Posted tagged ‘Operation Protective Edge’

Mashaal Vows Cease-Fire a Step to New ‘Resistance’ War against Israel

August 29, 2014

By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu

Published: August 28th, 2014

via The Jewish Press » » Mashaal Vows Cease-Fire a Step to New ‘Resistance’ War against Israel.

 

Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal rallies supporters in Gaza (archive).
Photo Credit: Screenshot

Hamas’ supreme leader Khaled Mashaal dashed any hopes of long-term peace with Israel in a speech in Qatar on Thursday in which he shot from the hip at Israel and also at his terrorist organization’s new partner, the rival Fatah movement headed by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

His lengthy speech in Qatar, which has financed Hamas terror and which fought Egyptian cease-fire proposals, followed by one day a “victory” speech by Ismail Haniyeh, the senior Hamas political leader in Gaza. Mashaal’s silence while Haniyeh accepted the cease-fire is a clear sign of a fierce power struggle between Hamas in Gaza and between Mashaal and Qatar, which holds the purse strings.

Mashaal also claimed victory, with lies that Hamas missiles hit the Ben Gurion Airport, which is not true, and that more than 5 million Israelis hid in bomb shelters, a gross exaggeration. However, there is no doubt that Hamas succeeded in scaring the daylight out of millions of Israelis, interrupting a few flights and generally turning half of Israel into sitting ducks.

And this won’t be the last time, regardless of a cease-fire, he warned.

“Whatever happened [in Gaza] is not the end to this story, and this is not the last operation to free Palestine. It was an important stop on the way to victory,” Mashaal declared.

His speech threw every obstacle possible on the road to negotiations with Israel. The talks are supposed to begin in a month, leaving open the possibility, or probability, that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is carrying on secret negotiations that will be formalized in 30 days.

The Prime Minister suffered another blow to any trust that Israelis may have for him with a report on Thursday that he met secretly with Jordanian King Abdullah, and perhaps Abbas, prior to the cease-fire, circumstantial evidence that Israel negotiated under fire, contrary to Netanyahu’s promise.

If Mashaal gets his way, there won’t be any talks because one of the new powers in Gaza is slated to be Abbas, whose security forces would patrol Gaza borders, according to the Egyptian proposal. That would provide Cairo with another tactic to get rid of Hamas.

Mashaal nailed Abbas to the wall in his speech, accusing him of throwing cold water on the resumption of the intifada during the war by allowing his security forces to limit protests.

“The next operation needs to use all of the Palestinian capabilities, not just part of them,” Mashaal said. “The resistance is holy and weapons are holy. There is no such thing as a country without weapons.”

A country or not, Gaza still has at least 2,000 rockets as well as anti-tank rockets and presumably anti-aircraft missiles. It still has rocket factories, one of which was filmed in production by Hamas during one of the failed cease-fires during the war.

Netanyahu had demanded that any halt in violence would be accompanied by disarming Hamas, but this week’s cease-fire only left the issue to be put on the negotiating table, along with Hamas’s demands for a deep-sea port and an airport.

Mashaal’s speech was full of hate and crude accusations that Israel inflicted a “Holocaust” on Gaza by “destroying schools and hospitals,” which all but the most extreme anti-Israel media now know were used by Hamas as rocket launching and terrorist command centers.

“We are against what Hitler did to the Jews, and Israel committed a second Holocaust in Gaza. Israel is an embarrassment to Jews and to the entire world,” according to Mashaal.

His rhetoric was aimed at Abbas as well as Israel. If and when negotiations begin, Egypt and the United States will be on the side of Abbas, who despite his unity government with Hamas has proved politically smart by a patient and single-minded tactic of using international support to slowly but surely win concession after concession from Israel until there is nothing left to negotiate.

Including Gaza as part of the Palestinian Authority works to Abbas’ benefit because it will solidify position that a Palestinian Authority state needs to on contiguous territory, meaning that Sderot residents can start packing up and leaving their homes as well as their bomb shelters, which would save Hamas lots of time and money when digging terror tunnels from the Western Negev to Ashdod.

Mashaal’s aim is the same as Mashaal, but his strategy is different When Mashaal says that there will be another war to “free Palestine,” he is referring to all of Israel, from Kiryat Shmona in the north to Eilat in the south, and from the Dead Sea in the east to the Mediterranean Sea on the west.

Abbas talks about a “two-state solution,” the magic phrase that sends U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry into hallucinations and hypnotizes the foreign media into pretending that the Palestinian Authority’s maps of “Palestine” don’t include the existence of Israel.

But Mashaal reminded everyone in his speech that he has people on his side.

He thanked his sponsors for terror, namely Qatar, Turkey, Yemen and Algeria, and he thanked South Africa and Latin American countries for boycotting Israel.

Qatar’s ties with US deterring Israel from all-out diplomatic offensive, official says

August 25, 2014

Qatar’s ties with US deterring Israel from all-out diplomatic offensive, official says

By HERB KEINON 08/25/2014 18:14

The Israeli official’s comments came a day after the “New York Times” published an op-ed piece by Israel’s ambassador to the UN calling Qatar the “Club Med for Terrorists.”

via Qatar’s ties with US deterring Israel from all-out diplomatic offensive, official says | JPost | Israel News.

 A MUST READ !

President Mahmoud Abbas, Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal arrive for a meeting in Doha. Photo: REUTERS
 Israel has not launched a full-court diplomatic campaign against Qatar for aiding and abetting terrorism because of concern that the closeness of US-Qatar ties would render such a campaign futile, according to a senior diplomatic official.

The official’s comments came a day after the New York Times published an op-ed piece by Israel’s ambassador to the UN calling Qatar the “Club Med for Terrorists.”

“In recent years, the sheikhs of Doha, Qatar’s capital, have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Gaza,” Prosor wrote. “Every one of Hamas’s tunnels and rockets might as well have had a sign that read ‘Made possible through a kind donation from the emir of Qatar’.”

Even though that is the case, and even as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu continues to raise Qatar’s negative role in private meetings with US Congressman and world leaders, the senior diplomatic official said that there is no concerted campaign that has been accompanied by directives to Israel’s representatives abroad to underline Qatar’s singularly negative role in supporting terrorism and in the Gaza crisis.

Prosor’s piece, he said, was the envoy’s own “improvisation” and not part of a bigger Israeli diplomatic push against the Persian Gulf country.

Qatar is too big an ally of the US and the West, the official said, and any such campaign would be tantamount to “banging our heads on the wall.” He said Jerusalem is not interested in going “toe-to-toe “with Washington over the issue.

Qatar is the home of the US Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center, and is the location of three US air bases, including its largest one in the Middle East. It also recently signed contracts to purchase some $11 billion in US arms and weapons systems.

Nevertheless, Netanyahu – in a meeting last week with US Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California) – did raise the subject of Qatar’s support of Hamas. As chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Issa is in a prime position to put Qatar’s role high on the agenda in Washington.

However, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, in an interview earlier this month with The Post, cautioned against exaggerating the leverage Qatar has over the terrorist organization.

Qatar was hosting Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Doha, and funding them handsomely, to ensure that they only operate outside Qatar, Liberman said. He characterized this as Qatar paying “protection money” to the terrorist organization.

“It is paying protection money in order to ensure security and quiet and calm inside Qatar, so they would work only outside,” he said. “I don’t know how much they are able to influence Hamas. I think Hamas has more influence on Qatar, than Qatar does on Hamas.”

Prosor, known for his sarcasm, wrote in the Times, after mentioning the tiny country’s petrol billions, that “it is time for the world to wake up and smell the gas fumes. Qatar has spared no cost to dress up its country as a liberal, progressive society, yet at its core, the micro monarchy is aggressively financing radical Islamist movements.”

He said that the “petite petrol kingdom” needed to be isolated internationally.

“In light of the emirate’s unabashed support for terrorism, one has to question FIFA’s decision to reward Qatar with the 2022 World Cup,” he said, stopping just short of launching a campaign to strip Qatar of the right to host the marquee soccer event.

Given Qatar’s alliances and influence, Prosor wrote, the prospect for many western countries of isolating Qatar is “uncomfortable.” Yet, he added, “they must recognize that Qatar is not a part of the solution but a significant part of the problem. To bring about a sustained calm, the message to Qatar should be clear: Stop financing Hamas.”

Secret Hamas Handbook Seized by Israel in Gaza Raid

August 25, 2014

Secret Hamas Handbook Seized by Israel in Gaza RaidIsrael says it found Hamas training manual in Gaza

BY:
August 25, 2014 9:49 am

via Secret Hamas Handbook Seized by Israel in Gaza Raid | Washington Free Beacon.

 

Hamas militants grab Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel,
before executing them in Gaza City August 22 / Reuters
 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Israeli army has released what it says is a page from a seized Hamas training manual that would appear to support its case that Palestinian militants deliberately use the cover of residential areas for combat operations.

Hamas, which denies it puts civilians at risk by storing and firing weapons from built-up areas, dismissed the document as a forgery intended to justify Israeli attacks that have killed hundreds of children, women and other non-combatants.

Israel has been criticized by the United Nations and others for its tactics during the war, including the shelling of densely populated areas and attacks on several U.N. schools, which Israel says militants were using for cover.

While many legal experts say Hamas is operating outside of international law by firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli towns and cities from built-up areas in the Gaza Strip, they stress that does not absolve Israel of responsibility to comply with the laws of war itself, notably on endangering civilians.

The Israeli army said the training manual was found in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun at the end of July, when troops were operating inside the enclave. The full manual is 102 pages long, the army said, but it released just one page of it.

That page appears to set out guidelines on how to hide weapons and ammunition in civilian areas, how to transport them into buildings and how to conceal or camouflage explosives.

It is marked at the bottom with “Izz-el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Training and Guidance Branch, Engineering Corps”. The al-Qassam Brigades are the military wing of Hamas, the Islamist group that has controlled Gaza since 2007. Unlike other Hamas documents, the page bears no Hamas logo.

“The process of hiding ammunition inside buildings is intended for ambushes in residential areas and to move the campaign from open areas into built up and closed areas,” reads the document, written in Arabic.

“Residents of the area should be used to bring in the equipment,” it continues, adding: “For jihad fighters, it is easy to operate inside buildings and take advantage of this to avoid (Israeli) spy planes and attack drones.”

The guidelines also explain that “the action of hiding weapons inside a building must be carried out secretly and shouldn’t have a military character”.

An Israeli army spokesman would provide no further details about the document, only to say that the army was “extremely confident it is a Hamas training manual”.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: “This is a fabricated paper and neither Hamas nor Qassam has anything to do with it.”

He added: “Israel circulating this is aimed at justifying the mass killings of Palestinian civilians and massacres committed by the occupation army.”

NARRATIVE OF WAR

While it may be impossible to verify whether it is a genuine Hamas manual, the Israeli military’s decision to release it underscores the efforts both sides in the conflict are making to justify their actions and support their narrative of events in a war that has drawn international condemnation of each party.

Israel launched its offensive on Gaza on July 8 in response to intense Hamas rocket fire from the narrow coastal enclave. In the seven weeks of conflict since, 2,110 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed, while 64 Israel soldiers and 4 civilians in Israel have also died.

In an interview with Yahoo News last week, Khaled Meshaal, the exile political leader of Hamas, denied that the group fired its rockets indiscriminately at Israel, saying it tried to aim the low-tech munitions at military installations or army bases.

There is little evidence that is the case – nearly all the 2,500-3,000 rockets and mortars Hamas has fired at Israel since the start of the war seem to have been aimed at towns. On Friday, one hit a synagogue and another killed a four-year-old boy in a kibbutz collective farm close to the Gaza border.

Israel has frequently accused Hamas fighters of taking cover among civilians and operating from residential areas, but it has not always been able to present clear evidence of that.

Some journalists in Gaza during the war captured video footage of rockets being fired from built-up areas, including around Shifa, Gaza’s main hospital. Hamas has sought to dismiss those as isolated, one-off incidents or attacks carried out by rogue groups not under its control.

For its part, Israel drops leaflets on residential areas before any attack and makes phone calls to residents telling them to leave the area. On Saturday, the Israeli air force warned residents to leave a 13-storey apartment building before it was destroyed in an air strike. Israel said the building was a Hamas base. No one was killed, 17 were wounded.

The U.N. human rights council has already appointed a commission to look into the Gaza war, and other investigations will no doubt be conducted once the conflict is over.

Bill Schabas, the head of the U.N. commission, emphasized that even if one side in a conflict is operating outside of international law, that does not relieve the other side of responsibility to act within the law.

“There are some very fundamental obligations in international humanitarian law that have to be respected regardless of whether the other side respects them,” he told Reuters last week.

“In short, it’s not a defense to a war crime to say that the other side was committing a war crime.”

(Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Anna Willard)

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/captured-hamas-handbook-preaches-you-must-use-residents-area

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?”

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.

‘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.

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.”

IDF Retaliation: 3 Dead Terrorists in Gaza

August 23, 2014

The Saturday night air strike followed the death of a 4-year-old Israeli boy during a shelling attack on the border town of Nahal Oz near Gaza.

By: Jewish Press StaffPublished: August 23rd, 2014

via The Jewish Press » » IDF Retaliation: 3 Dead Terrorists in Gaza.

 

IDF retaliates for death of 4-year-old child: air strike kills 4 terrorists in a-Nasser neighborhood in Gaza City August 23, 2014.
Photo Credit: Screenshot
 

At least three terrorists are dead and approximately 9 others were injured in a targeted assassination by the Israeli Air Force in Gaza.

A missile pulverized the car in which the terrorists were traveling in the a-Nasser neighborhood of Gaza City. The Saturday night air strike followed a 24 hour period in which nearly 100 rockets and missiles were fired at Israeli civilians.

In a second air strike, a 12-story building in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood collapsed, sending a cloud of black smoke and flames spiraling into the sky.

Residents of the building were warned to leave the building, which served as a base for Hamas operations, prior to the attack. IAF pilots fired a warning dud at the roof of the 48-unit building before the strike, reminding occupants to leave, according to police.

Two missiles blew up the building about five minutes later, which collapsed under the explosion.

Despite the warnings, at least 10 people were wounded according to local sources, including four children.

Over the course of the day, the IDF said it bombed some 60 terrorist targets throughout Gaza. Among those eliminated were concealed rocket launchers, weapons caches and terrorist operations facilities.

Terrorists rained rockets and missiles of varying ranges across the Israel throughout the day and into the night on Saturday. At around 10:30 pm, a missile reached as far north as Acco. No one was physically injured and no property damage was reported.

On Friday, a 4-year-old boy died when he didn’t make it to shelter in time to avoid mortar shelling by Gaza terrorists aimed at the Israeli border town of Nahal Oz.