[Continuous Updates Below]
Sirens wailed in the city of Beersheba Wednesday night as residents across the city took shelter from incoming rockets fired from the Gaza Strip. The attacks came in the wake of theassassination of Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari, which marked the commencement of Operation Pillar of Defense against terror targets in the Gaza Strip.
The Iron Dome system downed some 17 rockets over Beersheba and towns surrounding the Gaza Strip. All in all, over 50 rockets were launched by Palestinian terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip, Wednesday evening including some 17 long-range Grad rockets that were fired at Beersheba.
Three of the rockets reportedly fell in the vicinity of Dimona in the central Negev, which is located some 70 kilometers from the Gaza Strip. According to foreign sources, the Dimona nuclear research facility is a focal point of Israel’s reported nuclear weapons program.
The Israeli Air Force on Wednesday launched a series of airstrikes in Gaza City, killing Ahmed Jabari, the head of Hamas’s armed wing — the equivalent of an army’s chief of staff — and his son, Mohammed al-Homs. Palestinian sources put the death toll at up to nine by evening.
Following the airstrikes, Palestinians launched some 17 rockets at Beersheba, two rockets at the coastal city of Ashkelon, and two more at the Eshkol region. Some of the rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
The army confirmed the airstrike on Jabari and said that it had launched a “widespread campaign on terror sites and operatives in the Gaza Strip, chief among them Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets.” The IDF Spokesperson’s Office told The Times of Israel that the campaign was being referred to as “Operation Pillar of Defense.”
The IAF struck and killed Hamas armed wing Izzadin Kassam Brigades commander Ahmed Jabari in central Gaza on Wednesday. The strike marked the beginning of Operation Pillar of Defense to target Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror organizations in Gaza, IDF spokesman Yoav Mordechai announced.
Jabari was killed when an IAF missile struck the car he was traveling in, in the central Strip. One other person was killed in the attack.
Following the assassination, the IAF struck over 20 underground rocket launchers belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The airstrikes targeted long-range rockets in the possession of terror organizations, such as the Fajr-5 and other rockets that are capable of striking Tel Aviv from Gaza. Palestinian sources said that six Gazans were killed in the IDF strikes.
The IDF said it believes it has eliminated the majority of the long-range threat.
"The first aim of this operation is to bring back quiet to southern Israel, and the second target is to strike at terror organizations," Mordechai said. "The homefront must brace itself resiliently," he added, describing Jabari as a man with "a lot of blood on his hands."
Mordechai added that Gaza is a "forward Iranian base," adding that the latest campaign of air strikes targeted most of the long-range offensive capabilities in the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The majority of the Gaza weapons storage sites targeted by the IAF were located in civilian residential buildings, the IDF confirmed. "This is further evidence of the pattern of Hamas to use the population in Gaza as human shields," the IDF stressed.
The IDF has urged civilians to pay attention to instructions from the Home Front Command in light of the developments.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday night announced the onset of a broad, surgical aerial and naval bombardment of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, and blamed Hamas and other terrorist organizations for the violence that triggered Israel’s retaliation.
The announcement came hours after an Israeli Air Force strike killed Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari, the first blow in the army’s Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza.
“Today we sent a clear message to the Hamas organization and to other terrorist organizations, and should the need arise, the IDF is prepared to broaden the operation,” Netanyahu said at a joint press conference with Defense Minster Ehud Barak. “We will continue to do everything to protect our citizens.”
He blamed Hamas for escalating its attacks against civilians, and added that Israel was “not prepared to make peace with a situation in which Israel’s citizens are menaced by the terror of rocket fire.
“No country would agree to such a situation; Israel is not prepared to reconcile itself to such a situation.”
Barak noted that Operation Pillar of Defense would not be completed in “one fell swoop,” but that the objectives would be attained in due time.
The defense minister delineated the operation’s objectives as “strengthening deterrence, damaging the rocket arsenal, damaging and hurting Hamas and minimizing injury to the civilians on the homefront of the State of Israel.
Though Wednesday's strikes mark the beginning, not the end, of a military operations, Barak said that "in the long-run, I believe this will lead to deterrence and the restoration of quiet in the South."
Barak said that the IDF operations wiped out most of the long-range fajr rockets, and dealt significant blows to the terrorist infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
Both ministers thanked the IDF, the citizens of Israel for their support and the southern residents on the firing line.
Hamas' military leader Ahmed Jabari was a "mass murderer" who organized many terror activities, Israel President Shimon Peres told his American counter part Barak Obama.
He spoke with him over the telephone, just a half-an-hour after the IDF assassinated Jabari.
This is subtle, but take a look at the bolded sentence above. Israel informed the U.S. after the strikes took place. That reveals a lot about current U.S.-Israel relations.
Hamas said Wednesday that it regarded the Israeli Air Force’s killing of its military chief, Ahmed Jabari, as a declaration of war by Israel. Israel is not seeking all-out conflict with Hamas, military and political sources quickly made clear on Wednesday afternoon — but it is certainly braced for the possibility.
What Israel emphatically is seeking in “Operation Pillar of Defense” is to remake the rules, and ultimately restore the IDF’s deterrent capacity, as regards the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The south of Israel “cannot be held hostage” to the whims of Hamas, noted the Likud’s Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar.
The initial operation involves the use of air power, not ground forces. The opening strikes targeted Jabari and other key Hamas military figures. Other key targets are what is believed to be the limited stock of Hamas’s most potent, Fajr-5 missiles, which can reportedly reach as far north as the Tel Aviv area. Rocket-launch cells will also be relentlessly targeted, as well as other Hamas military stores and positions, the sources said.
“We had made clear in recent days that we need absolute quiet on the border,” said another deputy prime minister, Dan Meridor. “We didn’t get it.” The constant threat to the residents of southern Israel “had to be addressed,” he said.
The resort to escalated force followed a radical escalation of attacks on the south in the past four days, which began with the targeting of an Israeli army jeep that was on a routine patrol inside the Israeli border — more than 100 yards inside the Israeli border, that is — with an anti-tank missile, in which four soldiers were injured, one of them very seriously.
Palestinians Urge UN Security Council Action Over Strikes
UPDATES:
The Jerusalem Post is running constant updates to this evolving story (several per hour) so it is worth checking their link:
Jerusalem Post Breaking News Updates
IT'S WAR
Hamas Second In Command Also Taken Out
Analysis: The Battle For The South Has Begun
Hamas To Target Tel Aviv, Assassinate Israeli Figures?
Security Council To Hold Emergency Meeting On Gaza
Labor, Kadima, Olmert, Livini Back Government's Air Assault On Hamas
UPDATES:
The Jerusalem Post is running constant updates to this evolving story (several per hour) so it is worth checking their link:
Jerusalem Post Breaking News Updates
IT'S WAR
Israeli media are reporting that the IDF is sending emergency call-up notices to reservists. IDF General Yoav Mordechaitold Channel 2 news ground troops may be sent into Gaza: ”There are preparations, and if we are required to, the option of a entry by ground is available.”
Israeli artillery has joined the air force in hitting targets in Gaza and eyewitnesses report that multiple Israeli naval vessels have appeared along the coast of Gaza.
Hamas Second In Command Also Taken Out
In addition to eliminating Jabari, Israel has alsoreportedly killed another military official, Raed al-Attar, Jabari's second in command. What Israeli officials arecalling Operation Pillar of Defense has also concentrated on Hamas’s arsenal, especially its long- and medium-range missiles, some of which are believed capable of reaching Israel’s northernmost cities. “Israel has had more than 800 missiles fired on its citizens over the last year,” an Israeli official told me this morning. “We held fire for a year but decided that it’s enough. We won’t let Hamas hold our cities hostage.”
Analysis: The Battle For The South Has Begun
Nearly three years after Operation Cast Lead, a new battle to restore security for the South has begun. The deterrence levels gained by Israel in the 2009 operation have run out, in great part due to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
As it built up its rocket arsenals, Hamas and the other factions responded to Israel’s measures to secure the border with more and more indiscriminate rocket barrages on the long-suffering South, filling the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians with dread, trauma and disruption.
Hamas has overplayed its hand. It mistook Israeli restraint for weakness.
The current operation underway in Gaza is based on a flexible approach. It began by sending a strong message to Hamas: that it must choose between the survival of its members and the continued firing of rockets at southern cities, towns and villages. At the same time, Israel has left Hamas with an exit. Should it decrease the rocket attacks, the IDF will scale back its operation.
Israel once again has proved that its intelligence capabilities in Gaza are superb not only by targeting the head of the rocket- launching machine, Ahmed Jabari, but also by removing most of Hamas’s long-range underground rocket launchers in the first wave of air strikes.
The ball is now in Hamas’s court. If it chooses to continue to lash out at Israel’s civilians, it could find itself face to face with a ground offensive, a development that would take the current operation to a new level.
Hamas To Target Tel Aviv, Assassinate Israeli Figures?
The Hamas leadership in Gaza is currently studying the possibility of firing rockets toward Tel Aviv, assassinating Israeli figures or launching suicide bombings inside Israel, according to senior Hamas members speaking to WND.
Also being debated by Hamas is the immediate use of anti-aircraft and other advanced missiles to target Israel Air Force operations over the Gaza Strip, the Hamas members said.
The senior Hamas members said their group is simultaneously holding meetings between its own political and jihadist leadership as well as separate consultations with other Gaza-based jihad groups, including the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees.
Hamas is in contact with neighboring Egypt to determine whether and how the new Egyptian government will back Hamas in any conflict with Israel, the Hamas members said.
According to the senior Hamas members speaking to WND, the responses Hamas is currently debating launching against Israel include:
- Firing long-range rockets aimed at Gedera and Rishon LeZion. The city of Rishon LeZion is about seven miles from Tel Aviv and is considered a sister city to Tel Aviv. Such rocket firing would be considered a strategic game changer.
- Launching suicide bombings inside Israel. Any attempted suicide attacks would most likely originate with the Hamas infrastructure within the West Bank. Israeli security sources told WND that Hamas maintains the capability of attempting suicide bombings from the West Bank.
- Assassinating Israeli figures. The Hamas members said the group is already compiling a list of possible targets but would not comment to WND about whether those targets were political, military or civilian.
Security Council To Hold Emergency Meeting On Gaza
Labor, Kadima, Olmert, Livini Back Government's Air Assault On Hamas
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