Tag Archives: Israeli Air Force

The Game Changer In The Israeli-Gaza War

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This is a picture from Monday’s New York Times:

IsraeliMapTunnels1 The Israeli military said it had uncovered about two dozen tunnels with more than 60 access points, many of them in this Gaza City neighborhood where there has been some of the most intense fighting. 2 In early July, the Israeli Air Force struck a tunnel that led to this kibbutz, near where Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier, was captured in 2006. 3 Hamas gunmen emerged from a tunnel about a mile from this kibbutz last Thursday. Israeli officials cited this as the final straw before the ground invasion. 4 Eight Palestinian militants emerged from a tunnel near here on Saturday, armed with automatic weapons and wearing Israeli military uniforms. 5 A deadly battle ensued between Israeli troops and Hamas militants on Monday after the militants emerged from a tunnel about 500 yards from this community’s homes. 6 Some of the militants tried to make their way here. 7 Residents of this kibbutz were warned to stay inside.

There is no way Israel can stop fighting until all of the tunnel network is destroyed. Any call for a cease fire without the destruction of the tunnels will result in a continued attack on Israeli civilians. The world generally ignored the rocket attacks on Israeli civilians as they continued over the years. We cannot ignore the attacks that would come from the tunnels if the tunnels were left intact.

This video from Palestinian television might explain why peace in the region is so difficult:

The video can be found at YouTube.

Just as America and its allies had to defeat Germany completely to stop Hitler, the Israelis will have to defeat Hamas and other terrorists whose goal is to eliminate Israel completely. Until that happens, Israel will have to defend herself against those who attack settlements and kill civilians.

Don’t Believe Everything You See

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One of the things that happens when there is a war in the Middle East is that the war is always fought on two fronts–the military front and the propaganda front. Unfortunately, the Muslim Brotherhood and its friends in Hamas are very skillful in manipulating the press.

Yesterday Breitbart.com reported that a report on CNN by Sara Sidner on the death of a child in Gaza strongly implied that Israel rocket fire was responsible for the fatality. New information shows that was probably not the case.

The article at Breitbart reports:

The dead child was paraded before the cameras during the visit of Egyptian prime minister Hisham Kandil, who kissed the dead child in the presence of Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh.

The first problem with this is that Israel did not fire any rockets into Gaza during the visit of Prime Minister Kandil–the only rockets in the air were coming from Gaza going into Israel. The second problem is that the Palestinian Center for Human Rights did not list the child as a victim of an Israeli airstrike.

The article quotes a website called the Elder of Ziyon who provides further information:

Put this together with the fact that Hamas and other terror groups were firing rockets throughout Friday morning while the IDF did not, plus the fact that over 100 rockets have fallen short in Gaza (both using past performance and IDF statistics as proof), and the fact that the shrapnel in the video matches almost exactly the shrapnel damage we have seen from rocket fire into Israel, and it is very clear: this child was killed by Gaza rocket fire, not by Israel.

Unfortunately, there is a history of Hamas faking civilian deaths in an attempt to move public opinion to their side.

The article article cites one example:

Hamas has a well-established pattern of faking civilian deaths in Gaza, even as it seeks civilian deaths in Israel (and fakes that, too, pretending it is firing at military targets). Last week, Breitbart News caught Hamas using a month-old photo of a dead Syrian boy and claiming he had been killed by Israel–a double irony, since the Assad regime that killed the boy hosted Hamas for years before the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.

The thing to remember about the missiles from Israel that are landing in Gaza is the reason they are being fired.

CBN News reported today:

Hundreds of Israelis gathered to pray for their country as Hamas continued to launch rockets into Israel and the Israeli Air Force carried out strikes on terror targets.

The terrorist group intensified its missile barrages against southern Israel over the weekend. More than 560 rockets have slammed into Israel so far, with another 300-plus intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile batteries.

The rockets fired from Gaza are aimed at civilian targets in Israel. Those rockets are fired from civilian centers–near mosques and schools–using civilians as shields. The Israelis have to aim carefully to avoid civilian casualties–they are not always successful. Hamas is aiming at civilian targets. This will not end until Hamas stops firing missiles into Israel. Unfortunately, they may not be ready to do that.

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Remember The Drone Taken Control Of By Iran ?

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Hal Lindsey is a Biblical Scholar who focuses on current events and how they fit into Biblical prophecy. He hosts a show on Trinity Broadcasting Network that is also available on his website. Every week he sends out an email with a brief summary of what he will be talking about on his show.

This week there was an interesting quote:

I’ll also report on the unmanned drone that the Israeli Air Force shot down over Israel last week. Coincidentally, that Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), was essentially a copy of the RQ-170. Remember the RQ-170? That’s the super-advanced, and highly secret, United States UAV that Iran was mysteriously able to commandeer and capture after it flew into Iranian airspace last December.

At the time, the administration’s spinmeisters assured us that the RQ-170 was much too advanced to be of any use to Iran. In fact, one analyst said that losing the RQ-170 to Iran was a bit like “dropping a Ferrari into an oxcart culture.”

Well, apparently the bumpkins didn’t try to hitch an ox to it! Taking a cue from their friends the Russians and Chinese (who paid dearly to get a look at the technology), they reverse-engineered it and now they (or their proxy, Hezbollah) are flying it over Israel to get a closer look.

This apparent miscalculation by some of our defense and intelligence communities’ experts makes me a little nervous about some of their other evaluations. For instance, last week The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) released a report that estimates that Iran will produce enough weapons-grade uranium to arm a nuclear weapon in the next “two to four months.” That’s 120 days!

But the report drew a “clear distinction” between Tehran’s ability to actually produce a viable warhead and its ability to make the fissile core of a warhead by producing 55 pounds of weapons-grade uranium from its large lesser-enriched stockpiles.

Isn’t that sort of like assuming that if one drops “a Ferrari into an oxcart culture,” the bumpkins will try to hitch an ox to it? The Iranians proved the administration’s experts wrong on that assumption, didn’t they! So why should we think they will not surprise us again with how quickly they can produce a working nuclear missile?

On the other hand, that may be why the United States, NATO, and members of the Gulf Cooperation Council just completed the largest naval exercise ever conducted in the Persian Gulf. They were demonstrating our mine-sweeping prowess and how quickly we can take command of the Strait of Hormuz if Iran decides to try and close it.

I will admit to being a news junkie, and nowhere did I see it reported that the drone shot down over Israel was a copy of the RQ-170 brought down and captured by Iran. This is disturbing. I guess when you are not capable of advancing your own technology, you simply steal from the people who have spent the money and done the work.

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While We Are In The Silly Season Of American Politics, The Middle East Is Preparing For War

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Yahoo News reported that the Israeli air force shot down a drone in Southern Israel on Saturday.

The article reports:

The drone was first spotted above the Mediterranean in the area of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to the west of Israel, said military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich.

It was kept under surveillance and followed by Israeli air force jets before it was shot down above a forest in an unpopulated area near the border with the occupied West Bank.

It was reported that the drone was not carrying any explosives. Security sources have stated that it is unlikely that the drone came from the Gaza Strip. Defense officials were also not confirming a statement made by Israeli parliament member Miri Regev, a former chief spokesman of the military, that the drone was an “Iranian drone launched by Hezbollah.”

 

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