Tit-for-tat
An Israeli school bus driving in the Negev region received a direct hit from anti-tank missiles fired from Gaza by Palestinian terrorists on Thursday. Luckily there were only two occupants, the driver and a teenage boy, who were injured and evacuated to hospital, the latter in critical condition. The rest of the children had just left the bus. The attack in Israel was reported to be in revenge for the killing of two men driving in a car last week in southern Gaza, who were suspected of being part of a terrorist rocket-firing team.
A series of ca. 50 rockets also hit southern Israel yesterday. Two Grad rockets targeted at Ashkelon were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system in its first operational deployment. IAF planes attacked tunnels in Gaza used for smuggling weapons. Some of these tunnels are now so large that they can drive trucks thru them. Following the bus attack other sites in Gaza were hit, killing six Palestinians and wounding forty. This tit-for tat represents a breakdown of the unofficial ceasefire over the Gaza border, but an announcement this morning by Hamas stated that all terrorist organizations in Gaza had agreed to re-establish the informal ceasefire with Israel. Whether this announcement is purely tactical, to deter Israeli responses is unclear.
Two men in a rented car driving away from Port Sudan in Sudan were killed yesterday in a direct aerial rocket hit. It was reported that one of the men was a senior Hamas activist who was involved in arms smuggling from Iran via Sudan and Egypt to Gaza, and in fact that he was the replacement for Ahmed Mugniyeh, the Hamas operative who was assassinated in Dubai last year. Hamas denied this, but for Israel to send a plane that far (1200 miles) he must have been an important target. To have such accurate intelligence is amazing. . Israel has operated before in Sudan, which has an Islamist Government. So far there has been no popular demonstrations in Sudan, although Sudan has ceded control over its southern region to a new non-Muslim independent state of South Sudan. Last year the IAF hit a convoy of trucks approaching the Egyptian-Sudan border that were said to be transporting arms from Iran to Gaza. Israel has excellent intelligence and tracked this shipment from the port of Bandar Abbas in the Persian Gulf to Port Sudan and then by truck to Egypt. Now Hamas and the Iranians know that Israel is able to target their senior operatives whereever they may be.
A series of ca. 50 rockets also hit southern Israel yesterday. Two Grad rockets targeted at Ashkelon were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system in its first operational deployment. IAF planes attacked tunnels in Gaza used for smuggling weapons. Some of these tunnels are now so large that they can drive trucks thru them. Following the bus attack other sites in Gaza were hit, killing six Palestinians and wounding forty. This tit-for tat represents a breakdown of the unofficial ceasefire over the Gaza border, but an announcement this morning by Hamas stated that all terrorist organizations in Gaza had agreed to re-establish the informal ceasefire with Israel. Whether this announcement is purely tactical, to deter Israeli responses is unclear.
Two men in a rented car driving away from Port Sudan in Sudan were killed yesterday in a direct aerial rocket hit. It was reported that one of the men was a senior Hamas activist who was involved in arms smuggling from Iran via Sudan and Egypt to Gaza, and in fact that he was the replacement for Ahmed Mugniyeh, the Hamas operative who was assassinated in Dubai last year. Hamas denied this, but for Israel to send a plane that far (1200 miles) he must have been an important target. To have such accurate intelligence is amazing. . Israel has operated before in Sudan, which has an Islamist Government. So far there has been no popular demonstrations in Sudan, although Sudan has ceded control over its southern region to a new non-Muslim independent state of South Sudan. Last year the IAF hit a convoy of trucks approaching the Egyptian-Sudan border that were said to be transporting arms from Iran to Gaza. Israel has excellent intelligence and tracked this shipment from the port of Bandar Abbas in the Persian Gulf to Port Sudan and then by truck to Egypt. Now Hamas and the Iranians know that Israel is able to target their senior operatives whereever they may be.
posted by Jack Cohen at 9:17 AM
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