The impending Israeli invasion

It isn’t like it’s a surprise, or anything, but you’d think Israel would get tired of warning the terrorists when to hide. Of course, there are those of us that think people who insist their greatest wish is to fall in battle with Israel would actually, you know, fight Israel instead of going into hiding when the hostility level rises beyond what Ehud Olmert (and the idiots who think peace with the Palestinians should come before, gee, real peace) can reasonably ignore. You know, like long-range missile strikes on a city that is eleven miles north of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli leaders warned Friday of an approaching conflagration in the Gaza Strip as Israel activated a rocket warning system to protect Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 people, from Palestinian rockets.

Ashkelon was hit by several Grad rockets fired from Gaza on Thursday, a sign of the widening scope of violence between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza. One hit an apartment building and another landed near a school, wounding a 17-year-old girl.

Located 11 miles from Gaza, Ashkelon had been sporadically targeted in the past but never suffered direct hits or significant damage.

“It will be sad, and difficult, but we have no other choice,” Matan Vilnai, Israel’s deputy defense mister, said Friday, referring to the large-scale military operation he said Israel was preparing to bring a halt to the rocket fire.

“We’re getting close to using our full strength. Until now, we’ve used a small percentage of the army’s power because of the nature of the territory,” Vilnai told Army Radio on Friday.

Israel does not intend to launch a major ground offensive in the next week or two, partly because the military prefers to wait for better weather, defense officials said. But the army has now completed its preparations and informed the government it’s ready to move immediately when the order is given, the officials said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

And this is brilliant. Hamas thinks that having a protest rally is going to affect world opinion. Not this time. Their PR guys are off. After yesterday’s propaganda bonus of pictures of a dead six-month-old child—which the wire services sent round the world, while utterly ignoring the cell-phone video of an eight-year-old Israeli girl screaming for her mother while her ten-year-old brother lay bleeding on the floor of a shop. And oh, yeah. An Israeli infant was hit by shrapnel in that attack, too. Didn’t know that, did you? Just like you probably didn’t know that a two-year-old and two four-year-olds were murdered by kassams.

And the IDF missed a high-value target. Probably didn’t want to cause any civilian casualties. Haniyeh came out of hiding.

Thousands took to the streets across Gaza on Friday in funerals for the dead of the past days. Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas government in Gaza, addressed a crowd of around 2,000 Hamas supporters at Friday prayers, his first public address after nearly a month and a half during which he and other Hamas officials have largely remained out of sight because of fears Israel could assassinate them.

“You are mistaken if you thought that targeting buildings, ministries and police stations is going to stop our work,” Haniyeh said, directing his comments at Israel. “We will work under trees, in tents and in the streets.”

And, apparently, while hiding, running, and wearing women’s clothing. Terrorists are good at hiding. Especially among civilians.

Since Wednesday, 32 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli missile strikes, including 15 civilians, among them eight children, according to Palestinian officials. The youngest was a 6-month-old boy, Mohammed al-Borai, whose funeral was held Thursday.

The army said it was targeting rocket squads, and blamed militants for operating in populated areas. AP photos showed rockets being launched from densely populated areas in northern Gaza.

That link won’t last long, but it’ll be there for a few weeks. Look at the AP evidence of Hamas war crimes, and wonder why the AP spins so anti-Israel when it provides such evidence.

The trail of smoke is seen as rockets fired by Palestinian militants head towards Israel from Gaza City, Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008.

And oh, yeah. The Sec-Gen of the UN found a reason to speak again. He was silent last week when an Israeli child nearly lost an arm. He was silent weeks ago when an Israeli child lost a leg. But he spoke up when Israel fought back and launched missiles into Gaza.

The Secretary-General is deeply concerned at the loss of civilian life in Southern Israel and Gaza, and at the escalation of violence that has taken place today.

The Secretary-General condemns rocket fire against Israel by Hamas, which intensified today and killed an Israeli civilian in Sderot. He calls on Hamas and other militant groups to cease such acts of terrorism.

The Secretary-General also condemns the killing of four Palestinian children, including an infant, in Gaza in IDF strikes. He calls on Israel to exercise maximum restraint and ensure respect for international humanitarian law so as not to endanger civilians.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Meet the new war, same as the old war. Except I think the IDF has learned—oh. And I have just figured out why the rockets are raining down. Hamas and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have prepared the battlefield. We’ll find out exactly how much they’ve learned from Iraq and Lebanon if the IDF goes in in force—and how much Israel and America have learned from them.

Expect to see EFPs in Gaza.

And, of course, expect world condemnation no matter what Israel does.