Two major Israeli newspapers are reporting that rockets fired from Egypt have hit Israel.
"Terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula launched rockets into Israel Friday night," reports the Jerusalem Post. "The rockets fell near an Israeli village on the southern border, causing some damage, but no injuries."
The Israeli daily Haaretz reports, "Rockets fired from direction of Egypt toward Eshkol Regional Council."
It appears no damage was reported in connection with the rocket fire from Egypt. Earlier today, the Egyptian prime minister visited Gaza to express solidarity with the Palestinians there.
This new front comes a day after a rocket landed near Tel Aviv and on the same day Israel's capital Jerusalem was the target of rocket fire. Those attacks were courtesy of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
"After Tel Aviv metropolitan area, capital under fire too: An air raid siren was sounded in Jerusalem and surrounding communities early Friday evening. After residents reported hearing blast sounds, security forces confirmed that one rocket had landed in the Gush Etzion area near a Palestinian village," Ynet reports.
"There were no reports of injuries or damage. This was the first air raid siren sounded in the area since the IDF launched Operation Pillar of Defense in the Gaza Strip. Air raid sirens were sounded in southern communities throughout the day and a barrage of missiles hit the area."
Rockets launched from Egypt reportedly hit Israel Friday night, potentially opening a new front in the back and forth assault between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
“Terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula launched rockets into Israel Friday night,” the Jerusalem Postreported. “The rockets fell near an Israeli village on the southern border, causing some damage, but no injuries.”
According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “Rockets fired from direction of Egypt toward Eshkol Regional Council.”
The reports came the same day Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi sent his prime minister to Gaza in a show of solidarity.
Political forces within Egypt have called for Morsi to scrap the peace treaty with Israel. Morsirecalled Egypt’s ambassador to Israel on Wednesday to protest the strikes against Gaza.
An Israeli military spokesperson tweeted Saturday that 640 rockets from Gaza have been fired at Israel in the last three days.
This story may stop with two missiles launched from Egypt or it could represent major escalation. Either way it is certainly another sub-plot worth watching closely.
Additionally, it appears that indeed Israel stands alone, as predicted. Although Israel has been receiving missile fire into its civilian areas for months, the "world" somehow conveniently forgets that fact while condemning Israel for defending herself. Exactly as biblical prophecy would indicate:
Immediately after Israel assassinated Hamas’s military leader, Ahmed Jabari, and publicly announced its launch of Operation Pillar of Defense, activists around the world began demonstrating against what they termed Israeli aggression in Gaza. Protests took place in Cairo, Washington, D.C., New York, Jerusalem, Istanbul, Seoul, Rome, and other European cities.
Protests are also planned for Hebron and Ramallah Saturday afternoon.
Some called on the international community to level sanctions on Jerusalem; others denounced the West’s support of Israel.
In Istanbul Saturday, protesters burned the Israeli flag and a poster of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Thousands gathered in Cairo Fridayand chanted slogans in support of Gaza Strip against Israel’s “blatant aggression.”
In New York, some 250 activists stood outside the Israeli Consulate at 42nd Street Friday and chanted “Free, Free, Palestine!” and “Hey Israel, what do you say, how many kids did you kill today?” They were joined by the ultra-religious anti-Zionist group Naturei Karta. A small, opposing group congregated across the street and retorted:“Israel wants peace, Hamas wants terror” and “God bless America. God bless Israel.”
Known as Emergency Global Actions, the protests were organized by a host of Palestinian solidarity groups, reported Mondoweiss, a Mideast-related news blog. The site also offered a list of dozens of protest locations across South America, Europe, Asia, and North America.
As predicted, Iran is pushing the buttons from behind the scenes:
As the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas faction is escalating and rockets are hitting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Iran announced Friday that its missiles were being used against the Jewish state.
Rockets hit Tel Aviv Thursday for the first time since the 1991 Persian Gulf War when Iraqi scuds threatened the city. On Friday, Jerusalem also came under rocket fire from Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
According to a source in the Revolutionary Guards intelligence division, Iran has large stockpiles of chemical and microbial weapons and it has armed the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah with them. It also has Quds Forces in Gaza and other Palestinian territories to help Hamas and Islamic Jihad in setting up underground rocket facilities while training and supervising the Palestinians in launching attacks on Israel.
The escalation of the Gaza conflict was ordered by the highest authority in Iran, the source added, and rockets targeting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are in fact a warning to Israel that its Iron Dome missile defense system cannot thwart Iran’s ballistic missiles and tens of thousands of rockets and missiles in the hands of Hezbollah.
The missiles fired by the Islamic Jihad that hit Tel Aviv were Iranian Fajr 5 missiles, according to the Islamic regime’s media outletNimrooz, which is close to Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the mayor of Tehran and a possible candidate for president.
The outlet cited a recent quote by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic regime: “From now onward, we will support and help any nation, any groups fighting against the Zionist regime across the world, and we are not afraid of declaring this.”
The outlet said targeting the capital of the “Zionist regime” with this advanced technology is a big victory for the Palestinians and the resistance front — Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.
As reported in August, an alarming commentary by Mashregh, a media outlet for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, claimed that Iran not only has WMDs but has armed its terrorist proxies with them.
I placed the question mark here because it involves some speculation, but worth a read. More importantly, we can see just how close Iran is to obtaining a nuclear weapon. Also don't forget - everything we are seeing in the Middle East is being orchestrated by Iran, as they use their proxies. One cannot help but wonder if this is a diversion as Iran is now just on the verge of having their coveted nuclear weapon, and a method of destroying Israel:
Early Saturday, Nov. 17, US President Obama, in a phone conversation with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, reiterated his support for Israel’s right to defend itself. He also spoke to Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and urged him to persuade Hamas to accept Israel’s terms for a ceasefire.
So what happened to turn the notoriously prickly relations between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu into harmonious cooperation - defying dire predictions by Israeli politicians and media that the second Obama term heralded still more jarring discord?DEBKAfile’s analysts attribute the change to a single cause: Iran’s omnipotent supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has backtracked on his earlier consent to one-on-one talks with the US on its nuclear program, after it was acclaimed by US media on Oct. 20 in the run-up to the presidential election.
Friday, Nov. 16, Henry Kissinger, foreign policy guru to a succession of US presidents, laid Obama’s dilemma out plainly in the Washington Post: “The most urgent decision facing the president is how to stop Iran from pursuing a military nuclear program. The time available for a diplomatic outcome shrinks in direct proportion as the Iranian enrichment capacity grows and a military nuclear capacity approaches,” Kissinger wrote, adding: “We cannot afford another strategic disaster.”
While also aiming a dig at Obama’s first-term performance, Kissinger was warning him strongly that Iran is on the way to becoming a nuclear power and this must not be allowed to happen.
Iran already has in place the technological infrastructure for quickly raising its 20-percent enriched stocks to the 90 percent bomb-making level.
American experts now estimate that this jump would take no more than two to three weeks from the moment a go-ahead order came down from Khamenei.
The advanced state of Iran’s drive for a nuclear weapon was confirmed in the latest International Atomic Energy Agency report released Friday, Nov. 16, which stated dryly that it was “unable… to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”
The release of this nuclear watchdog finding on Day Three of Israel’s Gaza operation against the escalating Palestinian missile war against the southern half of the country was not fortuitous. It also backed up Kissinger’s warning about the imminence of a “strategic disaster” for America if Iran was allowed to attain a nuclear capacity. There was no need to remind anyone that this disaster was even more imminent for Israel.
The implied corollary from the Kissinger proposition, that a form of pre-emptive military action has become unavoidable, leads directly to the rationale behind Obama’s support for Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip.
the nature and scale of this next stage is not solely up to the inner Israeli cabinet of nine ministers. It will be finally determined by what passed between Obama and Netanyahu in their conversation Friday, and subsequent bilateral conversations, including the one that took place later between Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
Obama has plainly decided to use Israel’s counter-terror operation against Tehran’s Palestinian ally in the Gaza Strip as a military threat to squeeze the Iranian supreme leader in to accept talks without resorting to direct American military action. Netanyahu is using this opportunity to rid Israel of a perennial terrorist peril, while also hoping it will at long last place the US president’s feet on the road to a military confrontation with Iran before it is too late.
US and Israeli interests converge in Gaza up to this point. For now, the situation is too volatile for reliable predictions about the duration and outcome of this partnership.
And this timely piece from Joel Rosenberg:
I’m in a hotel watching wall-to-wall coverage of the escalating violence here. We’re now getting breaking news. Israeli PM Netanyahu and his Security Cabinet have just concluded their classified meeting, which has lasted for hours. Only a few details have been released concerning their conclusions. But the main two are ominous:
* Israel’s Home Front Command has been ordered to tell the nation to prepare for 7 weeks of war.
* 75,000 IDF reserve soldiers are definitely being called up for action — up from 30,000 on Thursday, and 16,000 on Wednesday.“Home Front Command asks local authorities to prepare for seven-week fighting period,” reports Ynet News. “In discussions held between Home Front Command Chief Major-General Eyal Eisenberg, regional commanders and heads of local authorities in the center and in the south, authorities have been instructed to prepare for a seven-week period of combat as part of Operation Pillar of Defense and to prepare emergency supplies, accordingly.
Please pray for Netanyahu and his Security Cabinet that they would be like the “men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.” (I Chronicles 12:32) Please pray for the Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his advisors to know what to do to stop this violence, as well. And continue to pray for the millions of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire.
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