WAR IN ISRAEL
Whatever your thoughts about the Palestinian Israeli conflict in the past, today marked an escalation of violence never seen before.
As Israeli’s were observing the holiday of Sukkot, the harvest festival, Palestinians from Gaza were mobilizing a well coordinated and stunning secret attack on the Jewish nation.
Around 6:30am it started with thousands of rockets being fired into Israel from Gaza, targeting towns and cities, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Armed Hamas militants, trained and encouraged by Iran, breached the Gaza outer fence killing Israeli soldiers and even destroying a Merkava tank, and spiriting away an Israeli soldiers body.
Alarming images quickly spread of Palestinian’s entering Israeli towns and opening fire on Jews.
Passing cars were riddled with bullets, and reports spread of Israeli’s being taken hostage and even being kidnapped back into Gaza.
Initial reports indicate at least 2 dozen Israeli’s were killed and several hundred injured in the ambush of the Jewish State, with smoke rising from the rocket attacks.
The motive for the attack is dubious, as Mohammad Deif, the Hamas military commander, issues a statement saying that the ongoing attacks are in retaliation for Israel’s “desecration” of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
But the ferocity of the bloody assault by Hamas likely points to wider geopolitics, as Israel is steaming towards normalization with Saudi Arabia, and Iran is bent on blowing up peace with Israel.
Prime Minister Netanyahu declared “We are at war, Not an ‘operation’, not a ’round’, but at war” and he called up Israel’s reservists to fight.
Gaza will be torn to shreds in the coming days, attacked from the ground and from the air by overwhelming Israeli military might.
The weapons including underground factories, the Hamas leadership, every aspect of the Palestinian armed extremists that can be targeted will be in the crosshairs. And tens of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians will be caught in the cross fire.
Hamas has called on Arab States and even Palestinians living inside Israel to arm themselves and fight. The extremists are hoping to ignite a broader conflict, that could lead to riots across Israel by Arabs, and even possibly bring into the fighting the Hezbollah in Lebanon that may attack Israel’s Northern border.
Iv’e covered many of the uprisings by Palestinians and the ensuing bloody counter assaults by Israel, but this I fear will be unprecedented in it’s ferocity and depth.
And, no Israeli will call for restraint, given the shock and horror of attacks inside Israel by Hamas, which were carried out against innocent civilians, and on an Israel that was sleeping.
There was no intelligence warning of the Hamas operation that was huge in scale, and should have been on Israel’s radar. Much will be said in comparison to the 1973 Yom Kippur War when Israel was caught unawares by an attack by Egypt and Syria.
Palestinians will say they were defending a holy site in Jerusalem, but no big event had occurred recently at the site, and the excuse to attack innocent Israeli civilians is unjustified and extreme.
A hurricane of Israeli armed response is just beginning today. Hamas has ignited Israel’s wrath unlike no other moment, leading to a full war footing. And that’s exactly what Hamas, and sponsored by Iran was hoping to achieve.
Dana Lewis