There’s so very much material, one hardly knows where to start.
The Guardian:
At least 15 killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza
Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip have killed at least 15 people in an escalation of the worst clashes with Palestinian militants so far this year.The strikes began on Friday, when Israeli air raids killed the senior militant leader Zohair al-Qaisi, the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC). Israel claimed he was targeted because he was planning an attack.
All the dead are terrorists, or “militants” in the whitewashed MSM term.
CNN:
Israel airstrikes target Gaza, killing at least 14
Buried at the very end of the CNN story, a quote from a woman who obviously isn’t even reading the news:
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged both sides to “avoid further escalation” and “re-establish calm.”
“I very much deplore the loss of civilian life,” she said in a Saturday statement.
Terrorists. If civilians had been killed, they’d have led with that first. Because it’s always an awful thing when Palestinian civilians are killed, though when Israeli civilians die, the media assure us that it’s “the cycle of violence”–usually initiated by Israel.
The AP, helpfully explaining how it’s all Israel’s fault:
The flare-up began midmorning Friday, when an Israeli airstrike tore apart al-Qaissi’s blue sedan and killed his son-in-law, Mahmoud Hanini, also a PRC commander. Another low-ranking Gaza militant also died.
Some of the militants subsequently killed in Israeli strikes were planning to fire rockets, said Palestinian militant spokespeople. Other militants were targeted, but it wasn’t immediately clear why.
The military said al-Qaissi was plotting an infiltration attack into Israel similar to the raid from Egypt’s Sinai peninsula that they claim he orchestrated in August, which killed eight Israelis and injured 40 more.
And here’s a very curious description of why Israel bombs smuggling tunnels:
The PRC is responsible for dozens of deadly attacks against Israelis and its members frequently fire rockets into Israel.
Israel often targets Gaza militants it says are preparing attacks, but tensions have been relatively calm in recent months with Israel mostly targeting smuggling tunnels from Egypt.
Note how, even though the first paragraph describes rocket attacks, the second one makes it seem like Israel just randomly decides to fire on the tunnels–not that they do it in response to the regular rocket attacks by groups like the PRC. Also note that the AP has utterly ignored the rocket attacks until now–which is par for the course. Suddenly, the number of rocket attacks matter.
So far, militants have fired 92 rockets. The military said its air defense systems intercepted some 25 rockets before they landed.
In comparison, Palestinian militants fired some 50 rockets toward Israel in the three months preceding the flare up, a military spokesman said. He spoke anonymously in line with military regulations.
Now that they can use the number of rocket attacks to make Israel look bad, not the Palestinian terrorists, the AP notes that terrorists have fired twice as many rockets in the last few hours as it has in the last three months. The good news is that Iron Dome has knocked down 27 of 30 rockets aimed at Israeli cities. That’s gotta be pissing off the terrorists, big-time. I sure hope they have a few more Iron Dome batteries handy if they strike Iran. Oh, wait. Israel is getting more.
“Other militants were targeted, but it wasn’t immediately clear why.”
Clueless. They were “soldiers” in a terrorist force that is at war with Israel. These Pali terrorist groups boast of being at war with Israel; take them at their word. Why should Israel not target enemy fighters who are at war with her? Intellectually competent people ought to be embarrassed to show such ignorance as the AP.
“Other Wehrmacht soldiers were targeted by Allied aircraft and artillery, but it wasn’t immediately clear why.”
“Other Japanese aircraft carriers were targeted by U.S. Navy dive bombers, but it was not immediately clear why.”
As for Catherine Ashton, her comment is the sort of moral-equivalency between Israel and those who aspire to renewed genocide of the Jews that we have come to expect from Eurocrats; at any rate, when they are feeling benign towards Israel. I would have expected a stinging rebuke directed to the Israelis for the crime of defending their people and country.