More signs of an impending ground assault from Israel against Hamas in Gaza this Saturday night in the Middle East.
For the first time, Israeli artillery unleashed a barrage on targets within Gaza, after a week-long air assault subsided.
THE REPORT YOU ARE SEEING HERE IS FROM EARLIER SATURDAY. INFORMATION CURRENT STARTING 1900 GMT SATURDAY IS AT:
Israel Launched Ground Offensive
Into Gaza; Saturday Night Jan 3-4
Leaflets, phone messages and other media were used to warn Gazans to leave or risk personal danger.
The leaflets were signed by the commander of the Israeli military and were dropped over northern Gaza on Saturday morning, warning residents to “leave the area immediately” to ensure their safety.
But Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai played down speculation the artillery fire and leaflets promised a ground offensive.
“I don’t think this is the next stage. This is part of a military campaign being waged and now artillery cannons have joined in,” he told Israel Radio.
Fox News reporters said they had seen tanks reporitioning and moving closer to Gaza.
Troops and tanks looked poised to attack following the week-long air assault, according to several observers.
An Israeli soldier walks in front of tanks and armored vehicles in a staging area near Israel’s border with Gaza, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2009. Israel demanded international monitors as a key term of any future truce with Gaza Strip militants, as its warplanes bombed the parliament building in Gaza City on Thursday and its ships attacked coastline positions of the territory’s Islamic Hamas rulers.(AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)
Related:
From Reuters:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090103
/ts_nm/us_palestinians_israel_85
Jerusalem Post:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite
?cid=1230733150721&pagename=JP
ost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Peace and Freedom Global Future 
January 3, 2009 at 5:24 pm |
Hard for me to accept that the same people that claim to have been victims of the terrible holocausts are now doing holocausts to others!!! If killing children buy the hundrends is not terrorism, then what is? If starving the palestinians and denying them the basic God-Gguaranteed rights of living is not an act of terrorism, then whats is? Bombing places of worship and schoools? Hard for me to accept that the nation that claims to be a victim of terrorism (9-11), is now supporting and condoning the highest form of terrorism. Israel’s spree of cold-blooded killings of children in Gaza and in Lebanon in 2006 proved that Israel is a very bad neighbor, and don’t give me that “Hamas started it by firing roickets, B.S!!!) Hamas did not build illegal-ever-expanding-settlements in Israel.
January 3, 2009 at 6:39 pm |
“Oasis For Peace”
Is it possible for Jerusalem to become an “Oasis For Peace?”
Within the turmoil raging in the Middle East and the contentiousness between the three major religions of the world, is it time to look again at implementing a resolution similar to the 1948 UN mandate (Below), for a permanent international regime for Jerusalum?
December 11,1948
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194
Article 8. Resolves that, in view of its association with three world religions, the Jerusalem area, including the present municipality of Jerusalem plus the surrounding villages and towns, the most Eastern of which shall be Abu Dis; the most Southern, Bethleham; the most Western, Ein Karim (including also the built-up area of Motsa); and the most Northern, Shu’fat, should be accorded special and separate treatment from the rest of Palestine and should be placed under effective United Nations control;
Requests the Security Council to take further steps to ensure the demilitarization of Jerusalem at the earliest possible date;
Instructs the Conciliation Commission to present to the fourth regular session of the General Assembly detailed proposals for a permanent international regime for the Jerusalem area which will provide for the maximum local autonomy for distinctive groups consistent with the special international status of the Jerusalem area;…
January 3, 2009 at 6:55 pm |
A very clear difference between Hamas and Israel is that Israel will drop leaflets ahead of an attack to warn civilians to get our of harm’s way, while Hamas will send suicide bombers into Israeli schools and markets to indiscrimately kill as many people as possible. NEVER, NEVER think there is moral equivalence between the two governments. The people of Gaza voted these terrorists into power. Hamas wants to destroy Israel and create a Muslim fundamentalist state that punishes all non-believers. Believe me, they do not differentiate between Israrel and the United States and if they could turn the U.S. into a Muslim fundamentalist state, they would. To all the Palestinian sympathizers, let’s see how you would like to live with rockets being fired day and night into your neighborhoods. Obama saw this first hand and noted he could not live like that, and George Bush, who may have been wrong on other issues, is crystal clear on who are the terrorists and who is the ally of the United States.
January 3, 2009 at 7:01 pm |
PLEASE Read, there’s a missing element in this algorithm!
Only cowards deliberately use children as human shields for their Terror agenda.
Whether you’re Israeli, Palestinian or any other intellectual who’s showing interest in what’s going on in our world I salute you and want to start by saying that I love all peace loving people.
Like most people I’ve spent most of my grown up years especially the last week watching and reading through most news coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in Gaza and other parts of the middle-east.
Some elements are missing from most algorithms regarding most coverage stories of those conflicts; the research and coverage of the behavior of Terrorists!
Take for example Gaza today, after an agreement was reached between Israel and the Palestinian-authority over territories and other important elements some years ago, a terror group within the Palestinian population (Hamas) overpowered its own government and separated themselves from their people in other territories. Instead of using the “peace” opportunity to build infrastructures in their territories that will serve their people and create better life for them, they used the now “controlled” territories to arm themselves to the teeth and build a complex terror-infested mechanism that works from within the congested living space of what they call “their own people”.
They gave “their own people” little choice in deciding whether they are interested in having Terror organizing in their backyards (would you speak up against a Terror group who solely controls your own neighborhood and kills anyone who protests?), and all that time they kept doing what they have been doing for the past 8 years; teasing their next door neighbor by shooting all sorts of missiles and rockets, deliberately targeting it’s innocent civilian population and then proudly celebrating achievement in that field.
Knowing that their neighbor has the power and instruments to wipe them out in one swing, the terrorists(Hamas) used and still are using “their own people” women and children as human shields, knowing that as opposed to them their neighbors are not interested in and are against killing innocent helpless souls.
Israel has never deliberately targeted women and children of any group of people! Never! at the same time Israel has the obligation to defend its own population against any and all who wish to bring them harm.
While Israel is doing all in it’s power to pinpoint it’s targets and destroy a Terror group while hurting as least innocent people as possible, the Hamas targets mostly the innocent and uses “it’s own people” for cover and even for worldwide deliberate propaganda.
You’re asking how?
Hamas brings its own terror fights to the homes of “its own people”, then it lets them take the bullets for it, and then it uses “its own people’s” bodies for its propaganda in the worldwide media!!! The more innocent people die on both sides, the more instrument Hamas has for its propaganda!!! Hamas = Cowards!!!
And the most ridiculous point comes when Hamas blames Israel for Hamas’s own deliberate sacrificing of “its own people” and then compares it to the Jewish holocaust. Well, I’m not one of the people who like to go on and on about the Jewish holocaust for political purposes, so I’ll just say that you don’t need more then half a brain to understand how ridicules this impossible comparison is.
This is a call to all Media organizations that respect themselves, and care not to wake up one day to a new reality where rockets and missile are being fired at their own roofs. Invest more time into bringing to the readers and listeners some real facts about the behavior, structure, and insanity of Terror groups that are involved in stories that you cover. By choosing the easy way and not doing the hard work now, you help bring Terror to your own backyard. Remember, it’s you that need to decide who controls what you’re writing/showing, but for now it looks as if Terror does.
January 3, 2009 at 7:04 pm |
It was always Jewish land.. never Palestinian