Israel is casting that dreidel very, very carefully.
IAF jets struck tunnels connecting the Palestinian and Egyptian sides of Rafah, a Gaza Strip border town which has become a main entry point into Gaza of weapons, dynamite and other smuggled military equipment and consumer goods.
Also Sunday, IDF artillery batteries were deployed along the Gaza Strip border, indicating that the firepower used by the military in Operation Cast Lead so far might yet still be intensified in coming days.
This is not a one-two punch. This is going to be a one-two-three-four punch, followed by a flurry of blows. When it’s over, Hamas will be lying on the ground, bleeding. I wish I could add “and down for the count,” but we know that won’t happen. Yet.
However, it looks like the IDF has been preparing this for quite some time. If you haven’t yet read this article about the lessons learned from the 2006 Lebanon war, please do.
Bonus fact from the first article:
Aircraft on Sunday targeted a Gaza tanker truck carrying smuggled fuel, touching off a blaze that raged out of control and spread to about a dozen nearby houses, sending acrid plumes of black smoke towering above southern Gaza, witnesses and firefighters reported.
I love that they got some of the smuggled fuel. But here’s why they did it:
Local residents said the tanker and the warehouse contained supplies that had been smuggled in from Gaza through underground tunnels with Egypt, suggesting that Israel was widening its offensive to go after businesses that are a source of income for Hamas.
Yes, Hamas’ cash cows need to be slaughtered.
The best remark on this action is one that was, oddly enough, offered over a century ago by William T. Sherman, my favorite Civil War general: “War is the remedy our enemies have chosen adn I say give them what they want.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if the IAF is also field-testing some new types of bunker-buster munitions on these tunnels. Might come in handy one of these days…….
Artillery, eh? I wonder if Hamas is starting to get nervous now…
I truly hope Israel has learned the right lessons from its unsuccessful war in Lebanon. The destruction of the Amalekites is most urgent and necessary.
Hmmm, artillery. The neat thing about artillery is that it has 100% “on-station” time. In other words, you fire a rocket, my radar tracks the location, I send a return salvo of highly effective, time proven, incredibly accurate artillery shells in less than a minute. It can be done in 20 seconds by good crews. I’m betting they have good crews. Watch for Hamas to start moving launchers to the roofs of hospitals, the courtyards of schools, and markets packed with civilians. As always, Muslems take the cowards way.
The icing on the cake, as it were, would be to locate the factory in Iran where these “home-made” rockets are being manufactured, and taking it out in one of those “surgical strikes” the IDF is famous for…
Well i hope israel starts to get back in control of this and tells hamas release the soldier before any peace deal ,terroists should not dictate the outcome nor should the terroist suporting news ,israel has great leaders and they are right ,name one country in the world who if strog eneough would stand thee and take attacks without doing anything to stop it ,i bet you cannot ,and to all the innocent people who get killed ,you should not be suporting the terroists if your supposed to be peacefull should you ,terroists are just that and deserve no consideration at all after all they just kidnap,murder,and bomb for iran ,israel is now onto it and so should the whole west ,india didnt take the threats in a serious manner and look what happened ,they should just tell all thowse not terroist supporters to move out and go in and go through every single house and building and sort them out completely.Livni your great and what you say is dead right in fact all your leaders are and i hope you dont let properganda stop you this time .
I prefer what Francois Fenelon says about wars.That all wars are civil wars,because all men are brothers.How so true.War is such a waste if time and life…no matter who you are and no matter how you look at the circumstances.