Posted tagged ‘Islam’

Syria could work with West against ‘terror’

August 25, 2014

Syria could work with West against ‘terror’

Syrian FM says Damascus open to co-operation at both regional and international level to combat Islamic State fighters.

Last updated: 25 Aug 2014 13:34

via Syria could work with West against ‘terror’ – Middle East – Al Jazeera English.

 

Muallem said Syria must be involved in co-ordinating any air strikes against the Islamic State in Syria [AP]
 

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has said that his country is ready to work with the international community to battle against “terrorists” within the framework of a recent UN resolution.

In a news conference in Damascus on Monday, he also warned that Syria must be involved in co-ordinating any air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria, after the US said it was considering extending operations into Syrian territory.

“Syria is ready for co-operation and co-ordination at the regional and international level to fight terrorism and implement UN Security Council resolution 2170,” Muallem said.

He confirmed, in response to a question, that the country’s willingness to do so would extend to co-operating with the US and the UK.

Muallem added that Syria was willing to participate in such efforts as part of a regional or international coalition, or on the basis of bilateral cooperation.

However, he noted: “We must feel that the co-operation is serious and not double standards.

“Any violation of Syria’s sovereignty would be an act of aggression.”

Al Jazeera’s Rula Amin, reporting from Akkar, in neighbouring Lebanon said the successes of the Islamic State group were pushing old rivals into allies.

The self-declared jihadist Islamic State group has made advances in several parts of Syria, including most recently Raqqa province, where it seized the army’s last provincial outpost on Sunday.

The UN Security Council passed a rare unanimous resolution on August 15 intended to weaken armed groups in Iraq and Syria by choking off their funding and stemming the flow of foreign fighters.

The resolution targeted both the Islamic State group and al-Nusra Front, which is al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.

Syria’s government considers not only these two groups, but all those fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad to be “terrorists”.

Meanwhile on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov urged Western and Arab governments to overcome their distaste for Assad and engage with him to fight the Islamic State.

“I think Western politicians are already realising the growing and fast-spreading threat of terrorism,” Lavrov said, referring to Islamic State advances in Syria and Iraq.

“And they will soon have to choose what is more important: a [Syrian] regime change to satisfy personal antipathies, risking deterioration of the situation beyond any control, or finding pragmatic ways to unite efforts against the common threat.”

Russia has been Assad’s most prominent international backer in the civil war that broke out in early 2011 and in which the US and the West, as well as many Gulf and Arab states, backed the rebels seeking to oust him

Israel News – Report: 3 killed in Gaza liquidation

August 25, 2014

Report: 3 killed in Gaza liquidation

The Palestinian report that IDF attacked a vehicle in Shuja’iyya, killing three

Aug 25, 2014, 04:08PM | Yael Klein

via Israel News – Report: 3 killed in Gaza liquidation – JerusalemOnline.

Hamas is getting desperate, no more arguments , just screaming nazi and holocaust !

 

The targeted liquidation in Gaza, today Channel 2 News
 
 

The Palestinian report that IDF attacked a vehicle in Shuja’iyya, killing three. IDF deny Hamas’ claims of Israeli drone captivation. Meanwhile, a Palestinian source says that all the factions agreed to a month-long ceasefire. Israel confirms the existence of such an offer.

Fire at the South continues along with IDF bombings in Gaza: the Palestinians report that IDF carried out a targeted liquidation around noon, hitting a vehicle in Shuja’iyya. According t the reports, three people were killed in the attack.

In an additional airstrike, IDF say, a number of terrorists were hit near Jabalian in Northern Gaza. IDF additionally attacked a launching pit in a school yard in Gaza out of which rockets were fire at Israel today.

Earlier today Hamas claimed they caught an IDF drone. IDF rushed to deny the report claiming it to be wrong.

Meanwhile, the new Egyptian version of a ceasefire draft awaits the sides’ approval. According to the Egyptian proposal, an immediate fire will take place in the course of one month, upon which the Gaza crossings will be opened immediately.

Israeli officials say that they are familiar with the agreement and that Egypt has applied pressure on Hamas to accept its proposal. A Palestinian source told AFP news agency that all the Palestinian factions in Gaza have accepted the Egyptian proposal.

Hamas’ head of political bureau Khaled Mashal demanded the president of the US to interfere immediately in the ongoing crisis between Israel and Hamas, calling out to him to end the “holocaust against the Palestinians”, as he put it.

In an interview he provided under heavy security to news website Yahoo, Mashal addressed Obama asking him to display his responsibility in favor of stopping Israel. “I ask of you, as the leader of the world’s most powerful country, to speak out and end the Israeli aggression in Gaza”, Mashal said in English. “I ask you to call out to Israel to remove the blockage, open the crossings and rebuild Gaza. Those are our demands”.

Mashal later defined IDF’s action in Gaza as a “holocaust”, and even compared the heads of the Israeli leadership to those of Nazi Germany. “The kill thousands of civilians, children, women, destroy entire neighborhoods, mosques and hospitals”, Mashal claimed aggressively. “What is the difference between what they do and what the Nazis did in the 30’s and 40’s?”

UK and US special forces form hunter killer unit to “smash the Islamic State”

August 25, 2014

UK and US special forces form hunter killer unit to “smash the Islamic State”

Robert Spencer Aug 25, 2014 at 7:42am

via UK and US special forces form hunter killer unit to “smash the Islamic State” : Jihad Watch.

 

 

This will be interesting. Will these forces actually do what they have to do to topple the Islamic State, or will they be hampered by impossible politically correct rules of engagement that hamstring their ability to do much of anything beyond act as a shooting gallery for local jihadis, as in Afghanistan?

And will Muslim Brotherhood groups in the U.S. such as Hamas-linked CAIR that have issued vague and pro-forma denunciations of the Islamic State applaud this attempt to “smash” it, or will they start whining about the victimization of Iraqi civilians and disproportionate force?

“SAS and US special forces forming hunter killer unit to ‘smash Islamic State,’” by Aaron Sharp, Mirror, August 23, 2014:

Elite British and US special forces troops are forming a hunter killer unit called Task Force Black – its orders: “Smash the Islamic State.”

The undercover warriors will aim to “cut the head off the snake” by hitting the command structure of the Islamist terror group responsible for a trail of atrocities across Iraq and Syria, reports the Sunday People.

PM David Cameron has told the SAS and UK spy agencies to direct all their ­resources at defeating IS after a video of US journalist James Foley being beheaded shocked the world.

British special forces will work with America’s Delta Force and Seal Team 6. The move sees a rebirth of top secret Task Force Black, which helped defeat al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq .

This time the counter-terrorist ­experts will be targeting Abu Bakr ­al-Baghdadi, leader of IS and now the world’s most wanted terrorist.

A source said: “We need to go into Syria and Iraq and kill as many IS members as we can. You can’t ­negotiate with these people.

“This is not a war of choice. They are cash rich and have a plentiful ­supply of arms. If we don’t go after them, they will soon come after us.

“In Iraq, Task Force Black was carrying out strike operations every night.

“It was an unrelenting, intelligence-led assault on al-Qaeda. It took a lot of hard work and no small amount of sacrifice – but it worked.

“Defeating IS cannot be done by air strikes alone. You have to get on the ground and take out the commanders – cut off the snake’s head.

“The organisation will then begin to collapse. IS targets civilians and has yet to get into a real fight with a ­modern Western military.

“The SAS and US special forces will do untold damage to them.

“They’ll focus on the high command. This is going to be a long campaign, probably lasting years.

“And it will be like nothing the West has ever had to confront before.”

The new task force will comprise a squadron of the SAS, special forces aircrews from the RAF and agents from MI5 and MI6.

The operation will be led by America’s CIA spy agency….

Abu Mazen: “Set a Deadline for Israel to Withdraw from the West Bank”

August 25, 2014

Abu Mazen: “Set a Deadline for Israel to Withdraw from the West Bank”

Abu Mazen’s political program was revealed. In an interview provided to the Associated Press, Abu Mazen stated that he intends to contact political leaders in the west and the UN Security Council to compel Israel to give up the West Bank.

Aug 25, 2014, 03:00PM | Rivka Salomon

via Israel News – Abu Mazen: “Set a Deadline for Israel to Withdraw from the West Bank” – JerusalemOnline.

 

Abu Mazen at the UN Photo Credit: AP He can not find his hart.
 

Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen claimed that he has a surprising solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and now, the AP released their first details about it. According to sources close to him, he intends to appeal to the international community to place a deadline on Israel to withdraw to the 1967 Armistice Lines so that an independent Palestinian state can be established in the area.

Abu Mazen’s aid claimed that he intends to present the program shortly after the fighting during Operation Protective Edge ends. Abu Mazen is expected to officially present the program in a meeting with various leaders next Tuesday. The senior level officials refused to reveal the names in the framework of the interview with AP.

According to one of them, Abu Mazen “lost all illusions after over two decades of efforts to reach peace via negotiations that failed.” The Palestinian Authority Chairman is interested, according to the reports, in a prearranged date for Israel to leave the settlements in the West Bank. “This should occur through a mechanism that will compel Israel to end the occupation,” he stated.

In the background of the continued fighting in Gaza, which has claimed over 2,000 Palestinian lives, Abu Mazen started to look for other ways to get recognized by the international community, one that will allow him to make unilateral steps. In an interview he provided to Egyptian television over the weekend, he intends to present his political program to American and European leaders. According to his assistant, the program will include a UN Security Council resolution that will compel Israel to cease its control over the Palestinian Authority territory.

Islamic State captures key Syrian air base

August 25, 2014

Islamic State captures key Syrian air base

Hundreds reportedly killed as fighters storm the Tabqa base in northeast Syria, the army’s last foothold in the area.

Last updated: 25 Aug 2014 10:03

via Islamic State captures key Syrian air base – Middle East – Al Jazeera English.

 Watch the innocent civilians !!

 

Fighters from the Islamic State group have taken over an airbase in northeast Syria, capturing it from government forces after fighting that cost more than 500 lives, a monitoring group and state media have said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a London-based rights group, said at least 346 Islamic State fighters and more than 170 government forces had been killed since Tuesday in the fight over the Tabqa base, which was captured by fighters on Sunday.

The SOHR, which monitors violence in Syria through sources on the ground, said fighting raged inside the air base throughout Sunday.

Syria’s official news agency said the military had withdrawn from the base after pitched battles and was still carrying out strikes.

The base was the Syrian army’s last foothold in an area otherwise controlled by the self-declared jihadist Islamic State group, which has seized large areas of Syria and Iraq.

It is one of the most significant government military facilities in the area, containing several warplane squadrons, helicopters, tanks, artillery and ammunition.

In nearby Raqqa city, an Islamic State stronghold, there was celebratory gunfire and the development was announced by several mosques through their loudspeakers, a witness told the Reuters news agency.

Fighters displayed the severed heads of Syrian army soldiers in the city square, the witness reportedly said, adding that Syrian warplanes were heard over Raqqa following the air base attack.

Earlier on Sunday the Syrian air force had bombed areas around the base.

The Observatory said that the base was strewn with bodies of “dozens” of soldiers.

Army forces ‘regrouping’

“After heavy fighting by the forces defending the Tabqa airport, our forces implemented a regrouping operation after the evacuation of the airport,” Syrian state television said on Sunday.

It added that army troops were launching “precision strikes” against “terrorist groups in the area, inflicting heavy losses”.

Syrian state media gave no figure for the number of people killed in the clashes.

Regime forces had repelled three previous attacks on the base in the previous week.

The Syrian army sent reinforcements to the base overnight on Friday to fight the Islamic State, which controls roughly a third of northern and eastern Syria, the Reuters news agency said.

The Islamic State also trapped around 150 retreating Syrian soldiers in an area near the base and was believed to be holding them captive, the Observatory said.

Many Islamic State fighters died after Syrian warplanes bombarded the area, the rights group added.

The Islamic State has taken three Syrian military bases in the area in recent weeks, boosted by arms seized in Iraq.

Tabqa is the last army stronghold in the Raqqa, after fighters captured Brigade 93 and Division 17 in the northern province, killing dozens of soldiers, many of whom were beheaded.

Raqqa province has become the stronghold of the Islamic State, which controls the provincial capital and has declared an Islamic “caliphate” in territory it holds in Syria and Iraq.

The group initially fought alongside Syrian opposition groups, but its abuses sparked a backlash from rebels who pushed it out of parts of northern Syria.

‘Hamas a less threatening enemy than previously estimated,’ Nahal intelligence officer tells

August 25, 2014

Hamas a less threatening enemy than previously estimated,’ Nahal intelligence officer tells ‘Post’

By YAAKOV LAPPIN 08/25/2014 14:31

Hamas operates from heart of civilian population center, but melts away in face of ground offensive, Maj. S says: “We did not encounter a single enemy commander in combat the moment the ground maneuver began.”

via ‘Hamas a less threatening enemy than previously estimated,’ Nahal intelligence officer tells ‘Post’ | JPost | Israel News.

Read This ! it opens up a lot of questions for me !

 

Nahal brigade in Gaza Photo: IDF SPOKESMAN’S OFFICE
 

When directly confronted on the ground, Hamas became a less threatening enemy than previously estimated, the Nahal infantry brigade’s chief senior intelligence officer, Maj. S (full name withheld for security reasons) told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

Nahal units remain deployed outside of Gaza together with other infantry divisions, as Israel currently fights a war of attrition with Hamas and limits itself to air power.

Maj. S recalled how Hamas “ran away from the battlefield” in northern Gaza after Nahal entered the Strip last month, as part of the army’s mission to destroy Hamas’s network of cross-border attack tunnels.

A small number of Hamas units in north Gaza did put up a serious fight, exhibited determination to engage the IDF, and killed a total of six Nahal soldiers during the ground offensive, Maj. S said. But “in comparison to what we expected, this was less. From the moment the ground offensive began in our sector of northern Gaza, the enemy ran away. Its commanders disappeared on the first day of the air campaign.

We did not encounter a single enemy commander in combat the moment the ground maneuver began.” Maj. S noted that this was a “complete antithesis” to the IDF’s tradition of placing commanders in forward positions in advancing units.

A few Hamas cells engaged in firefights with Nahal units, killing, among others, the commander of Nahal’s Gefen Battalion, 38-year-old Lt.-Col. Dolev Keidar, who Maj. S knew personally.

But on the whole, after Nahal entered Gaza and deployed significant firepower, Hamas failed to respond with an organized and prepared counter-strike against advancing IDF units, he said.

Hamas’s commanders remained in hideouts, while its regional battalion guerrillas hid in civilian population centers, from which they continued to direct projectile fire at Israel. “They fired from refugee camps, UNRWA schools, hospitals and mosques. All of these things are documented,” the intelligence officer said.

“The asymmetry between them and us is very large, not only in terms of operational techniques, but also in terms of values. We always try to deploy our forces far from Israeli communities to avoid exposing them to enemy fire. Hamas do the opposite, acting in the heart of their population center to use it as a human shield for their activities.

This creates many challenges,” Maj. S stated.

As the Nahal brigade’s intelligence officer, Maj. S holds daily situation evaluation meetings with field commanders, and acts as a bridge between Military Intelligence and the infantry brigade, ensuring that its officers are aware of the latest intelligence on Hamas.

“We have been in combat mode for almost 80 days. It began in Judea and Samaria, with Operation Brother’s Keeper [to search for the three Israeli teenagers kidnapped and murdered by Hamas near Hebron], and continued with Operation Protective Edge, which brought us to the Gaza sector,” he said. “Soldiers, commanders and reservists have seen very little of their homes during this period,” he added.

Maj. S carries out operational analyses of all aspects of combat. He makes use of a range of technological means to gain a picture of the challenges lying ahead.

“This includes evaluating the situation of the enemy before we enter combat, and while in combat, to understand its location, status, and plans,” Maj. S explained.

“These days, we can really track the enemy, and pass on alerts to units that are maneuvering in the field. We can then attack and destroy the threat with all the means at our disposal. We do all of this while tackling the challenge of directing our firepower at threats and seeking to avoid harming the Gazan civilian population, which is not tied to Hamas’s activity,” the officer said.

“We have dedicated a lot of energy and resources to try and prevent harm to noncombatants. We have been ordered to do this dozens of times, from the chief of staff to the brigade commander. Our orders are to seek out and confront our attackers, while avoiding harm to combatants,” he added.

“In order to achieve this, we have to have a grasp of the territory, on a variety of levels. To understand where the enemy is located, and to be equally aware of where it is not located. Then, we must direct our firepower precisely at the enemy and its infrastructure. We do this on the basis of intelligence gathered on threats, both before the conflict, and more recent intelligence, which is very dynamic. We get information from the bottom, sides, and from above,” Maj. S said, hinting at the sources of input at his disposal.

On the basis of the latest information, “We constantly evaluate the situation, and think about where it is better to focus our offensive efforts, and where we should be careful. Intelligence never rests,” he added.

Today, even the most junior field commanders receive relevant and valuable intelligence, Maj. S said.

Jihadi cancer thrives in London

August 25, 2014

Comment: Jihadi cancer thrives in London

By BEN CASPITLAST UPDATED: 08/25/2014 13:46

We’ve been told that if given welfare, education and comfortable lives that the bog of hatred from Islamic terror will dry, however in London this does not appear to be true.

via Comment: Jihadi cancer thrives in London | JPost | Israel News.

 

ISIS fighter Photo: REUTERS A Hummer at the background how comes ?

To British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond: I read what you wrote when you learned that “Jihadist John,” who decapitated American journalist James Foley, is London-born Majd Abed el-Bary, a British citizen.

According to you, Mr. Foreign Secretary, “sooner or later they will try to attack us on our own land” and you accused that same jihadist of “an utter betrayal of everything the British people stand for.” You added: “It is horrifying to think that the perpetrator of this heinous act could have been brought up in Britain.”

Tell me, Mr. Foreign Secretary, do you live in Britain? And if you do, are you deaf, blind and dumb? Because if you are not, I have to ask myself, what is it that so amazes and horrifies you? If you are indeed familiar with the UK, and take the occasional walk in London and try to walk through the neighborhoods and boroughs that Islamists have occupied in recent years, and try to understand what they are preaching to their congregations in those same mosques that are springing up like mushrooms after the rain, you really shouldn’t be surprised. Incidentally, Mr. Hammond, try doing it dressed like an Orthodox Jew.

I wonder if you’ll survive, and in what condition.

I don’t mean to mock you, Mr. Foreign Secretary, or the UK. Here in Israel we have enormous respect for Britain; because its leadership still knows how to discern between good and bad and I am sure that, in an anonymous poll, both Prime Minister David Cameron and yourself would vote for Israel in its war against Hamas. It would have to be anonymous because otherwise you are liable to pay too heavy a political price in your constituencies.

We can all count and we all know the number of Muslim citizens there are in the UK these days and how influential they are. Here in Israel there are quite a few staunch supporters of Britain; me included. We consider you to be among the more enlightened nations in the world. Not only were you a military and political empire, but you are also responsible for most of the cultural treasures, music, theater, art, innovation, humor and creativity known to man.

Only two months ago the Rolling Stones performed in Tel Aviv (it seems as if it was 20 years ago) and, despite the exorbitant price of tickets, they managed to draw an audience of 50,000 excited fans to Yarkon Park.

But, Mr. Foreign Secretary, the UK has not only cultural heroes, but a surplus of ordinary heroes.

We shall never forget that Britain was the first and only country to step up and look Hitler in the eye and not turn away; to fight Hitler against all odds and to beat him.

Then you had Winston Churchill, a highly admired leader to this day, even among the best of our own leaders. Britain has known strength, determination and survivability.

I wonder if you still have those traits, Mr. Hammond? I refer mainly to survivability. I am not sure.

Medically, there are still signs of life. What then are your chances of surviving the Islamic tsunami and preserving your culture, your character, your personality? I don’t know.

Your spirit lives, still, here and there. For example, a few weeks ago Hamas rockets threatened our international airport and caused panic that resulted in many airlines (led by the US, oddly enough) to cancel flights to and from Israel. It lasted a day-and-ahalf, until everyone realized that Ben-Gurion Airport is the safest in the world.

But in that time, British Airways proved that it is made of the same stern stuff as before and continued flying, did not delay or cancel a single flight, and rightly so. We salute them.

We visit London frequently, Mr. Hammond. Nothing beats British football, nothing like British music, theater, art, humor or the British spirit.

But these visits are becoming increasingly hard. Your streets have changed. You don’t need to be much of a researcher to know how dangerous the penetration of radical Islam is to Europe’s capitals; how overbearing Islam can be; how alien it is to tolerance, to acceptance of the other, to integrate into the existing culture.

Thirty minutes of surfing the Internet, Mr. Foreign Secretary, will reveal to you the horrifying worlds that are flourishing in your backyard.

You’ll see religious preachers, seeped in hatred for everything Western, for everything Jewish, for everything Christian, for everything that does not identify with them.

You’ll see fury in the streets, violence toward everyone who comes to demand the freedom to live as they wish. I especially recommend a video of an ostensibly moderate Muslim preaching his creed to a congregation of seemingly moderate Muslims and, after they have all finished defining themselves “moderate Muslims” he asks all those who support the Islamic laws of punishment – in which women are stoned to death for adultery, for example – to raise their arms. All the hundreds of men present raise their arms as one. And these are moderates.

For decades, we have been told that Islamic terror is the result of ignorance and poverty. Give them welfare, education, comfortable lives and you’ll dry the bog of hatred. Well, that’s not quite true. The al-Qaida terrorists who attacked America 13 years ago were immigrants who enjoyed very comfortable lives in the American democracy. Your own British citizen, Mr. Hammond, who beheaded the American journalist, came from an elegant Maida Vale home and a life of comfort.

It is hate, Philip, and nothing else; education to hate, to hate the other, to intolerance, to a thirst for blood and murder. And here we come to our mutual interests, Mr. Foreign Secretary.

Soon you will understand, for good or for bad, that Israel is not a burden on the West. Israel is not stuck here like a bone in a Muslim throat. Getting rid of Israel will solve nothing. I think you may have already understood that. All you need do is listen to radical Islam. It talks; sometimes in English. It is exact; it is accurate.

It declares and reiterates its real objective – to annihilate the West. To annihilate the infidels.

Not only in Syria, or Iraq, or the Middle East, but everywhere.

There is no need to chart the map of extremism and distinguish between Hamas and Islamic State, for example. They are arms of the same octopus. For 14 years, Hamas has been shooting rockets on women and children, even after Israel withdrew unilaterally from every last inch of the Gaza Strip. Why? Because they want to drive us out of here. How do I know this? They say so every day, explicitly, repeatedly.

So why is the world silent? Good question, Mr. Hammond.

You know that one day your own jihadists will come back home, don’t you? And it’s time to start doing something, isn’t it? To say something. Maybe, next time an incited mob demonstrates in the streets of London and calls for “Murder to Israel,” some brave British politician will stand up and tell these people the truth, in his voice, in his language.

Or, alternatively, imagine, Mr. Hammond, what would have happened if the next generation of Hitler’s murder machine had grown up in your own country, in your London?

Assessing The UN’s OCHA “Gaza Crisis Atlas 2014″ Report by Judge Dan

August 24, 2014

Assessing The UN’s OCHA “Gaza Crisis Atlas 2014″ Report

Posted by: Judge Dan August 24, 2014

via Assessing The UN’s OCHA “Gaza Crisis Atlas 2014″ Report by Judge Dan | Israellycool.

Please visit website for full scale maps

 

Last week, OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) published their “Gaza Crisis Atlas“.

It is a 100-page long, ready-for-print, PDF atlas of Gaza, showing the locations of schools, shelters, hospitals and other infrastructure, along with more than 12,000 points representing damage and destruction caused by the IDF air and ground assault during the first month of Operation Protective Edge (between July 9th and August 5th).

The Gaza Crisis Atlas is a planning tool intended to assist aid and development agencies in assessing and responding to humanitarian and reconstruction needs emanating from the conflict in the Gaza Strip. It is a vital tool for humanitarian and development organizations, but it is also a valuable resource for anyone operating in Gaza as well as those wanting to better understand the impact of the recent escalation of hostilities.

The Atlas includes printable A3-size maps featuring satellite images of all areas of the Gaza Strip. The main features / land marks were plotted on a high resolution satellite image captured on 6 July 2014. The Atlas was designed at the neighbourhood level to provide higher level of detail to support operational organizations to conduct needs assessments and programming.  The individual subset maps illustrate physical damages provided by UNOSAT based on analysis of satellite images from 14 August 2014. Location of shelters, health and education facilities in addition to other baseline information is all mapped.

I cannot independently verify the veracity of the damage reports and locations, or the methodology used by OCHA in collecting and classifying these sites. From going over these locations with satellite imagery, they are indeed overlapping structures and other compounds.

OCHA defined 4 qualitative severity levels

  1. Crater/Impact
  2. Moderately Damaged Structure
  3. Severely Damaged Structure
  4. Destroyed structure

Their maps are colour coded, and I’ve used this same symbology for my maps

OCHA Scale

It should be noted that these maps had a separate symbol for damaged hospitals and power stations, yet didn’t actually have a damage point on top of it. I’ve saved these with threat level “zero.”

I extracted the points and uploaded them in this easy to navigate Google Fusion Tables map, displayed by severity.

Here are those points extracted by severity (increasing from 0 & 1 on the left to level 4 on the right):

 

Gaza Damage points broken down by severity, click for full resolution

Several patterns are discernible:

The attacks are in no way “random” or “indiscriminate”. One can clearly see the spatial distribution of the damage in several aspects. We find 8,952 of the 12,433 total points (72%) are within a 3 KM buffer abutting the border with Israel. The main objective of Operation Protective Edge was to find and destroy dozens of terror tunnels dug from Gaza into Israel.

That the most intensive damage was caused to the area where the tunnels naturally originated is thus perfectly understandable. Furthermore, of the 4,441 destroyed structures, 3,481 of them (78%) are within the 3 KM buffer, as are 2,531 of 3,303 (77%) of the lowest intensity damage (simple craters), which are mostly strikes on rocket launchers and tunnels.

Most of the attacks are grouped around certain neighborhoods or villages, such as Shuja’iyya, Johur ad-Dik, Sureij, and Khuza’a. These were probably the result of the ground operations that took place in dense urban areas also within the 3 KM buffer that housed multiple tunnel entrances and shafts, as well as launch sites for mortars and rockets.

The IDF has published a map of known terrorist infrastructure in the neighborhood of Shuja’iyya. By overlaying the the IDF’s map with OCHA’s damage points, the correlation is uncanny. Furthermore, note how most of the strikes on farmlands are indeed classified as “Crater/Impact”.

 

OCHA Damage points overlayed over IDF map of Shuja’iyya, click of full resolution

Of the places that were attacked outside of the 3 KM buffer there are two of note. The primary one is the Philadelphi corridor that separates the Gaza Strip from Egypt (under which run many smuggling tunnels). Additionally, there is the southern Gaza city neighborhood of al-Zeitun, which was just recently used as the launching site of the mortar that killed 4 year old Daniel Targeman.

OCHA is focusing mainly on the civilian aspect, and has thus divided and analyzed the damage based on the 5 Gaza governorates and their subdivisions, tallying the data in several tables in the report. This analysis is missing the “big picture”, the overall intensity of the strikes.

Damage Intensity Heatmap

This heatmap was created with a weighted kernel density of the OCHA damage points, with the weight being the severity.

 

It now becomes very clear that most of the damage was caused to 5 locations right on the border with Israel. The rest of the Gaza Strip was, for the most part, undamaged. The main population areas of Gaza city, Jabaliya, Khan Yunes, Rafah and Deir el-Balah were disproportionately undamaged.

If we do a rough estimate of the damage area, it is once again clear the vast majority of the Gaza Strip was unscathed. With a fairly generous estimation that a damage point has a 25 meter radius – the footprint of a house, or the blast radius of a bomb – the total damage area of the 12,433 impacts was in the order of 15 KM2. The land area of the Gaza strip is 360 Km2. In other words, less than 5% of the land was affected.

One last point which should be noted: with roughly 15% of Hamas rockets and mortars falling short or misfired, it is safe to assume that a significant number of those damage points were not the result of Israeli air strikes, shelling, or detonations. This is not mentioned in the OCHA report.

In conclusion, in this post I tried to show some absolute data and geographical information beyond the online and printed hyperbole that we have seen in the past several weeks. While it is indeed upsetting that many uninvolved have been killed, the lopsided portrayal of the “IDF attacks on Gaza” is disingenuous. Israel has said from the get-go that it is targeting terrorists, and the spatial distribution of the damage points (from this third party source) proves the IDF’s claims of targeted attacks on terrorist infrastructure, whether they are in fields or in the middle of a neighborhood hijacked by Hamas.

I am more than willing to continue analyzing and investigating the OCHA dataset and am open to suggestions and remarks from others. I am sharing CSV with the full list of 12433 geocoded points in WGS84 D.d format including their severity level and the page they appeared on for easy indexing, and WKT Geometry field.

Disclaimers:

OCHA damage data, while not published in itself, is considered public domain and as such can be subject to fair use.

All other geographic data: roads, buildings, outlines and places are OSM data.

The Damage Intensity map is copyrighted and watermarked. You can share it with proper attribution to my post here at Israellycool with a link back to this post. If you would like further comment or to republish this work please contact judgedan48 [at] gmail.com

IDF: ‘Dear Gazans, Beware’

August 24, 2014

’Hamas’ actions , or lack of actions, in the next two days may determine if the IDF invades Gaza.

By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu

Published: August 24th, 2014

via The Jewish Press » » IDF: ‘Dear Gazans, Beware’.

 

Tens of thousands of leaflets advise Gaza residents to steer clear of terrorists.
Photo Credit: IDF

The Israeli Air Force dropped tens of thousands of leaflets on Gaza Saturday, warning them that any house connected with terrorists is a fair target.

The IDF has provided a translation of the leaflets:

“To the residents of Gaza,

“The IDF intends to attack terrorists and terror infrastructure across the Gaza Strip.

“Hamas leadership, while remaining in underground hiding, disregarding the civilians’ needs and wishes for tranquility, will be pursued.

“Israel is currently attacking, and will continue to attack, every area from which terror activities against Israel originate. Every house from which militant activity is carried out, will be targeted.

“For your own safety, prevent terrorists from utilizing your property for terror agendas, and stay away from every site in which terrorist organizations are operating.

“The IDF calls you to distance yourselves from where fire was directed at Israel. The IDF’s campaign has not​ been ​concluded.

“Beware

“Israeli Defense Forces”

A recorded message to Gaza residents stated, “Hamas leadership has decided to drag you to another battle. Prevent terrorists from utilizing your property for terror agendas, and stay away from every site in which terrorist organizations are operating.”

Minister Erdan in a Powerful Message to Hamas: “We Are Nearing a Ground Operation”

August 23, 2014

Minister Erdan in a Powerful Message to Hamas: “We Are Nearing a Ground Operation”Against the background of the ongoing fire, Israel sends a powerful message to Hamas:

In an interview with Channel 2 news, Gilad Erdan, minister and member of the Cabinet said that Israel is close to another ground incursion in Gaza rather than putting up with the rocket fire. “Hamas continues to fire and it does not work,” said the Minister.

Aug 23, 2014, 11:00PM | Jerusalemonline Staff

via Israel News – Minister Erdan in a Powerful Message to Hamas: “We Are Nearing a Ground Operation” – JerusalemOnline.

 

Gilad Erdan Channel 2 News
 

In light of the growing frustration among the people of the South, many of whom decided to leave their homes in the wake of the constant firing, Member of the Cabinet, Minister Gilad Erdan said tonight (Saturday) that Israel is closer to a new incursion into Gaza. “Has this decision been made? Not yet. But we are closer to it than we ever were,” Erdan said in an interview with Channel 2 News.

“I certainly sympathize with the feelings of the southern residents, who should be saluted for their courage and determination, and we promise that this operation will not end as the situation is at the present-what was will not be,” Erdan stressed. His statements come one day after a 4-year-old child, Daniel Tregerman was killed by a mortar shell in an Eshkol Regional Council community. “You have to have patience and you have to have determination,” said Erdan.

The minister added, “we cannot go back to the situation that the crossings will be open so that Hamas can rebuild all the capabilities they have lost in this operation, and they lost a lot of capabilities – the tunnels, a considerable part of its rocket structure and some leaders of the organization in IDF targeted killings.”

“Hamas continues to fire and this will not work. Currently, I believe, there is a connection Israel’s response policy, and the nearing of a ground operation,” stressed the minister and Cabinet member. “Hamas continues its attrition and we continue ours from the air, but it is not a condition that can last for weeks. The purpose of the ground operation could be full occupation and the collapse of Hamas rule, or specific attacks on the organization’s divisions.”