‎

One defense official called it the “Fatah syndrome,” ‎saying that Hamas’ biggest fear is being ‎perceived – like rival faction Fatah – as doing ‎nothing to take part in the Palestinian struggle.‎

Still, Hamas made it clear to its operatives that ‎their fire must be limited to the Israeli communities near the border and that they must avoid a wider range that could ‎compromise larger cities such as Ashdod, Beersheba ‎and even Tel Aviv. ‎

Israeli defense officials debated the intensity of ‎Israel’s response, but it was widely believed that ‎decisive action was needed to make it clear to Hamas ‎that a red line had been crossed. ‎

From a public diplomacy standpoint, Israel placed ‎responsibility for the escalation in the south on ‎Hamas, which controls Gaza, and on Iran, ‎which sponsors it and spurs it into action. ‎Islamic Jihad was also condemned to a lesser ‎degree, despite its direct involvement. Israel was careful and sought to avoid Palestinian ‎casualties as much as possible. ‎

The Israeli response was meant mostly to give Hamas the necessary ‎leeway to contain the situation before it spirals ‎out of control. Naturally, the IDF is ready for ‎that to happen, but it still prefers to avoid a ‎wide-ranging military campaign if possible.‎

Egypt and Qatar played roles as brokers Tuesday, to little effect. The decision of where to go ‎from here remains in Hamas’ hands. If it mounts a ‎minor response to the IAF’s strikes in Gaza, Israel will be able to pull back. But if the mortar ‎and rocket salvos continue, the IDF will retaliate ‎forcibly and things could easily deteriorate from ‎there. ‎

The prevailing view in Israel is that Hamas has no ‎interest in such escalation, but its conduct ‎currently is confused and erratic, which is a recipe for ‎mistakes. ‎

Even if an escalation is avoided, this ‎is hardly the end of the story. Gaza is on the ‎brink of eruption for a variety of reasons, most ‎notably the dire economic and humanitarian ‎situation, coupled with growing political and ‎political frustration. Given Hamas’ failure to ‎provide Gazans with any solutions, it can go on one ‎of two paths: a cease-fire or war. Both options are still on the table.‎

Source: Hamas’ junior partner, Iran’s hidden hand – Israel Hayom

Dr. Eran Lerman

Col. (ret.) Dr. Eran Lerman, former deputy director of the National Security Council, is the vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies.

Source: Losing the Democrats – Israel Hayom

Zalman Shoval

A group of 76 Democratic U.S. Congress members has sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking that Israel stop demolishing homes in the Palestinian village of Susya, beyond the Green Line.

“These actions unilaterally change facts on the ground and jeopardize the prospects for a two-state solution,” as well as Israel’s chances of remaining a Jewish, democratic state, they wrote.

Although the two-state idea is irrelevant right now and the homes are being demolished because of security considerations – and the demolitions require the approval of the High Court of Justice – this is of no particular interest to Jewish Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, one of the signatories. Unsurprisingly, she has the support of the leftist group J Street, which takes an anti-Israeli stance on almost every issue, including the nuclear deal with Iran.

Despite its bias, the letter itself was not particularly disturbing, other than the fact that everyone who signed it was from the Democratic Party, which in the not-too-distant past was considered a consistent supporter of Israel. One of the main reasons for this shift, possibly the most important one, is that President Donald Trump, who is loathed by the liberal Left, supports Israel, making support for Israel a target in the intensifying conflict between the American political camps.

Unlike in the past, when support for Israel in the U.S. was bilateral, the Trump administration’s support amid the heated relations between the two political poles have made Israel into a legitimate target for attack in the eyes of the left wing in the Democratic Party. Democratic politicians were notably absent from the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. Rather than admit that Democratic presidents, as well as Republican, had gone back on their promises to relocate the embassy, Democratic lawmakers preferred to punish Israel for Trump’s “sin” of actually living up to his commitment.

Shalom Lipner, a research fellow at the liberal Brookings Institute in Washington, published an article last Tuesday titled “Netanyahu’s risky romance with Trump.” One of his supposed pieces of proof is the similarity of the U.S.’s and the Netanyahu government’s stances on Iran. Even though even Netanyahu’s political opponents in Israel see the issue as one of existential significance, if it’s Trump who takes action against the Iranian threat, that is apparently out of bounds. Lipner disparages what he calls “short-term gains,” but forgets that reining in Iranian aggression is the opposite of “short-term,” and it is obvious that Israel can breathe a sigh of relief after eight years of a U.S. president who had a negative stance toward Israel from his first day in office.

It could be that the current good relations with the Trump administration won’t last forever. There is also no way of knowing what the U.S. Congress will look like five months from now, after the 2018 midterm elections, or how the next presidential election will turn out. This is why the internal fight between the center and the populist Left in the Democratic Party should be a concern, especially given that judging by some of the party primaries, the Left could gain strength. Not all of them are necessarily anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian, but their traditional emotional connection to Israel is far from a sure thing.

Israel has no desire to become part of the American domestic political game, and it hopes that the Jews there will differentiate between their interests and positions as Americans and their identification with Israel. Israel’s strengthening ties with the evangelical Christian community are a thorn in the side of many American Jews. But the evangelicals are natural partners, not because of their opinions on religion and the end of days, but because of their worldview on Israel. The fact that there are millions of African-American and Hispanic evangelicals is also important.

Some of the evangelical slogans are certainly not to our taste, and it is clear that evangelicals can never replace the connection Israel, as the Jewish state, has with U.S. Jewry, but the practical partnership with them is a political asset that every Israeli government should foster.

Source: As Gaza front cools, Iran and Syria move on their next flashpoint – Quneitra – DEBKAfile

Source: IDF destroys 2km long Hamas terror tunnel entering into Israel

The tunnel, an army official said in a briefing, was intended for both smuggling operations and terrorism. “It was the tenth tunnel we destroyed,” the official said. “It was under construction by Hamas and had yet to be completed. We attacked its shafts on the Rafah side.”The official expounded that the tunnel was “irregular in its characteristics” and noted it was two kilometers in length overall. “It’s an extremely long tunnel,” the official revealed. “It had exit shafts on the Egyptian side. It was handled with aerial assaults and in the coming hours the portion crossing into Israel will also be dealt with to complete its neutralization.”

The Hamas tunnel running under Kerem Shalom was used for both smuggling and terrorism (Photo: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)

IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Ronen Manelis added that Egypt was apprised of the tunnel’s existence before the army began destroying it.

“This was a dual-use tunnel, both for smuggling and terrorism,” he said, adding it was designed to “bypass (Israel’s border security) fence. In fact, it creates a bypass route through Egypt into Israeli territory. It also allows smuggling from Egypt into the Gaza Strip and carrying out terror attacks inside Israel.”

(Photo: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)

The IDF spokesperson noted called the tunnel’s length “exceptional,” and noted it was “constructed according to building code the Hamas uses to build its tunnels.”

Before speaking on the tunnel, the IDF divulged that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group was behind the salvo of dozens of mortar shells fired at Israeli communities near the Gaza border earlier in the day.

(Photo: Reuters)

“We’ve pinpointed 30 mortars with certainty and deduced the rest were machinegun bullets,” the official said. Apart from the dozens of mortars, the IDF added that several 107 millimeter Iranian rockets were fired as well, with the IDF calling it the “most serious incident since Operation Protective Edge. The Islamic Jihad is endangering civilians in our communities.”

(Photo: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)

In response to the morning salvo, an IDF spokesman said the army retaliated by attacking more than 30 terror targets around the strip, belonging to both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, including weapons storehouses, outposts and a Hamas tunnel in the southern strip.

“Hamas has been allowing groups to carry out attacks in the fence’s vicinity since Nakba Day (May 15). Hamas has felt a sense of failure at reaching the fence and therefore over the past two weeks there has been a change in the number of terror groups reaching the fence under Hamas’s direction,” the official said.

The IDF attacked some 30 terror targets around the strip Tuesday (Photo: AFP)

The army spokesman then went on to clarify the Gaza-ruling terror group was steering events in the strip. “This morning’s mortar bombs were intercepted by the Iron Dome, which demonstrates (Israel’s) technological advancement, but (coverage is) still not hermetic,” he said.

An IDF official later specified that the Iron Dome system intercepted 25 mortars of the dozens launched from Gaza, which nevertheless led to five Israelis being wounded lightly to moderately.

The army later reiterated its instruction for Israelis residing on the Gaza perimeter to remain within 15 seconds of shelters at all times.

IDF bombings in Gaza

The official concluded his statement by saying “Hamas will decide the direction the coming days take. Hamas allows the fire, turns a blind eye or is party to it. Hamas is not interested in escalation and yet allows the incidents to continue.”

“This is unprecedented fire,” he added. “Just like Hamas preserved calm, it now allows the noise and will face the consequences for that.”

Source: Dozens of rockets and mortars fired into Israel overnight, several intercepted | The Times of Israel

Israel hits some 25 Hamas targets including drone facility, rocket manufacturing plant, advanced weapons depot, military compounds, training camps and weapons factories

Flames from rockets fired by Palestinians are seen over Gaza Strip heading toward Israel , early Wednesday, May 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

Thousands of Israelis spent the night in bomb shelters as terrorist in the Gaza Strip fired some 40 rockets and mortars at communities near the coastal enclave early Wednesday, with several of them being intercepted by Iron Dome. There were no reports of injuries.

The IDF said that rockets and mortars were fired at the Eshkol, Sha’ar Hanegev and Sdot Negev regions and that Iron Dome intercepted several of them, while the rest fell in open areas.

The army did not give the number of launches, but Hebrew media reports said there were more than 40.

Sirens also went off in other regions including the city of Ashkelon and the town of Netivot, but the IDF said they appeared to be false alarms and they were investigating the cause.

Earlier in the evening fragments of a rocket that had apparently been intercepted by the Iron Dome landed in a sports facility in the southern town of Netivot.

The shards of the projectile caused light damage to a number of structures, but no injuries. One woman, who was close by at the time, was said to have suffered a panic attack.

A video, shared by Channel 10 news on social media, showed a cloud of smoke coming out of the area following the impact.

Despite the attacks, schools in the region were set to open on schedule Wednesday morning.

Late Tuesday Israeli warplanes hit some 25 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip in a second wave of retaliatory strikes, the army said, as Palestinian terror groups continued to fire mortars and rockets into Israel.

Midnight came and went with no signs of a reported ceasefire deal to end a day of cross-border attacks that began with a barrage of mortar shells from Gaza into southern Israel. Terror groups in the Gaza Strip said the agreement had been reached under Egyptian mediation, while Israeli officials denied a truce had been agreed upon.

The military said fighter jets, helicopters and other aircraft bombed a Hamas drone facility, rocket manufacturing plant, advanced weapons depot, military compounds, training camps and weapons factories.

Smoke rises following Israeli strikes on Gaza City, early Wednesday, May 30, 2018. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired at least 50 rockets and mortars into southern Israel on Tuesday, the largest barrage since the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

Video from Gaza showed large explosions rocking the area as aircraft were heard roaring overhead.

This was the second round of strikes carried out by the IDF in response to mortar and rocket fire from Gaza. On Tuesday, Israeli aircraft targeted approximately 40 positions in the Gaza Strip belonging to the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups.

Earlier, Hamas and the Iran-backed Islamic Jihad released a joint statement claiming responsibility for the dozens of rockets and mortar shells fired at southern Israel throughout the day.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for all violence emanating from the coastal enclave, that it has ruled since 2007.

“Hamas chooses to act against the interests of the residents of the Strip and, after it failed with its violent riots along the security fence, has decided to launch and to allow the launch of numerous projectiles at Israeli citizens,” the army said in a statement.

IDF Spokesperson Ronen Manelis said at an evening press conference that the army was prepared to intensify its retaliatory raids if Hamas and Islamic Jihad continued to launch projectiles at Israel — which they did.

“The IDF is prepared for a number of scenarios, is determined to act against terrorist operatives and will continue to fulfill its mission of defending the citizens of Israel,” the army said.

The conflicting reports on a ceasefire came as Gazans continued shooting barrages of projectiles at southern Israel, capping a day that saw over 70 rockets and mortars fired at communities near the Gaza border.

An Islamic Jihad said spokesman said a “ceasefire agreement was reached with Israel to return to calm.”

He told AFP that Gaza’s rulers Hamas were also committed to it.

The Shehab news outlet, which is affiliated with the Hamas terrorist group, reported that Egypt helped broker the agreement, which was supposed to come into force at midnight, and which was based on the truce reached at the end of the 2014 Gaza war.

An Israeli Air Force F-15 takes off during the Blue Flag air exercise at the Ovda air force base, north of the Israeli city of Eilat, on November 8, 2017. (Jack Guez/AFP)

But a senior Israeli official denied that a deal had been reached.

“The reports of a ceasefire are not correct,” the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Earlier Israeli news reports said Egypt was attempting to mediate an end to the military escalation in the Gaza Strip and had urged Palestinian terror groups to halt their attacks on Israel.

Hadashot TV news reported that Egyptian intelligence had contacted Hamas and Islamic Jihad and urged them to rein in projectile fire in order to prevent the violence from spiraling into a larger conflict.

Egypt had been instrumental in calming tensions in the Strip earlier this month, after clashes during violent protests along the border led to the deaths of 62 Palestinians, at least 53 of them members of terror organizations.

Tuesday saw at least 70 rockets and mortar shells launched into Israel from Gaza, as well as dozens of retaliatory strikes by the IDF against terror targets in the Strip, after weeks of soaring tensions in the region stemming from weekly protests on the border. In an early morning mortar shell barrage, one shell exploded in the yard of a kindergarten shortly before children arrived.

A picture taken from Gaza City on May 29, 2018, shows a smoke billowing in the background following an Israeli air strike on the Palestinian enclave. (AFP PHOTO / THOMAS COEX)

Israeli officials and Hamas and Islamic Jihad both sent out signals Tuesday evening that they were uninterested in a further escalation of violence, even as sporadic rocket fire trickled out of the Strip after sundown.

“We are not set on escalating the situation, but the Israel Defense Forces will respond forcefully to all fire from the Strip and will exact a price,” a senior Israeli official said, after a top-level emergency meeting convened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups, jointly responsible for the hours of salvos of rockets and mortar rounds at Israel, released similar messages through Palestinian media, saying they were not interested in escalating the situation but that “you must be stupid to think that we won’t retaliate.”

Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz told Army Radio the cross-border violence could potentially intensify.

He said Israel was closer to war than it had been since 2014, when the country fought a punishing 50 day war with Gaza-led fighters that the enclave has yet to recover from.

“We don’t want war and neither do they, but we have our red lines,” Katz said.

The site where a mortar shell from Gaza hit a kindergarten in southern Israel, near the border with Gaza on May 29, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Meanwhile the US requested an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss Palestinian attacks on Israel, the US mission said.

The council was scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss the cross-border violence.

“The recent attacks out of Gaza are the largest we have seen since 2014,” US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said in a statement. “The Security Council should be outraged and respond to this latest bout of violence directed at innocent Israeli civilians, and the Palestinian leadership needs to be held accountable for what they’re allowing to happen in Gaza.”

The international community was largely supportive of Israel throughout Tuesday, condemning terror group’s salvos of rockets and mortars on civilian populations, while calling on both sides to work towards calm.

IDF attacks terrorist targets in Gaza hours after barrage of 80 rockets and mortars.