Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

Gaza Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 18, 2015 6 Comments
Last spring I visited Sderot, the Israeli town on the Gaza border. Sderot is best known internationally as the town most frequently under rocket attack with almost no warning because of the short distance. Sderot has developed extensive shelter systems, as I discussed in Israelis shelter in place near Gaza. The system includes playground shelters like this one: Sderot Israel Children's Playground Bomb Shelter and an underground municipal bunker for city officials to use when under attack:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 26, 2015 3 Comments
This is the 6th in our look back at the summer 2014 Gaza conflict. On August 26, 2014, the active Gaza fighting stopped with agreement on a ceasefire. How long that lasts is anyone's guess. Hamas is bragging that it has rebuilt tunnels leading into Israel and its rocket stockpiles and production. Hamas had a deliberate strategy of firing from crowded civilian areas both to use civilians as shields and also to run up civilian casualties as part of a media campaign. The international media was bullied on the ground by Hamas operatives, a fact that slowly has leaked out. The latest report from Polish reporter Wojciech Cegielski, I Saw Hamas' Cruel and Selfish Game in Gaza, who describes two specific incidents he witnesses while in Gaza during the fighting:
The first incident happened late in the evening. I was in the bathroom when I’ve heard a loud rocket noise and my Spanish colleague, a journalist who was renting a flat with me near the Gaza beach, started to scream. He wanted to light a cigarette and came to one of the open windows. The moment he was using his lighter, he saw a fireball in front of his eyes and lost his hearing. From what our neighbors told us later, a man drove up in a pickup to our tiny street. He placed a rocket launcher outside and fired. But the rocket failed to go upwards and flew along the street at ground level for a long time before destroying a building. It was a miracle that nobody was hurt or killed.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 23, 2015 6 Comments
Periodically throughout this summer, we are taking a look back at our coverage of the 2014 Gaza conflict. It’s important to do this because a relentless propaganda campaign which falsely portrays the conflict as initiated and continued by Israel, when in fact it was initiated by Hamas rocket fire and continued by Hamas through a series of ceasefire rejections and violations. So far we have covered:
  1. Gaza July 8, 2014 – Hamas Rockets Ignite War
  2. Gaza July 18, 2014 – Ground War After Hamas Rejects Ceasefire
  3. Summer 2014 – “Pro-Palestinian” rallies morph into anti-Semitic hatefests
  4. Gaza 2014: International media in the service of Hamas
Tonight we revisit one of the most notorious Hamas actions, the mass public execution of alleged collaborators without trial. The facts of the alleged collaboration were disputed, including by families, and many of those executed were in fact in Hamas prison at the time of the alleged collaboration. Hamas used the conflict as an excuse to carry out a political reign of terror. In late July, Hamas executed 30 alleged collaborators (via i24 News). On August 22, 2014, another 18 were rounded up and publicly shot to death, after several were executed earlier in the week:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 04, 2015 5 Comments
On August 2, 2014, in the middle of the Gaza conflict, we ran the A.F. Branco cartoon that is the featured image to this post. It's a fitting occasion to revisit the media bias that frames the international view of the 2014 Gaza conflict, as the fourth in our series looking back at our coverage. Our first three posts were: As before, we are focusing on revisiting our contemporaneous coverage. The international media is extremely sensitive to discussions of its bias, so much so that when, in June of 2015, the Israeli Foreign Ministry produced a comical short cartoon video poking fun at international media bias, the international media blew a gasket. The Foreign Ministry took down the video, though it was captured by others: Was this unfair to the international media? No, it was very fair, though overly simplified (just like the media's coverage of Gaza). Our posts from the summer of 2014 reflected the media bias. In that conflict, the media played a key role in covering up Hamas use of civilians as shields:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 26, 2015 1 Comment
This is the third in our series revisiting our coverage of the 2014 Gaza conflict. In the first post, we reported how the war did not start the way the anti-Israel propagandists content, with an Israeli attack in retaliation for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens by a Hamas-affiliated cell in the West Bank. To the contrary, the kidnapping resulted in an Israeli crackdown in the West Bank, but it was relentless Hamas rocket fire from Gaza into Israel that precipitated Israeli air attacks on Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Gaza July 8, 2014 – Hamas Rockets Ignite War. Having debunked (again) the myth that Israel started the Gaza conflict, we debunked another myth, that the thousands of deaths and injuries were the result of Israel's desire to assault Gaza. In fact, after the first week of air attacks and Hamas rocket fire and infiltrations, Egypt proposed a ceasefire. Had both sides accepted that ceasefire, there would have been no Israeli ground invasion, and the deaths and casualties a small fraction of the ultimate total. Israel accepted the ceasefire, Hamas rejected it. The result was more Hamas rocket fire, and an Israeli ground invasion. Gaza July 18, 2014 – Ground War After Hamas Rejects Ceasefire. Now another myth busted -- that protests in Europe and elsewhere were merely anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic, and in any event, isolated. In fact, virtually everywhere there was a major "pro-Palestinian" rally, there was blatant anti-Semitism accompanied by threats and violence. And not just overseas. In Miami, Boston and San Francisco as well. Here are the events we covered. It's not an exhaustive list, by any means.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 18, 2015 8 Comments
Periodically throughout this summer, we are taking a look back at our coverage of the 2014 Gaza conflict. It's important to do this because a relentless propaganda campaign portrays the conflict as initiated and continued by Israel in retaliation for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens by a Hamas-affiliated cell in the West Bank. In fact, the conflict started as a result of relentless Hamas rocket fire into Israel, a topic we recently revisited in Gaza July 8, 2014 – Hamas Rockets Ignite War. On July 10, 2014, CNN reported on the Hamas rocket fire: In this post, we revisit how the ground war started only after Hamas rejected an Egyptian ceasefire proposal, which Israel had accepted. Had the conflict stopped at that point, only a small fraction of the deaths and destruction which eventually were visited on Gaza to try to stop the rocket fire would have happened. Hamas, and it supporters in the West including leading pro-BDS websites which justified and encouraged "the resistance," bear responsibility for what befell Gaza. On July 15, 2014, Hamas formally rejected the Egyptian ceasefire proposal and continued rocket fire into Israel.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 08, 2015 2 Comments
On June 12, 2014, three Israeli teens were kidnapped and murdered in the West Bank by a Hamas-affiliated group. The bodies would be found on June 30. During June, an intensive search was conducted for the teens and the murderers, including the arrest of many Hamas members in the West Bank and a crackdown on its operations. Militants in Gaza fired a total of 62 rockets into Israel during June (even before the kidnapping), and Israel retaliated by targeting rocket crews and militants in Gaza: On June 30, 2014, 16 rockets were fired into Israel by Hamas, leading to more Israeli targeting and a massive Hamas rocket offensive. Hamas or other militants fired over a dozen rockets a day the first few days of July, and then on July 7 as Israel retaliated with airstrikes, the daily count grew to 80 rockets on July 7 and 156 on July 8.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 29, 2015 10 Comments
At least no one got hurt this time. But Gaza Flotilla III was a complete flop. Meant to break Israel's perfectly legal naval blockade of Gaza (more on legality here), designed to stop Iranian shipments of weapons, the flotilla avoided the disaster of Gaza Flotilla I, in which 9 people were killed when they attacked Israeli commandos boarding a ship. This time, when it appeared Israel would prevent the flotilla from getting to Gaza, three of the boats called it off. The main boat, from Sweden but bearing an Israeli Arab lawmaker and the former President of Tunisia, proceeded, and was boarded by Israeli commandos. The IDF posted the following announcement:

Posted by David Gerstman on June 23, 2015 7 Comments
First the good news, the so-called Schabas report, the United Nations Human Rights Council inquiry into last year's war between Hamas and Israel, isn't as bad as its predecessor, the infamous, discredited Goldstone report. But it's still pretty bad. The Schabas report is named for the judge who originally headed it, William Schabas. Schabas stepped down when it was reported that he had done paid work for the Palestinian Authority. Schabas had previously said that he wanted to see Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried for war crimes had to step down when it was clear that he was hopelessly compromised. After he resigned the commission was headed by former New York State justice, Mary McGowan Davis. For the most part media outlets reported that the conclusion of the report is that both sides "may have committed war crimes." There are two problems with this. The first is that it is inconclusive. The second and more serious one is that it put Israel and Hamas, which precipitated the conflict by launching rockets into Israel, on the same level. Rockets fired from Gaza civilian area at Israel

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 21, 2015 18 Comments
Israel has a military blockade on the Gaza strip due to Hamas control which has turned the 40-mile long strip of land into an Iranian rocket base. There are other radical groups there, such as Islamic Jihad and now ISIS-related groups, who also have rockets. Iran could ship vastly larger and more sophisticated quantities of rockets and missiles if it could use ships rather than smuggling tunnels, and it has tried multiple times. This video shows the Karin A vessel seized in 2009, ferrying arms to Gaza through Egypt. Imagine if such ships could dock directly in Gaza, or offload to smaller ships just off the coast. In March 2014, another ship was seized.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 15, 2015 4 Comments
Because I am a glutton for punishment, I read the anti-Zionist Mondoweiss website. I do it, so you don't have to. One of the authors there posted this video put out by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, apparently one in a series, as if it were a bad thing. Seems pretty much on target to me. [NOTE - The video was taken down after furious complaints from the international media, including The NY Times. Here is a version captured by another outfit] This comes, of course, in anticipation of a hit job on Israel by the UN Human Rights Commission in a report to be released this week regarding the 2014 Gaza conflict. In that conflict, the media played a key role in covering up Hamas use of civilians as shields:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 14, 2015 13 Comments
It's too late to undo the massive propaganda campaign surrounding the 2014 Gaza conflict, which Israel called Operation Protective Edge. False statistics about civilian casualties were put out by Hamas ministries and then adopted without question by the UN, "human rights" groups, and the media to create the narrative that "most" or "almost all" or the "vast majority" of deaths were civilian. Critics of Israel have yet to explain how Israel was supposed to stop Hamas from firing rockets, tunneling under the border, or landing commandos by sea without firing into the civilian areas from which Hamas was operating. During the 2014 Gaza conflict, we covered the deliberate Hamas tactic of firing from civilian areas (including those next to hospitals and apartments,) as well as how Hamas used the main Gaza hospital as a military headquarters. Almost all of this was covered up by the media: http://youtu.be/Nu-e5qWXx-k Round two in the propaganda war against Israel will take place this week, when the U.N. Human Rights Council releases its report on alleged Israeli war crimes. The UNHCR is the body completely obsessed with Israel.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 31, 2015 6 Comments
Our journey off the usual tourist trail through Israel continued today with a visit to border areas near Gaza. Sderot is famous for being the closest Israeli town to Gaza, and the first and most frequent target. The Sderot Media Center has a wealth of information. Sderot Satellite Map North Gaza Because Sderot is so close, the town has only 15 seconds warning once a launch is detected. This video is from 2008: There are bomb shelters everywhere, including on the street (see Featured Image - "Shalom" painted on a bomb shelter) and in the playground, where the bomb shelter is in the form of a large caterpillar so as to make it more welcoming to children.

Posted by Mirabelle Ward on May 17, 2015 20 Comments
In November of 2012, the UN voted 138 to 9, with 41 abstentions, to recognize a state of “Palestine” in the West Bank and Gaza.  There was no requirement that such "state" cease terrorism, its violence and hostilities towards its neighbor Israel, even recognize Israel for what it is and what it was always intended to be, a Jewish state. What shocked me at the time was not the outcome of the vote, but that fact that, except for the Czech Republic, every single member of the EU either voted in favor or abstained. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech preceding the vote, referring to Israeli “aggression” rather than defense in Gaza, and claiming to want peace despite having rejected a far-reaching peace proposal only four years prior, was mendacious from the first sentence to the very last applause line. How was it, I wondered, that the European nations were unable to see through his charade?

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 13, 2015 6 Comments
Much of the war against Israel is fought in the media and through deceptive "Non-Governmental Organizations" which issue endless distorted reports against Israel. There hardly is any pretense of objectivity anymore -- there is an attempt to tie Israel's hands when dealing with groups like Hamas and Hezbollah which strategically use civilians as shields. In Gaza, the media was intimidated by Hamas, and maintained a near-silence about the use of the main hospital in Gaza as a Hamas headquarters, and the firing of rockets from near schools, apartments and hospitals. But a few reports leaked out and some reporters admitted to the distorted reporting after leaving Gaza: http://youtu.be/Nu-e5qWXx-k This media war is important because one side (Hamas, Hezbollah) uses media outrage as a strategic weapon to shape the physical battlefield.  And biased, agenda-driven NGOs and media organizations are part of the plan. The lastest distortion, which has received wide play on anti-Israel websites and on Facebook, was issued by "Breaking the Silence."

Posted by Miriam Elman on March 29, 2015 7 Comments
In a few days the world’s Christians and Jews will celebrate Easter and Passover. It’ll be a weekend of good food (and at my seder, plenty of good Israeli wine)—but most of all it’ll be an affirmation of freedom and faith, an expression of joy, hope and renewal. But for many people across the planet it’ll be an opportunity to indulge in a bit of Jew-bashing. Brace yourself as the planet’s anti-Semites engage in their annual rite-of-hate, when the internet will soon become awash in the crazy notion of the blood libel. It’s a centuries-old mad idea that Jews kill gentile children for making matzo, the unleavened bread that’s eaten during the Passover holiday. As Lord Jonathan Sacks, emeritus Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, and one of the leading intellectuals of our time, recently wrote in an important article on the resurgence of global anti-Semitism (it’s behind the Wall Street Journal paywall, but his remarks are also captured in this CNN interview):
The idea [of the blood libel] is absurd, not least because even the tiniest speck of blood in food renders it inedible in Jewish law.”
As explained by Sacks, the libel was an English invention, originating in Norwich around 1144. It was introduced into the Middle East in the 19th century, where it helped instigate the targeting of innocent Jews in Lebanon and Egypt (and, most famously, in Syria with the Damascus trials of 1840). This violence and hatred against Jews happened decades before the first wave of persecuted European Jewish refugees arrived in pre-state Israel seeking refuge in their ancient homeland. Zionism didn’t provoke it.

Posted by Miriam Elman on March 24, 2015 5 Comments
Between July 17 and August 5 of2014, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) destroyed 32 tunnels in Gaza — 100 kilometers of concrete-lined and accessorized passageways dug deep beneath the earth’s surface with openings near Israeli homes and kindergartens. Hamas murdered dozens of the nearly 900 diggers in its employ, fearing that they might reveal the tunnel locations to the advancing Israeli army. This vast tunnel project, estimated to have cost some $90 million, was designed to dispatch an invasion force of thousands. In one of the tunnels the IDF found half a dozen motorcycles which would’ve been used to ferry terrorists into Israel, and bring Israeli hostages out. Hamas Gaza Tunnel NYT video These lesser known facts, and hundreds more, are compiled into a new report on the 2014 Gaza War, released last week by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), an Israel-based think tank headed by Dore Gold, Israel’s former ambassador to the UN who also served as an advisor to PM Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term in the 1990s. A must-read document, written by the JCPA’s team of legal, military, media, and diplomatic experts, it details what really happened in this war that Israel never wanted, and the disaster that it miraculously averted. Warning: the document is long and dense; it’s not something you can cover in an hour, or even a day. But it’s well worth taking the time to read. The document includes hundreds of hyperlinks to relevant sources and video clips. There’s one of Hamas calling for Israel’s destruction, and another of terrorists infiltrating Israel.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on March 04, 2015 2 Comments
British street artist, Banksy, recently visited Gaza. According to Mashable, this was not his first trip:
The Palestinian territory is not a new base for the British graffiti artist; in 2005 he made headlines for his art on Israel's West Bank barrier. There were nine images in total, including one work with a girl attempting to float over the wall holding balloons, one of children playing on the sand with a hole above them showing a beach in the wall, and another of a dove with an olive branch and a bullseye on its chest.
Far from politically conservative, much of Banksy's art rails against corporations and the wealthy, is anti-war, and pretty much diametrically opposed to any political view I have. His Occupy-like sympathies aside, Banksy is incredibly talented. If only he used his talents for good, rather than wasting them on anti-Israel propaganda...
Accessibility by WAH